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Posted on 2/3/2025 2:50:39 PM
By Donald Fox
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I first published this in March of 2015. Someone recently responded to it, and upon review, I thought it quite appropriate for today. So, here it is again.
There is a great deal of enmity in the world, which can easily be verified by watching daily news, briefly surfing online, or listening to people in a shopping mall. Much of the discord results from deceit and deception. To paraphrase Big Daddy from Tennessee Williams, there’s a whole lot of mendacity going on. Some would explain this as the result of evil in the world courtesy of the devil or some other mythological imp. Personally, I think it is the result of ignorance and maladjustment caused by circumstance or physical/mental deficiency. A lot can go wrong with the mind or with the body that can affect the mind. Certainly, if one is lied to consistently and long enough, that one is apt to believe anything that is presented within the same framework. As soon as someone says that there is one true something, better watch out. Within the realm of art, this has been as true as anywhere else.
The academy system began as a way to legitimize art, codify its principles, and act as a kind of gatekeeper for aspirants. The intention was to elevate art to the highest level of sophistication and craft, and in that sense it succeeded for many years. Eventually, though, academic thinking became as staid as any system becomes when new ideas are not incorporated. This also served to create distinctions between conservative and progressive expression as is seen in almost every institution whether political, spiritual, economic, or social. Those who could be allies turn into adversaries and inevitable change occurs in more strenuous and discordant surges. The complexities of human endeavor preclude a simple good versus evil scenario though factions often attempt to craft a conflict in that guise.
If we look to nature, we see the hunter and the hunted, predator and prey, but we also see cooperation and symbiosis. We see the struggle for survival, and the lens is crafted to now extoll the one most fit. We play this out in cultural games: in sport, in art, in politics, virtually every arena, while also believing in some inner spark that separates us from the unaware, the dumb brute, the unenlightened except that we can’t quite agree on what is in our own best interest. We know that we must consume in order to survive, but we also know that we must conserve in order to maintain consumables. Nature does this in ingenious ways including giving back to herself and re-using that which is no longer viable. Part of our human nature understands this, but that inexplicable greed kicks in and our moral compass spins like a wobbling top. As we are sentient nature, we might therefore appeal to our better angels rather than our imaginary devils.
Posted on 12/16/2019
By Donald Fox
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Birth of the Window
Every painting is an aspect of self and glimpse of the world. It is both spontaneous and studied, crafted and expressed, intuited and discovered. I often think of the process as a dialog between me and the evolving field of vision that is an outward expression of feeling-thinking-perceiving and absorption into that field. It is seeing from the inside out as well as the outside in. Thought is projected outward and reflected back; it is constant give and take. To paraphrase what different writers have said, I am learning what I think while in the process of painting… (Flannery O’Connor – “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say;” Joan Didion – “I don’t know what I think until I write it down.”) This creative endeavor is a kind of journey, whether heroic or not is perhaps for others to say, although there is some courage required to pick up the brush or the knife.
Posted on 9/30/2019
By Donald Fox
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As I have been growing older, I like to think that in some ways I’m also growing wiser. Not one for particularly enjoying parties and gatherings, I also don’t see myself isolated somewhere waiting for sycophants or acolytes to find me. I am not and never have been a guru or a member of any particular party, communal or otherwise. The saying goes that the wise man knows that he doesn’t know, and if that’s the case, then maybe I have a little wisdom. At this stage of life, I should know something. All that experience, all that water under the bridge should count for something. All those squiggly lines, those scribbled words, and those erratic strokes must hold some clues to the nature of the universe – if nothing else, at least my universe. There should be a wealth of accumulated knowledge, but the trouble is in the remembering of it.
Now, when I stand in front of a blank canvas, I see the potential of hours lost in deep thought and fervent expression much like that bemused little boy who stared at the world of giants lumbering all around him, rushing this way and that, seemingly on purpose and eager to dispense their supposed wisdom on the path that he should take and scolding him when he rejected the rules that would make him one of them.
The blankness equals silence. The first and second and subsequent entries into that silence create a potential symphony, cacophonous at times, but a new order nevertheless that has everything and nothing to do with what has come before. It is a personal act of supreme selfishness that is for this self alone. Its highest purpose is to make a bridge to understanding, to create order from a consciousness riddled with disorder that is the plethora of information constantly beamed in this maybe-not-so-appropriately called information age, but in truth there has always been an abundance of input and its sources so vastly greater than the limited receiver that is any singular entity, i.e. the solitary ego.
The beauty of it may be in the choices made, the lines of inquiry followed, and discoveries encountered that could not have been predicted by the emptiness of its origin. Why and why not are basically the same question, for the result is usually an answer that leads to another question – the best answers, that is. Perhaps there is more than a little irony in that artists frequently and confidently use that oft-heard parental phrase “because I said so” in defense of their work.
Posted on 2/16/2018 7:26:52 PM
By Donald Fox
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Fantastical Window
Early memories are a montage of images that fit into small narratives, which seem to exist independently except that the same consciousness, mine, holds them all together. With no calendar notes to connect the linear dots, and given the absence of any who could corroborate chronology, I make a number of best guesses and create a new narrative that makes this linear stream of life sensible.
I get the mantra that there-only-is-the-present-awareness-in-the-moment thinking that is not the same as grab-for-all-the-gusto-you-can-get-since-you-only-go-round-once-in-life. I accept (to a degree) that there’s only the present moment, but – and for me this is a big but – even the moment to be fully appreciated requires memory (context) for there to be value. It’s the memory of what came before that gives significance to what is now.
This is where we find meaning – in the moment before illuminating the moment now that carries forward into the moment next. It’s the continuum that’s nature’s way of being. There’s little difference between the seconds or fractions thereof for sensation to travel to the brain and back to the site of excitation and seasonal change as fall gives way to winter and winter to spring. These are matters of degree, but the underlying construct, the pattern, is the same.
Pattern begets pattern, as it were. Whether we look at the inception of an organism, the growth of that organism, or the transformation of that organism as it moves to another level of existence, we see patterns in the process. Our very perception is a process within a process dependent on other processes. The illusion of something otherwise is part of our wiring, the ghost within the machine, that spirit that animates each of us, leads us to assume that we’re separate, autonomous beings that in fact spend a lifetime seeking connection to something other.
Everything within our experience tells us that every thing is part of something else. Yet we cherish and celebrate uniqueness while seeking inclusion, oneness, and unity. The enlightened discover that unity already is – it only needs to be experienced. Experience is where it’s at. Art, life – it’s all the same. Pass me another one of those, why don’tcha?
Posted on 12/19/2017
By Donald Fox
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When I was very young, I did not know how to swim and harbored a fear of water. I learned how to swim at the local YMCA, and once I made that solo swim the length of the pool to gain my certificate, I could barely be kept out of the water. Every chance I had I went to the Y, the beach, or anywhere else that had water deep enough to swim in. As I’ve grown older, I also have swum less but still enjoy it when I do. The love remains even as opportunities have lessened.
Another youthful activity I enjoyed was climbing trees. I felt great joy thirty or forty feet up and swaying in the breeze. I had no sense of fear in trees, on the roof, or high inside neighborhood buildings under construction. It was surprising to me, then, after I first moved to Texas in the late seventies and worked construction for a few years that I had developed an aversion to heights. I felt uncomfortable working in pipe racks a dozen or so feet off the ground. I was not aware of anything that had occurred to alter my experience of being aloft, but there was no doubt I did not feel comfortable. This reversal was perplexing, and even now I have to exert strong will to stand close to an edge with any significant drop in height.
These surprising changes in emotional responses to certain physical challenges can be attributed to aging, I suppose, although I maintain an attitude of irreverence and tongue-in-cheek with many matters others deem serious – not the least of which are changes often associated with the aging process. In many ways I am still a kid at heart. I believe there is strong connection between this mindset and the creative impulse.
Although I take art very seriously and make (and have made) alterations in my life and lifestyle to continue creative expression even when it may seem less practical to do so, I treat creative work as play. I grew up ignoring many things I was “supposed to do” in favor of things I wanted to do – and still follow this way of thinking. This did not always sit well with family and sometimes put me at odds with friends. Yet there also is a strong sense of discipline when it comes to doing creative work/play. Those who knew me when I was younger saw me as a disciplined person known for achieving in school. That was the façade that gave me free reign to be imaginative and creative within a family that did not understand or honor the impracticality of creative foolishness. Even now in my academic job, I am seen as serious and disciplined until my irreverent humor emerges in meetings or the classroom. What is consistent is the creative mindset that continues to spin ideas and images from all that is around me. Were I a spider, I would be surrounded by a fabulous web of fabrications and captured impressions.
Posted on 8/19/2017 7:45:35 PM
By Donald Fox
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Nature depends on diversity for longevity, strength, and success. Plants and animals sometimes need to be challenged to become stronger. An immune system that cannot adapt, for example, is doomed whenever something new is introduced. In human endeavors, the most successful business or team or institution needs diversity among its members so that the strengths and skills of individuals, which vary in degree and ability, intertwine to create the strongest organization. This mirrors the way in which ecosystems in the natural world thrive according to organisms contributing at each level of life expression. We might see this process as survival of the fittest as it has been described in the past, but in actuality, from a far larger perspective, it is not intraspecies rivalry that prevails but a kind of interspecies cooperation that makes the ecosystem work. Without the larger system, any individual, no matter how strong, will eventually die out.
We have learned from decoding genetic information that we as a human species literally do share the same genetic heritage. There is no pure race; there are only variations on a theme as it were. The only way that something approaching a pure race might occur would be if there were inbreeding for many generations. Perhaps this happens to some degree in very remote areas (or has happened in the past), but other problems occur like weakened immune systems, physiological anomalies, and psychological disturbances. Diversity ensures variety within the gene pool and this leads to stronger human expression.
Artists seem to have known these biological principles intuitively and have applied them to their art since they typically seek inspiration from varieties of sources. Most artists create a personalized blend of ideas and techniques which they have reformed into an individual, unique style. This has happened in most cultures, and since the Renaissance, many cultures have borrowed from each other. This process accelerated during the nineteenth century and has continued thereafter. Whether we call this hybridization or globalization or just natural evolution, through art we actually see deeper into our shared humanity as we continue to grow and learn and express.
Posted on 1/30/2017
By Donald Fox
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For many years science fiction writers have envisioned multiple simultaneous universes or alternate realities that coexist but in different phases or temporal planes so that none are cognizant of the others. How many of these universes could coexist is impossible to say. In more recent years some theoretical physicists have posited that multiverses are possible, and that the world that we know may have copies of itself where beings like ourselves may also exist. These alternate realities could explain certain kinds of experiences (if the worlds somehow do influence each other) like the awareness that some people have of past lives or visions of the future (one possible future) or esp or other psychic phenomena. This is interesting on a theoretical or imaginary level, and it could even explain how some people can experience the same thing but come up with quite different versions of what took place. We certainly have seen a lot of that in the news of late even to the point of calling facts alternative facts and news alternative news. This certainly sows doubt on what may be the actual reality if such a thing exists.
In our information age, however, we record most everything and can prove that something is, or was, a certain way, can’t we? The past has shown us that authoritarian regimes always attempt to control the media, create revisionist history, and manipulate the ‘truth’ to the benefit of the regime. Think of the holocaust deniers and all the versions of this or that war and so on. Shall the truth set you free? Depends on which version of the truth is being presented, doesn’t it? Many might object, though, that when there are enough facts and enough witnesses, there is only one truth because it is verifiable. It can be proven. The deniers are subsequently shown to be in error, and so we say that time will tell. History will right itself. We will learn the truth, or so it is claimed.
Whenever I work on a painting, there is always the truth of the moment. Whatever is happening in the painting is the truth at that time, but that truth is always subject to change. So we might say that there is no complete truth until the painting is completed and that final truth is in place. At that point in time there is a verifiable completion, and that is what is subject to whatever critical inquiry will follow. Any idea posed at the beginning of the painting may or may not remain in effect until the end, for the process of painting as I experience it now is where that truth is explored and revealed (created). This can be true whether the painting is realistic or abstract. How a particular scene or subject treated realistically is actually presented stylistically can change almost as much as a beginning abstract concept may change in its process of realization. Most painters know and accept this, and this is why so many speak about the art process as a process of discovery or exploration.
My most recent painting, Alternate Windows, literally plays with the idea of change, possibility, shifting viewpoints, and potential interpretation psychologically, spatially, and imagistically. I’ve addressed this idea in other works like Floating Windows and Shifting Panes, but here there is also the tongue-in-cheek reference to the recent phenomenon of alternative news (alternative views). However the viewer decides to read the piece, I have no real stake in that. My experience will remain intact regardless.
Posted on 1/12/2017
By Donald Fox
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In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said that part of that dream was that his children (all children) would someday live in a world where they would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. We haven’t yet reached that world because we’re still in one where celebrity and notoriety are of more importance to countless numbers and racism and other negative isms govern the thoughts and minds of far too many people. The country that Dr. King knew has changed to the point where we now have had our first African-American president. Regardless of what one might think about his race or his politics or his actions, anyone with half a mind should see that this soon to be ex-president has carried himself with dignity, with intelligence, with grace, and with a willingness to consider the opinions of others. He has shown himself to be a negotiator and a compromiser (as well as leader), two qualities that speak highly of character in this age of me-first and social self-ism. Again, regardless of politics, the contrast between the outgoing and the incoming are as dramatic as the difference between black and white. The layers of meaning in that last statement are as many as they are complex.
Artists have often suffered from categorical assumptions about their character as a group when it should be clear that character depends on individual action and belief rather than group affiliation. Creative people come in all shapes and sizes. Creativity is a human trait, not national, cultural, or racial. To paint artists with a single brush is to misunderstand what art is and what art is capable of. It is possible for powerful art to be created by someone with unstable character, but to label all artists as unstable, irrational, or irresponsible subverts not only art but also impugns individuals who may be high achievers in many different realms including social interaction. Many of the great court painters of the past (Rubens, Velazquez, Goya, Holbein, and others) were not only master artists but also accomplished statesmen and highly regarded gentlemen. Granted some artists may live suspect or depraved lives, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
Arrogance, bias, egotism, and rudeness are not necessarily the hallmarks of politicians either, but certainly there are some lacking in judgment who mistake hyperbole for candor, crudeness for strength, or opinion for fact. Judge art by the character of the art itself. Judge the politician by his or her character in serving the people.
Posted on 10/31/2016
By Donald Fox
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Window with a Smiling Face
Sometimes I come across statements about art that make me laugh or give me a chuckle. Here are a few favorites.
“How vain painting is – we admire the realistic depiction of objects which in their original state we don’t admire at all.” – Pascal, Pensées (1670).
“That which hears more stupidities than anything else in the world is a painting in a museum.” – Edmund and Jules de Goncourt, Idées et Sensations (1866).
“There are two styles of portrait painting: the serious and the smirk.” Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39).
“Painting, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.” Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary (1881-1911).
“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982).
Posted on 6/28/2016
By Donald Fox
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Life exists in many forms. We generally distinguish between the animate and the inanimate and think of the latter as absent life. If something exists, however, is it not alive even though it may be inanimate like rocks or minerals or even life sustaining substances like oxygen or hydrogen? We sometimes call ourselves carbon-based beings and depend in many ways on that and other elements that have no life per se other than the greater whole of which they are a part. Our life cannot exist without the inanimate; we are inextricably tied to it. Even the Earth that we call home is a great physical entity that may have no consciousness as we know it, no self-awareness, but it is alive in all its complex processes that are in constant motion just as the processes of our individual selves play out a smaller version of the greater. And the planet mimes the way of the solar system and that of the galaxy and that of the universe.
We can deny, ignore, or be oblivious to much of life as we pick and choose what we see or don’t see, believe or don’t believe. We can embrace or deny love or anger, creativity or demolition. Like a seed we contain the possibility of one thing or another. The seed is programmed to birth its potential, as are we. Yet we differ in that we have awareness and choice, and we succeed or fail by the choices that we make. From what we now know about our long history on this planet, our ancestors back for tens of thousands of years, maybe even hundreds of thousands, expressed themselves creatively while also struggling to live. Perhaps that creative urge is as much in our DNA as the urge to propagate and carry on the species. It seems strange to me, then, that we don’t focus more energy on understanding that creative urge. It may hold more insight into who we are than the revelations of mystics, spiritualists, metaphysicians, philosophers, or scientists, for creativity informs all of these disciplines as it also informs the arts. We are creators.
Posted on 6/5/2015 7:52:11 PM
By Donald Fox
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I often write about education because I’ve been a professional educator for many years. In the process of teaching I’ve done a lot of learning and may well have learned more about learning than I have about teaching. However, just as students learn from other students so do teachers learn from other teachers. Many of my colleagues have taught me much of what I know, both positively and negatively, about teaching and learning.
A school of most any kind is not too different from any other organization staffed with a diverse array of people all of whom have personal agendas regarding professional life, family, financial need, cultural and political and spiritual beliefs – all of the qualities and concerns that make us human. A group develops a culture of its own that reflects what the group believes (or at least what it projects), the tone being set typically by those at the top. A traditional top down structure, unless the leaders are especially enlightened, can breed dissatisfaction among those below because they are not empowered to contribute to decision making. They can even feel trapped by regulations not of their own making and with which they may not agree. This can breed dissention amongst the group, which leads to less than stellar working conditions and less productive staff.
Education is no exception in this regard in spite of what people may think of committed professionals who are dedicated to their chosen field and to the needs of their constituents, the students. Fortunately, in this country on the whole the system works as it should, or seems to, except when one group of professionals meets the product of another group and wonders what in the world did those students learn when they were in their formative years. Why do they not know the basics: the reading comprehension, the ability to write coherently, the ability to do relatively simple math, and perhaps the most alarming, the ability to think critically? There are no easy answers here for most likely there is a much larger complex of cultural issues at work that have to do with expectations, accountability, funding, regulation, and a host of influences outside the classroom beyond the control of educators.
The very things that have brought us to a global culture – communications beginning with the telegraph and expanding to radio, telephone, television, computers, the internet, portable versions of these and their merging into handheld devices that have become ubiquitous – have interconnected us in marvelous ways inconceivable to several generations ago and given us accessibility to vast amounts of information, have also distracted us from the development of certain fundamental skills while promoting those necessary to utilize the devices. Much has been written about this already, even before Marshall McLuhan popularized the effects of mass communication in pre-computer days.
We cannot stop looking forward or moving forward though many fundamentalist factions within the world attempt to prevent that. We should, however, continuously look back as well in order to build a context within which to assimilate the continuing change that has become such a vibrant part of modern life. The human spirit is quite remarkable and adaptable as has been shown throughout the long history of our artistic expression. Art has been one constant that incorporates the curiosity and vision which have fueled other areas of exploration and innovation. Art reminds us of our humanity and affords us powerful ways to interface with the world around us through perceptual connection to that world which does not require devices other than our senses and our common sense, attributes that, hopefully, we will continue to nourish as part of our educational process.
Posted on 4/15/2015
By Donald Fox
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Painting has a very long history as a form of art, and it is one that been interpreted in many different ways. Sometimes the light-hearted can be as revealing as the serious. Opinions will also vary generation to generation, but some viewpoints remain surprisingly the same. Here are a few examples.
“In painting, the most brilliant colors, spread at random and without design, will give far less pleasure than the simplest outline of a figure.” – Aristotle, Poetics (4th century B.C.)
“How vain painting is – we admire the realistic depiction of objects which in their original state we don’t admire at all.” – Pascal (Pensées, 1670)
“That which probably hears more stupidities than anything else in the world is a painting in a museum.” – Edmund and Jules Goncourt (Idées et Sensations, 1866)
“ Painting, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.” – Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary (1881-1911)
“You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally.” – Robert Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 1974)
Posted on 2/7/2015 7:21:36 PM
By Donald Fox
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I don’t have a smart phone yet even though my flip-phone is now considered a dinosaur, so in waiting rooms, airports, or other public time-killing (what a word) spaces I resort to manually writing in notebooks instead of twiddling the keys with my thumbs. That’s okay, though. I get that I could surf the internet with a smart phone, text friends, or play mind-enhancing games. However, some psychologists and neuroscientists counter the claims of brain game creators and say that there is minimal brain function improvement from these types of games. I enjoy writing and journaling my thoughts the old-fashioned way (one of my work hats is teaching writing composition). Writing has a long history of brain enhancement and mind expansion.
Writing in this manner is also a way of connecting with a long tradition of writers under lamplight in large cold rooms, their fingers protruding from half-fingered wool gloves, their breath creating hazed halos in the lantern’s light, greatcoat collar turned up around knitted mufflers, the fire in the corner doing its best to warm the frozen room. In this room where I currently sit, regulated warmth wraps around all who enter.
If I had a smart phone, I could visit my website or the websites of artist friends or I could contact them via email – all without having to make a phone call. I’ve always thought it rude the way many people carry on phone conversations in public places as though they are in a private phone booth. These, of course, are becoming quite rare, phone booths, that is. I could also, if I chose, visit virtual galleries and museums and spend my time studying the paintings of artists I find interesting or perhaps don’t yet know much about. This would be a very productive use of the waiting time.
As it is, I must access my personal memory bank and sort through the thousands of images stored there while contemplating artistic ideas and visual problems. My visual memory is well exercised as is that of most visual artists. I, we, tend to remember images in great detail for we observe closely and often recognize what another artist is about by studying his/her images – their subjects, their design, shapes, colors, textures, the traces of visual language, their symbology, and gestures. We speak a language that has many shades of meaning to every gesture. We speak in figures that create multi-layered nuances and magnificent ambiguity that together weave the most persuasive truths, for we have discovered that truths are many and they are freely shared in the history of art.
Posted on 2/6/2015 7:31:55 PM
By Donald Fox
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If one chooses to follow a religious line of thinking, he or she could say that there is original sin and nothing original after that. That seems a bit short-sighted to me since all first experience is original experience. Most words have more than one meaning including the word original. One of those meanings is something created firsthand. A composer who hears a birdsong and then composes music in response to that is making an original composition, isn't he/she? Another definition of original is “not secondary, derivative, or imitative.” Does that mean all landscape painters or portrait painters are not original because they are imitative? Whether we can craft a definition of original art that truly means it is original – not derived from anything previously crafted or influenced in any way by someone else’s thought or suggestion – but, wait a minute, is that really what we mean by original? Do we mean that something has to manifest out of thin air or in a vacuum to be considered original? I doubt it. Of course we’re influenced by things in the world, but isn’t there joy and promise in our original responses to our experiences (and to subsequent experiences)?
The origins of art have become quite complicated at least since the turn of the twentieth century but probably beginning long before that. We could surmise that Paleolithic rock sculptures of tiny human figures were quite original in their day and perhaps say the same for cave paintings. The former were portable and likely had some influence on subsequent creations and the latter because of their inaccessibility were less influential being known to a very small audience. The problem here is that we don’t know where those sculptures originated, meaning we don’t know by whom or why they were first created. What prompted those forms? Did a person see a rock that appeared to be shaped like a woman’s figure, add a few incised lines to accentuate certain parts? If so, can that be considered truly original? Didn’t he start with something almost a ready-made like Duchamp’s urinal? We don’t know, and we can only guess.
Perhaps part of the problem is that we tend to be inconsistent in our thinking. We praise someone for coming up with a good idea that contributes to health or comfort or ease or practicality. If no one is subsequently injured by the idea and lots of money is generated by that idea, we laud the creator as being original. If, however, someone else builds on what came before and through a stroke of insight shows us a new way of perceiving, we’re a bit less effusive with praise and eventually may become critical of the lack of originality (though we’ll still take the money). After all, someone else thought of the concept first. How many concepts have been improved upon? Is there less originality when something is made to work better? Is the electric motor less original because the steam engine preceded it? Is the wheel less original because rolling logs preceded that?
Do we really want to suggest that after the first drawing or the first painting every subsequent drawing or painting is derivative? Does an artist think that his first painting is the only original he’s ever done even if his hundredth painting is far superior as an artistic statement? Is that later painting lessened in originality because it derived from that first somewhat immature effort? Can’t an artist whether poet or painter or composer or dancer learn the specific vocabulary of his craft and then apply that filtered through his personal experience and thought into an original artistic statement? Isn’t it an insult to say that the work is unoriginal or derivative? And speaking of derivative, isn’t the point of art like collage or mixed-media often the imaginative re-use of materials, some of which may not be traditional artists materials to begin with, and through that insightful re-combination of said materials to create something new and unique that may be expressive, ironic, ambiguous, humorous, emotive, beautiful, exciting, thought-provoking or the countless other qualities that original art possesses?
Personally, I think we should be a bit more thoughtful regarding how we use words in our language(s), especially those that reflect on our ability to create aesthetic experiences, which admittedly can vary in quality and perceived value. Our words help us to assess those experiences and create sense from them. There isn’t much sense, though, when inconsistency plagues the thinking process.
Posted on 12/11/2014
By Donald Fox
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I like planning ahead and absolutely hate having to do things at the last minute. Maybe this has something to do with growing up in my family since my dad was very punctual. He was an airline pilot and ran his work life by strict schedule. Whenever we as a family would prepare to go on a trip, my dad was up early and pushing everyone to get ready as quickly as possible. He would get quite angry if someone were holding up the train.
I am faced with lateness, it usually is because I am waiting on someone else – one reason I’ve never much liked working on teams. I’d just rather do it myself since I know it will be done and done in a timely manner. There have been a few instances, though, related to exhibits when I’ve been pushed to the last minute. These were situations where the show opportunity actually came up very close to the opening date. Therefore, there was not the usual lead time for preparations. Things literally had to be done on the fly.
This reminds me of a conversation with a painter friend. He told me of several instances where his wife was driving him to the gallery, and he was in the back seat putting finishing touches on several canvases. That is humorous and certainly to the extreme, but I could relate from those few experiences of my own. I had time enough to complete everything even though I was rushed and spent long hours with little sleep to bring everything to closure. Many people do get extra energy when pushed to the limit, and we can all be thankful for that.
Today is the end of a term at school, and students as usual have procrastinated and not turned in work as they should have. Whatever comes in, I will still grade for as long as I can until I have to stop in order to submit grades to meet the deadline. This is more work for me at the end, and I have warned students that I will not be in the best mood so they shouldn’t expect any extra favors as some are inclined to ask, or to offer endless excuses for which I have no patience.
Oil painters understand that there is a drying time required by the medium. This in itself requires some planning ahead in order to work most effectively with those paints. There are drying additives available, but I’ve never been a fan of those. Aside from the technical demands of the medium, painting usually requires specific steps that may vary from one artist to the next, and each knows what is necessary for his or her approach. All of this will apply to individual pieces, but a show demands quite a few prepared and completed works plus all the other related activities: planning, framing, sometimes shipping, mailing or emailing, and eventually attending. How could anyone possibly believe he/she could be successful by putting things off to the last minute? One catastrophe can teach a thousand lessons not to mention cost a lot of money.
I will not accept one of those late-in-the-day opportunities again no matter how tempting it may seem. The stress alone is enough disincentive to make me back away. Artists don’t have to accept stereotypes of disorganization, poor planning skills, impetuousness, or inattention to details. Musicians understand about keeping time and moving with rhythm. Other artists can do the same in their daily tasks. They understand the power of figurative language.
Posted on 11/22/2014 6:32:10 PM
By Donald Fox
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Is your art work poignant? This may be an apt description of the work that you do or you may be confused by the question because poignant, like other words in the English language, can have more than one meaning. For some people, thinking of possible variant meanings will bring up not so fond memories of SAT or GRE exams with those multiple choice questions from which the tester has to select a nuanced meaning from several proffered possibilities. Is it most like a.) or is it more like b.)? No, wait, now c.) sounds like the greater option.
The meaning that most likely would not apply is the first one that is listed in most dictionaries: pungently pervasive, like the aroma of a poignant perfume. Unless you happen to be a food artist, you would not likely think of your art work being best described by its odor. Then again, maybe you want to conjure a multi-media experience from your landscape painting that will make the viewer truly feel that he or she is standing there in raw nature. You can smell the freshness in the air, but there is the sudden aromatic appearance of pungent decaying matter wafting on a breeze. You have an epiphany of the omnipresence of life in death and death in life. A line from a Dylan Thomas poem rages through the dying light of the depicted sunset. You become one with the universe. No?
Your work might painfully affect a viewer’s feelings. Is this like the proverbial fingernails scraping across a blackboard? No, not quite, but maybe the work is deeply affecting, and someone spontaneously responds aloud without thinking, “How touching.” No doubt your work is designed to make an impression, but what impression it makes on the viewer is beyond your control once the work is released into the public domain. There is no way you can know what another’s experience may be like. You can only make assumptions and then hope for the best. Perhaps you situate yourself outside the gallery and take notes on whether those exiting the exhibit are clear-eyed or dabbing moisture from a damp cheek.
Most likely your work is pleasurably stimulating, which is more to the point, perhaps, since a great many people tend to think about art as being some sort of entertainment as in a pleasant diversion, except for when it makes someone stop and think. At that point perhaps the work is too apt for its own good vis-à-vis the world stage. You may want to tone things down a bit so that what you express doesn’t strike so poignantly to the heart.
Posted on 11/14/2014 5:50:50 PM
By Donald Fox
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On the way this morning to a location I go to at least once a year for a school meeting, somehow I managed to take a wrong turn. This led me into an area I didn’t know existed in that part of north Houston, a large developed section with block after block of apartment complexes. The exit I had taken from the freeway was correct (or so I thought), and I had made the correct left turn onto the first accurate road, but then I made my second turn too soon. As a result I found myself in unknown territory.
Sometimes in dreams there is an abrupt shift in location or the characters transform unexpectedly or the story changes to follow a new narrative, but the dream awareness remains the same; consequently that awareness feels dislocated. The feeling of what just happened here can be pervasive and be accompanied by a sense of impending threat, doom, or uncertainty with maybe a pinch of fascination and curiosity about what will happen next. Several of those feelings and thoughts coursed through my mind as I also attempted to rationally determine where exactly I might be in relation to my initial goal.
I turned around and partially retraced my route back to the road I thought I knew. What I still hadn’t realized was that I had exited the freeway at an off-ramp one exit beyond where I should have exited. This placed me north of my destination. As I turned back onto that road, however, I went further west on it again soon to realize that I still was not in the right place. I could not find the proper cross street onto which I needed to turn. So, once again I turned around and headed back in the direction of the freeway.
At this point I also expected the cross street to be about a half mile away and to make a complete intersection with the road I was on. Fortunately I just managed to glimpse the street sign after zipping past it. With no place to turn around, I turned into a parking lot on my right thinking it would allow me to get back to that cross street. However, the lot had no exit to that street once I got close to it. With no other alternative except to turn around again, I followed the lot around one corner and then another (the building complex covered a whole block), To my surprise, when I rounded the second corner, there in front of me was my destination. I could not have created a lucid dream with more perfect results. I could also see that in coming in from the back side I had originally gone too far north thus creating my ensuing confusion.
These things happen in life. We think we know something so well and follow the mental pattern with complete trust rather than taking a few moments to double-check directions or the proper process before embarking on the journey. Well, admittedly, perhaps men do this more frequently than women. It’s a great lesson in over-confidence followed by humility upon discovering the mistake. Many life lessons could be extrapolated here, from making a painting to running a business.
Posted on 11/12/2014
By Donald Fox
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On the way to school this morning I heard a short news item about the evolution of color in nature. The segment was very interesting although the real subject was the evolution of the perception of color. Before there were eyes to actually see color, it made no difference what color anything happened to be. Once eyes developed, it became important for predators and prey alike to distinguish among colors for the purpose of survival.
One interesting idea that was suggested is that many animals have no pigment that corresponds to a particular color. The pink color of flamingos, for example, comes from the bird’s diet. They eat foods rich in carotenes and from this derive their distinctive color. Blue seems to be the most challenging color for insects and animals, which is surprising since there are such brightly colored exotic ones like Blue Morpho butterflies or the brilliant blue parrots and other tropical birds. These creatures have very complex wing or feather structures that reflect blue light rather than contain blue pigment (the same for blue eyes).
For artists, especially painters, color is vital in their work. A huge amount of their training is devoted to learning the intricacies of color combinations and color mixing. They do use pigment and learn that sometimes particular color effects require manipulations that may be counterintuitive. Modern chemistry has certainly extended color possibilities for painters over what was available to artists hundreds of years ago. Chemically produced pigments and pigments with iridescence or metallic sheen are readily found in art and craft stores (as well as on automobiles and other active and sporting goods. In spite of this greater availability of colors, many painters still use a limited palette for they understand that the best color effects often come from contrasting a bright color with a neutral.
The experience of color is one of the greatest sensory experiences we as human beings can have. Color can lift our spirits, excite our passions, engage our minds, and soothe our sensibilities. In nature color is used to single out as in mating displays. It is also used to camouflage both predator and prey, one for advantage in the hunt and the other for protection from harm, both for the purpose of survival. Obviously we have gone beyond basic survival mechanisms, and we experience and utilize color physically and metaphorically, which is to say for its symbolic power as a means of creative expression. We appreciate color in that unique universe of the human imagination, and that is a significant advantage over all other species with whom we share our planetary home.
Posted on 10/2/2014
By Donald Fox
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Metaphor is an interesting use of language that must have developed later in the evolution of the human brain and thought processing. Initially it would have been vitally important for humans to accurately perceive and describe the world around them. Their lives would have depended on observational details and precise description. Somewhere, though, they made a very large leap in understanding to be able to make comparisons between things that were not readily observed, things that were associated imaginatively. Perhaps scientists have some explanation for how this may have happened, but however it came about this ability to associate and imaginatively connect things together has been a powerful tool for understanding, communication, and contemplation of our existence. It is also a major contributor to our ability to conceive and create art.
All art is metaphorical as well as symbolic. Whether we consciously think that a painting of a person or a field of flowers only represents that person or field and is not literally either of those things, no matter how seductively realistic the painting may be, we do know the difference between something that is real and something that is a fabrication. Under certain conditions, however, we may be fooled into believing that something is real when in fact it is not. For example, camouflage is found throughout nature as a means to hide something for its protection or advantage, or to make something appear to be something that it is not, generally for the same purposes. We accept this as an interesting and remarkable natural expression, yet we do a similar thing when we make art.
Art mostly comes to represent something other than itself. A picture of a landscape, for example, would not be mistaken for the landscape yet we might judge it by its verisimilitude to what we know or can observe for ourselves in the world. We marvel at the skill of the artist to render such an illusion through the manipulation of tools that themselves bear no resemblance to the things they make. An artist might choose to make a painting of some of his tools, and this we would admire for design, for image similarity to the tools, but we’d also understand a tongue-in-cheek reference to the craft of making and the artificiality of art as well as our ability to perceive something as a stand-in for the actual thing, which then becomes a thing apart to be enjoyed and perused quite differently from the thing it represents.
When we look at those realistic paintings, aren’t we looking for more than a picture of a place or a person? We don’t think in terms of the physical qualities of leaves or branches or skin or hair even though those may be depicted. We typically think about colors and shapes and the skillful manipulation of pigment that has created these illusions of skin or hair or leaf, don’t we? We may think about how this relates to our experience of the world and particularly what it means to have an experience of the world and what it means to have an experience of something that suggests an experience of the world that we would never see or experience out there in the world. We experience it only in the form of a crafted work of art, a work with which we may have all sorts of swirling associations as we stand there contemplating it. Were we to contemplate an abstract piece of art instead, we might have similar experiences and we likely would even make associations to real things from our life experience that are in no way depicted in the work we are observing.
Metaphor is amazingly powerful. Our ability to make and to perceive metaphor is amazingly powerful. We exercise our imagination and expand our experience of aliveness and consciousness and this allows us to visit realms that exist in a kind of alternate reality, for these experiences can seem very real to the practiced imaginer. Metaphor engages us with verbal wordplay, visual imaging, or musical or poetic intonations, and we step through that looking glass into a world that tells us more about who we are than we might ever have imagined even as we imagine it.
Posted on 10/1/2014
By Donald Fox
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Waiting rooms – everyone’s favorite places, right? Part of the issue is that we are on someone else’s schedule. We have to do the waiting. They are at work, and we are at wait. Of course, many people in those offices and places of waiting do attempt to make the wait somewhat easier by providing comfortable chairs, magazines, a few plants, music, and sometimes television sets. The latter can be an annoyance, however, rather than something pleasant. Often, the TV is set too loud and much daytime programming leaves a lot to be desired. Inane talk shows, endless commercials, or intrusive news bits create a background of white noise that takes some effort to block out. Add to that many people’s obliviousness to others as they use their cell phones and speak as though they were in their own private space instead of a publicly shared one – well, a person’s ability to concentrate on reading or writing or conversation with someone close by is severely challenged.
We may think of these situations as unavoidable given all the many places that we are required to wait in order to take care of ordinary business and general life concerns. Perhaps we attempt to make the best of those moments or just bear them knowing that eventually we will be able to regain some control over our normal lives. Such may be our rationalization.
Interestingly, though, we also self-create other kinds of waiting games, white noise, interruptions, or intrusions into those parts of our lives that we deem important, productive, and creative. We become the interlopers, the cell phone disruptors, or the inconsiderate schedulers simply by losing focus on that which is the most important. It can begin with a simple, “I’m too tired to do that right now,” or “I can spend a few more minutes with…” whatever that happens to be.
It’s not a matter of being lazy or slothful, but it may involve a slight lowering of our guard. Certainly these days there is much that competes for our attention. The history of television is instructive in this regard. In the early days, when owning a television was relatively rare, programming was extremely limited. The novelty of entertaining shows in the home was not too different initially from one tuning in to one’s favorite radio program. There was no set pattern of an entire evening centered around the television. Commercials were not so abundant and typically lasted about thirty seconds or sometimes a full minute. As the audience grew, however, advertisers realized there was a burgeoning market that could be tapped and manipulated. Commercials began to emphasize lifestyle and how a product could change one’s life for the better. Aired ads were shortened to fifteen seconds so that more advertisers could reach more people. This also began to affect people’s attention spans. Commercials grew even shorter to seven and a half seconds. The groundwork was already laid for what was later to be even more impactful with computers and other communication technology.
The concept of multi-tasking initially seemed like a new kind of efficiency. We could utilize so much more of our brain power, or so we thought, yet we began to raise generations of frenzied individuals primed for instant gratification and limited comprehension. This also pushed many towards distractions rather than real-time connection or simply staying focused on a task at hand.
Artists often speak of the luxury of spending time in the studio. Sacrosanct as that space may be, I know of some artists who paint with the studio television on in the background rather than supportive music or who take frequent breaks to check e-mail or post items on Facebook. Those who would be masters of expression are also tasked to master their time. Just because we have released the technological genie doesn’t mean we can’t control him.
Posted on 9/28/2014 5:30:30 PM
By Donald Fox
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We think of randomness as something without order. There is no appreciable design when things accumulate in a random, un-programmed manner. Paper trash may blow down the street on a windy day, some of it catching on a protrusion here or there and some of it piling up within a cul-de-sac. There is no order except the papers generally are blown the same direction by the wind, and unless there are cross-currents to disrupt that flow, the randomness of movement proceeds unabated.
Wild nature often appears random and disordered. Ask any plein air painter and he or she will tell you that order has to be imposed on a scene or it has to be discovered by paring away certain elements that are too irregularly placed. There is order in nature, of course, from the microcosmic level to the macrocosmic level - we as observers can’t always appreciate the order unless we change our perspective.
We are, in fact, quite profoundly affected by the order of nature: circular and spiral motion and designs, repetition of shape and direction, rhythmic spacing and movement, modulation of colors, and many similarities of shapes and forms. Even so, many things appear random to us when we do not perceive a particular pattern or design, and we take it upon ourselves to create order out of chaos (randomness).
Art is predicated on giving order to the disordered. The artist primarily is a visual organizer who selects appropriate elements that will convey the meaning or feeling he or she desires to express in the developed work. That selection process may be spontaneous and intuitive or it may be reasoned and deliberate, but it is not a random process by any means.
There are artists, however, that have felt too constrained by logic and decision making. The surrealists explored ways of accessing the unconscious mind to reach some primordial content unbound by rationality – in effect, a kind of elemental randomness. Later process-oriented artists like Jackson Pollock in painting, John Cage in music, and sculptors that believed that to truly express reality there had to be randomness and disorder included in a work began to question artistic boundaries and ultimately what made something art.
All artists make choices. All artists are motivated in the most personal ways, and see themselves within the larger context of art and art making through their own perspective based on their own experience. Any of this could be said to be random. Yet if we take a larger view that artists as people are another form of growth from planet Earth, an expression of life that turns to look at itself, to question itself, and to mimic itself through various forms of self-expression, is that any more random (or ordered) than the formation of clouds or the slow rise of mountains from a deserted plain?
Posted on 8/25/2014
By Donald Fox
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Antonio Berni
When people think about fine art, whatever small percentage there is that actually does think about it, they probably think about serious art, which typically is not humorous. Humor is intended for entertainment, or if it is serious, it might be framed like Shakespeare’s comedies, which are definitely entertaining while also being very well crafted. We can think of many humorous films, those of Woody Allen being among the foremost with their unique blend of light and dark humor. However, we don’t often think about painting as being particularly humorous, and if it were, likely it would be considered lightweight. The one exception that stands out in my mind is the work of nineteenth century artist Honore Daumier. His work was often satirical, and satire is a more biting form of humor intended to spur thinking rather than simply a good laugh.
I also think of the work of Philip Guston, an early figurative painter who became prominent as an abstract expressionist only to become frustrated with that form. He returned to figurative painting but in an expressionistic cartoon-like style that often is humorous for its content as well as its seemingly clumsy iconography. I think particularly of his paintings of klansmen wearing hoods and riding around in pick-up trucks while brandishing weapons. This shift in his work was not well received at the time (late 60s and early 70s), but some critics did reassess the work later. Being a Jew from a family that had suffered persecution in Europe, Guston understood hate groups like the klan, and his interpretations make light of a very serious cultural threat.
There certainly is whimsy in the work of Jean Dubuffet as well as in some work by surrealists like Dali or Miro, and perhaps they hark back in their ways to painters like Bosch or Breughel. The large scale collage work of Argentinian artist Antonio Berni often gives a humorous touch to weighty social themes. Overall, however, the trend in art has been for serious subjects with elevated themes that sometimes venture towards a dark reading. Perhaps because humor is so much in the moment, the right now of it, rather than perused and thought about for hours or days, it lends itself better to stand-up routines, slapstick, and other theatrical forms. Painting’s focus on images tends to invite thoughtfulness and study rather than a quick once over. Daumier may sometimes express humor, but his skill as a painter always draws the viewer in for a more extended look.
Posted on 8/22/2014 7:12:44 PM
By Donald Fox
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The other day while in the studio, I caught sight of Cézanne cleaning his pipe while occasionally eyeing my brushstrokes out of the corner of his eye as though mildly disinterested in what I had to say. From time to time Matisse’s shadow cast a darkened beard-shape on my palette that seemed to point to a particular color. Just as I reached that direction, Braque’s hulking frame like some huge fractured viola crossed the threshold and tilted the entire scale of colors, upended tubes and all, that slowly began to slide as a wilted Dalian clock, and I knew I was running out of time just like Scrooge haunted by his midnight ghosts of past, present, and future. The waft of perfume from Morisot’s elegant wrist like an ethereal loosened corset spread throughout the studio. The haunting cacophony of the Rite of Spring seemed to chortle in the background. In my defense I had to say to these great men and women that much as I admire your work and how your spirits survive in bits and pieces scattered in rooms, pages, slides, lecture halls, galleries, fervent conversations, and trivia games, not to mention the occasional celluloid drama now transposed to digital format – we all must keep up with the times – I only acknowledge you in your presence when I can literally see the trace of your hands in the colored tapestries you weaved so well. You really have no place in my own daily dramas. Don’t get me wrong. I’m forever grateful for your lingering presence, and I frequently visit when I have the time, but you said what you had to say, and though you continue to sing your colorful echoes through time, it’s my turn now. There’s only so much room on this canvas, and I have to edit carefully my own thoughts and feelings, so, with respect dear ones, mind your own business.
Posted on 8/7/2014
By Donald Fox
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When I was a five year old kid, my parents bought a house and moved our four person family from the garage apartment that had been the only home I remembered. It was a small house with two bedrooms, one bath, a living room, and a kitchen. Compared to the garage apartment, the house was quite roomy. The street in front of our house was paved, but there was only a dirt road that ran down the east side of the property. Over the course of the eleven years we lived there, both the house and the neighborhood grew.
First, my dad added a two car garage on the east side with a breezeway connecting the garage and the kitchen entrance. By this time the neighborhood was expanding on the east side as well. A new development of six square blocks and about thirty homes were added. This also meant that the dirt road became a paved road, and we were now in the middle of our neighborhood rather on the edge. Later my folks also added a third bedroom, a second bath, and a den, which nearly doubled the size of our little house and made it feel quite expansive.
I also witnessed significant growth in our small city with the addition of many suburban developments, strip malls, new restaurants, theaters, pavilions, schools, churches, and an expanded airport, the name of which changed from Bluethenthal Field to New Hanover County Airport to New Hanover International Airport. Growth and change were constants. Most anyone reared in a municipal environment has experienced the same thing. Streets usually maintain their names but may change from two lane roads to four lanes or larger. It is as though the urban environment gets a continual makeover, and there is constant dance between renovation and completely new fabrication.
Sometimes artists approach their art in a similar manner. Old works may be recast in current style, which may mean reworking an older painting or making a new painting of an older work, a reinterpretation, as it were. Examination of well-known paintings through modern technology has revealed underlying works related to what is visible and in some cases unrelated to what is painted on top. Artists reconsidered earlier renderings and made improvements or simply obliterated what is underneath. Pentimenti or ghost-like images are visible in some paintings where underneath designs are beginning to show through as the surface layers of paint become slightly transparent with age. The term refers to second (or third) thoughts on the part of the artist – the artist has changed his or her mind, in turn changing the image.
Aside from the possibility of creating a less stable work by the difference in age of the pigments or differences in painting techniques, there are interesting philosophical questions regarding the new or altered or recast work. The same could be said of work that may be restored. Is the street the same even though it has been repaved or widened? It serves the same purpose, which is to carry traffic in the same directions and to or from the same locations. Then again, are we the same as we age and our bodies adapt to different physical dimensions and flexibility? We do tend to think that we may be the same person because of the running narrative that we fabricate day after day. If science tells us, however, that our bodies are constantly renewing cells on a regular basis, are we not like the proverbial river that cannot be stepped into twice? Is that aging work of art that is not seen for some years the same when we encounter it again as older and wiser persons? Can any experience that we have ever be repeated? Do we delude ourselves of constancy by creating some imaginary construct that we say is the same but is more like one of Plato’s shadows? Is art itself merely a shadow of an inexpressible thought or feeling?
Posted on 7/19/2014 6:34:06 PM
By Donald Fox
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In a previous period in my life, I had a friend who was a generally positive person as well as a high achiever. He enjoyed dinner parties and often brought together people that excelled in a variety of fields. Good food and good wine added to the congeniality of these occasions where conversation flowed among many topics, some topical, some literary, some artistic or musical, reminiscences from childhood or early life usually in story form, and some short anecdotal stories that illustrated humorous interactions based on misunderstandings or miscommunications – but these rather than being negative or critical in tone instead poked fun at human foibles sometimes even at the expense of the speaker much like a humorist such as Mark Twain or Will Rogers might do.
At some point during the dinner, the host might say “This is the best steak I’ve ever eaten,” or he might ask someone “What was the best meal you ever had?” Either of these would launch a roundtable share of everyone’s best meal, best party, best birthday, or best something else. There was no competition involved. It was simply a moment to reflect on and share a common experience that had achieved superlative status. What anyone would easily recognize in the company of this person is that we all have unique and exceptional experiences that are worth sharing with those we care about. It was also a way to acknowledge that the shared moment of that particular dinner was in fact a superlative experience in itself. With levity and good cheer, we all felt acknowledged and exceptional because in truth that is who each of us is in any given moment.
My friend has passed on, but I fondly remember that infectious spirit and how he, in spite of personal or professional responsibilities and challenges, always managed to find the beneficial, the humorous, and the inspirational and to invite others to share in that perspective. In a way, my friend was an artist adept at creating the moment.
Art is always about creating experience. The work is just there as some inert thing until it gets brought to life by the viewer. Even when there is activity and performance as in music or dance, there is no real value until the piece is experienced in the moment. It is within the viewer’s mind and imagination that the art becomes fully alive. Otherwise, it is just a static presence on a wall or hollow movement within a space. In the moment it can be the best art one has ever seen or the best sounds one has ever heard. The work may not be that superlative achievement, but unless it is experienced, there would be no way of knowing.
Posted on 6/8/2014 6:45:26 PM
By Donald Fox
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I mowed the back yard today, a task that I’ve put off for months. As long as I keep the front mowed, neighbors can’t see the wilderness that has grown in the back. This time of year quite a few vines grow along the side where bushes are planted, and the vines tend to creep up the fence to create a leafy green Mohawk that runs along the entire side fence. I discovered that the vines have also snaked out into the yard in an elaborated crisscross pattern and were climbing the far sides of trees that couldn’t be seen from the house. It has been awhile since I’ve done any clearing of the vines other than to trim them or pull up a few strands. What is need is surgical removal. Vines have to be followed to their intersections below ground that sometimes are fist-size nodules that will have a dozen or more arms branching out in all directions. These have to be persistently dug out until the vines are eliminated, a nearly impossible task. The alternative is periodically to remove as much as possible and keep trimming as any new growth develops.
A number of grasses grow in a similar manner so that a dense mat of grass develops within a few months depending on soil, sun, and water. Other plants spread as rapidly as many vines. Bamboo does this and so do various kinds of holly bushes. These natural occurrences have been known about for some time, and of course it is easy to observe all manner of dense growth in uncultivated natural settings. These web-like structures are also found within the body and at subatomic levels.
Were these natural weavings inspirational for early humans that first devised some form of thatched roofs, woven cloth, papyrus, or the crude beginnings of paper? Did Jackson Pollock have dreams of paint growing as spreading vines or drunken spiders weaving and cross-weaving dense webs of stringy wet silk? Were other all-over painters inspired by nature’s patterns at some deep, primal level of sensory experience? Had the psychological urge to mimic nature’s processes become stronger than the urge to mimic nature’s surface appearance (that had inspired painters for several thousand years)? Who’s to say?
Even when we think we know where a particular inspiration comes from, we don’t actually know that there isn’t some deeper, subconscious desire that is pushing itself to the surface. Just go with the flow as the late twentieth century mantra suggests. Students might say that too much thinking makes one’s head hurt. What does it matter why we do things as long as we do them? They mean the positive things, of course. Artists, however, have tended to be a curious lot, and the persistence of questions has fueled all sorts of innovations. Let’s hope they continue to ask them.
Posted on 5/22/2014
By Donald Fox
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In politics, these days certainly but also for some time going back into the past, there is the spin put on an issue by one side or the other, liberal or conservative. The issue is a pliable thing that can be manipulated and reshaped to reflect whatever core value the particular politician chooses to represent. The expedient idea is more important than the issue at hand. Ever with an eye to the electorate, the politician plays to his or her base for applause and support. The electorate, sometimes jaded and cynical, still readily gives that applause to the candidate that most closely resembles his or her own inner thinking about life. Truth in advertising makes little difference if the product is at a good price. Inevitably, though, when the product fails, the hapless electorate wants to sue the manufacturer when it was personal choice that selected the product to begin with.
There is much similarity in the manufactured controversies that periodically arise in the arts. One side or the other rails about truth and freedom of expression while objecting to any other interpretation of said truth, a fact that is an implicit denial of freedom of expression. I can claim that what I do is the truest form of art because I adhere to my own beliefs and principles, which of course are based on the core truth from which I operate. Anyone else is only being self-indulgent and making something that is unique to him/her, but what he/she makes is not art – it doesn’t meet the (my) standard.
Many often argue that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but isn’t that just a convenient way of side-stepping the issue and not making a decision about possible value because it seems so frankly impossible to define what value actually is? We might argue that a Caravaggio or a Rembrandt painting has value and hold them up as a standard for others. Do we acknowledge a beautifully painted beggar or prostitute as a standard? Do we choose the immaculately dressed and posed – the beautiful person of the time – as the standard regardless of how the sitter may have been rendered – a bit awkward in the hand or length of arm to body?
Maybe we’ll do an end-run around that decision and make a standard of non-objective images. Let’s only consider what cannot be observed in nature and bring to life the imaginings of one inner mindscape or another so that point of reference is now whatever is before us on that canvas surface placed there by the intuitive artist. We won’t be distracted by anything outside the direct experience of the painting itself – no pseudo trees or flowers or pigeons, just fanciful colored shapes that can be anything the viewer may want them to be even if they are seen simply as marks and gestures that might suggest a certain amount of energy that went into the making of them. Isn’t this a truer form of expression? Aren’t we getting closer to some primal creative thought?
Take either approach, the naturalistic or the expressionistic, and add some political, cultural, or social significance like a collar or a crown, and don’t we have something that has been elevated to the height of art? Well, I mean, it’s got to relate to something if it’s going to have value, doesn’t it? So many questions, so little time. Where is our modern day Jonathan Swift with his modest proposal for the arts? Perhaps I should just bite my tongue.
Posted on 5/2/2014 5:03:20 PM
By Donald Fox
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My cats, especially the younger ones, are particularly good at finding small garden snakes. These are not much bigger than worms, typically less than a foot long, very slender, and live in dense grasses or piles of leaves. These little snakes can disappear right into a grassy lawn by slithering into the space between grass and roots that create a thickly covered lawn. The cats seem to love the wriggly, serpentine movement much more than the skittering of bugs, but they chase these too.
Cats’ eyes are designed to key in on movement, and the long feline history as predators has endowed cats with reflexes to match their ability to see quick movement and respond to it almost instantaneously. We see young cats as playful and funny when they chase each other or toys or string or bat a ball around. We encourage them for our own amusement even though we may later scold them if they might catch a baby bird.
The quickness of insight and quickness of response are feline traits that can be admired and learned from. We can’t know what’s going on inside a cat’s mind and certainly wouldn’t want to project our thoughts onto them. We can, however, translate into human terms a form of behavior that might be emulated by humans, and sometimes is. Artists, for example, respond to creative stimulus much like a cat might respond to a snake. The inspiration to make art sparks immediate response in that the artist reacts with feelings, ideas, and actions that capture some essential feature from the inspirational object or event.
Artists also continue to dab at something and push it one way or another just to see what might happen. The initial attraction may be sustained from start to finish and the goal is realized. That initial stimulus may give way to something else discovered in the process of creation. The snake slithers underneath or behind something, and the cat will circle and dig until it flushes its prey out again. This is not unlike the artist gone astray seeking that original concept or feeling that inspired the work.
Humans are not cats, of course, and humans have the upper hand as they can reflect upon what they may be doing. We, the humans, can remember and connect things together by finding relationships in similarities or by association and by using imaginative thinking. Our emotions (the animal response) can be tempered by reason and reflection. Artists are trained temper emotion with reason and to enhance reason by incorporating emotional triggers into their work. It could be said that the artist’s inner eye is keyed to the movement of both reason and emotion. Like the cat, artists are quick to pounce with creative insight when any opportunity is present.
Posted on 5/28/2013
By Donald Fox
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Over the weekend I had to repair some damage to the front door of my house caused by someone attempting to break in a few days before. I was intent on my work when I heard my name being called from behind me. I turned to see my neighbor standing in my front yard and saying with great earnestness, “You see those trees?” He was looking at the large oak trees in my back yard, which of course I could not see since the house was between me and the trees. “If they fall, they’ll come right into the house!” The urgency in his voice implied that I should immediately go cut down those trees to avoid imminent catastrophe. You don’t know my neighbor, of course, but I can say tactfully that he is just a bit strange. Every few weeks he will complain that the bride he ordered from Italy (he is Italian) hasn’t come yet. He’ll then assure me that he’s never been married but thinks it time to do so. What he really wants is a live-in maid.
When I was a kid, a tree did fall on the house during a hurricane. That particular storm passed directly over my hometown of Wilmington. If you haven’t experienced a hurricane, just imagine that one hundred mile an hour winds blow from one direction for an hour or so, then there is a half hour of calm, and then the winds blow just as hard from the opposite direction for another hour before gradually tapering off. The roots of the tree behind our house had been weakened during the first half of the storm. With the ground still saturated when the eye passed and counter winds began blowing, the tree just couldn’t hold itself up any longer. It crashed right into the back of the house, and oak branches filled the den of our little ranch style home. The phrase crashing the party has had significant meaning for me ever since.
Sometimes there is little that we can do except experience whatever it is that life has offered us. It may be illness or tragedy, the loss of a pet or other loved one, being robbed at gunpoint as has happened to several friends, having one’s house broken into, or having a tree crash into the den. For a time one’s focus is all about that event, but eventually the realization that this will pass sets in, and the momentary focus allows for a broader perspective. The particular circumstances may vary, but the unexpected challenge is familiar to most of us. What, if anything, does this have to do with art?
In my experience art is a game of challenges. Each individual piece is a series of challenges from initial concept through its realization. Sometimes this is a smooth process that proceeds steadily forward, and sometimes unexpected occurrences demand resolution or lead the work in a new direction. This is where we might say that art imitates life, at least in process. At other times events in our lives follow a neat story arc from beginning to middle to end with a denouement appropriately placed, and we might think that life imitates art it being so carefully crafted as we suppose by an unseen hand. When we think about art, though, no matter how closely it may resemble life, we should remember that it is always a construct, even the found or repurposed object or idea is crafted into its new art format. We can call it organic or link it to nature as much as we like, but it’s still a constructed view of our experience of the world. Whether the tree falls in the proverbial forest or on my house or my neighbor’s house, I may or may not be there to hear it, and I may or may not turn it into a work of art.
Posted on 12/11/2012
By Donald Fox
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Working in a library as I do part of my work day when I'm not in the classroom, I see lots of catalogs for book and video resources, for supplies from furniture to book labels, for medical teaching supplies – skeletons, anatomical parts and models, and for archival storage containers. A recent catalog for the latter caught my eye because the cover is illustrated with a version of George Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Curious to see if credit is given to the painter I open the cover and see a note that this 2013 catalog cover is showcasing Suerat’s famous painting that “altered the direction of modern art in the 19th century.” Something isn’t right though. I flip back and notice first that the image is cropped to a square, and the painting has been reversed. There are additional umbrellas carried by several figures that in the original did not carry them. Worst of all, the umbrellas have been stylized into two and three-tiered ziggurat shapes that look like stacked boxes over people’s heads. There is a strange disconnect between supposedly showcasing a significant artwork and substituting a second-rate illustration loosely adapting the work into a bizarre design.
I suppose I wouldn’t be so offended if the notation said that this was an interpretation of the painting to suggest boxes that might be used for storage instead of umbrellas. But the note clearly reads as a statement honoring Seurat as a groundbreaking artist. This, of course, is what happens when an image goes into the public domain. Think of all the Beatles’ songs that are used to sell cars, clothing, and who knows what else. Artists also appropriate from other artists and sometimes get sued and sometimes don’t. Crass commercialism is not the same as an artist creating work to sell as is, with certain legal protections against its unauthorized use. Yes, the artwork is a commercial product, but it is a product intended to be a certain way without subject to alteration. It is also a certain kind of personal, creative, and philosophical statement that an advertisement is not (although one could argue that the advertisement does express a kind of cultural vacuity and indifference while promoting conspicuous consumption).
I don’t necessarily hold with the idea that art is sacred even though some of it does take on iconic status. I’m not against satire or social commentary, either through art or aimed at art when it becomes overinflated or pompous (or even ridiculous). However, I do believe that an artist has a right to protest when work is used in ways he or she may feel inappropriate or demeaning. Mr. Seurat, of course, is beyond caring although there may be family members that are not or possibly The Art Institute of Chicago that currently owns the work. I’m not a legal expert, but I do know something about copyright law and trademarks. Beyond the legal concerns, to me there seems a bigger picture of integrity, respect, and a sense of honoring the past.
Certain kinds of cultural statements, often in the form of art, do attest to achievements and fulfillment of possibilities that were first envisioned and manifested in a particular time and place, often by specific individuals or groups. These do tend to become iconic as they speak to what we can dream and what we can achieve. I don’t think that someone would make fun of or make satire around the polio vaccine or the use of penicillin. Either would be in poor taste. So why should certain artistic expressions that often serve to inoculate us against a lower order of being be reduced to that lower order? This makes no sense and speaks of ignorance and poor judgment. But, some might protest, it’s only an illustration on a catalog. Why make such a fuss? Why, indeed?
Posted on 9/16/2012 7:03:29 PM
By Donald Fox
3 Comments
Manet - The Railway
Recently I replaced an old television set, one that had to be connected to a converter box or cable to even work since the digital shift, with a Smart TV. The old one still worked fine, but its heavy box construction was getting to be too much to move around for cleaning, and, truth be told, I wanted one with a larger screen. With cable, the old analog set got a few extra years of use, but the one I bought cost less than the one I replaced. The new one is much larger screen-wise, about a third the weight, and is, well, smarter. I now have internet access via the TV, which includes a variety of apps.
My cell phone is still a flip phone with no camera, no internet, and no apps. Everywhere I go, and especially at school, people are glued to their I-phones or phone clones. I get a lot of emails sent via phone, but I feel no need to be that connected. I don’t even always answer the phone when it rings. Sorry, but if I’m busy, I don’t want to talk with you. We can do that later at a more convenient time for me – then it will be your problem. I’m not exactly a Luddite. I make frequent use of the computer and am pretty good at researching most anything on the internet. I’ve learned a lot as a librarian and a writing instructor. I can spot plagiarism without having to do internet searches or use turnitin.com. All the bells and whistles that are marketed for phones, pads, and computers hold little interest for me.
I understand about change. I’ve paid attention to the economic swings since the sixties. I’ve observed the shift from tubes to solid state to digital. I’ve seen cars grow big, then small, move from station wagons to vans to SUVs, engines change from timing that could be set yourself to those monitored by computers. We went from propellers to prop-jets to jets, launched satellites and walked on the moon. I’m grateful for all these innovations, but I also know they won’t make paintings any better. They might influence some new art forms; certainly many of those are interesting – video and digital animation, for example.
So far, though, there is no art app. There are no paintings that have improved beyond the paintings of the Dutch Golden Age. Images and subjects have certainly changed. Art philosophies have moved in different directions, and the value of some artwork has questionably been raised beyond reason. Art conservation has reached heights unimaginable to Renaissance painters. New materials have emerged, and the image has been fractured, deconstructed, reconstructed, split and recombined, reduced to nothing and divided into pixels. Some have tried machine-produced art, but these have not been very successful. There is no art app nor is there likely to be as long as there are painters interested in painting. Let’s hope that will continue into the far future.
Posted on 8/16/2012
By Donald Fox
15 Comments
Many different writers and bloggers have all sorts of advice for artists about blogging. Some of the ideas are pretty good, but most of them suggest a particular strategy to get the most out of the blog. Well, why not just write? You don’t have to make the blog be a certain way. What you feel or think on one day may not be the same another day. As human beings, we’re allowed to have opinions and change our minds on occasion. So what if sometimes there are conflicting thoughts or slightly disorganized ones? With all the challenges we have to face every single day, all the decisions we have to make, isn’t there room for a bit of inconsistency? The world certainly doesn’t follow consistent logic as it spins on its axis. Weather patterns change drastically, tectonic plates shift unpredictably, and the whole planet wobbles as it spins, so how can we who are products of this earth expect to always do the same thing or think the same way?
Personally I love writing down my thoughts in a blog as though I’m writing in a notebook. People will read it or they won’t. Either way it’s okay. I also do use a notebook and frequently make notes in sketchbooks. Sometimes these notes give me fuel for a blog entry. I tend to write a lot partly because I teach writing but mostly because I just love writing. It’s interesting sometimes to discover that I think certain things about particular topics when I write my thoughts on paper. Writers from William Faulkner to George Orwell to George Bernard Shaw have said some variation on the idea that they didn’t know what they thought about a subject until they read what they had written. That may seem backwards, but when you’ve written for years, you frequently find surprises in what you’ve written. Painters often surprise themselves with how they paint passages within a painting. They paint something a certain way and only later discover what they actually did.
Writing is, of course, a thinking process, and one can think logically in a step by step manner, or one can think stream of consciousness with random and jumbled thoughts. Either approach could be taken in writing. The results will certainly vary. Because good writing is well organized thinking, though, the basic writing process includes steps for creating ideas, organizing ideas, expressing the ideas in rough form, and then revising and editing what has been written. This series of steps will produce the best results, especially for the intended reader. A blog, however, isn’t necessarily an organized essay or report or research project. The blogger can present his or her thoughts in whatever way he/she chooses. Since the writing is being published to the web, however, there is an intended audience, and writing for an audience should require somewhat organized thinking on the part of the writer. Still, this isn’t formal writing, and no blood, sweat, or tears, are required.
Some bloggers have suggested to write about your artwork, about your thoughts about art, or about why you create art or what art means to you. All of these are good suggestions. If you have the desire, you don’t need anyone’s permission to do this – just write. Something will come to you in the same way that you think of things to paint or draw. For me, writing is fun. I hope it is for you as well.
Posted on 5/29/2012 4:31:38 PM
By Donald Fox
2 Comments
Thistles and Bluebonnets
A scientist, a monk, and an artist step into a landscape, and each exclaims in his own way about the magnificence that unfolds. The scientist observes and notates and measures each bit of possibility that he can hold in his consciousness within a given moment. He accumulates reams of information that will serve generations of other scientists in their own calculations to prove that what is there is real and measurable and will continue from one moment to the next. There is predictability and from that predictability grows reliability and from that reliability comes agreement.
The monk breathes in the air and finds a tree under which to sit. He breathes and relaxes and notices everything that is before him, around him, and under him. He feels the air and the tree and the ground and his body and knows that all are the same. There is no separation between one and the other because everything is one. Separation is an illusion just as the disappearance of a road over a hill is an illusion or the dark side of the moon is an illusion. Everything is one. The monk can tell us this, but it will have little meaning unless we experience the truth for ourselves.
The artist surveys the landscape and finds a spot from which to observe a pleasing arrangement of shapes and colors and textures given the light that reveals all of the elements to his eyes. He sets up his easel and canvas and begins to transform his vision with paint onto the canvas. He works steadily until he feels complete with his creation that he knows now will be seen by others who will compliment what he has created as having captured the essence of the scene. They will take the painting as the truth of the landscape, but he will say that it is only a semblance, perhaps a metaphor, and possibly even more real than the thing itself.
A philosopher shows up and asks, “How do you know?”
Posted on 4/13/2012 8:18:36 PM
By Donald Fox
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In the Studio
Anyone who uses email knows how quickly the inbox can grow with either unread or not-deleted messages. Spam can certainly be an issue, and the box fills up even more quickly. The diligent person will stem the inflow before it becomes a problem. Not every message has to be read. It’s fairly easy to spot the spam and simply delete it before it piles up. Folders can help manage important messages or ones that might be kept because of useful information. Simply move a message to the appropriate folder for later easy access. This also avoids searching endlessly through long streams of messages to find a particular one that you just know was sent about two weeks ago.
Most people are smart enough to organize what they do. Somehow, artists have a block against organization – this is the myth anyway. We’re too intent on being creative. We lose touch with reality. We ignore the mundane stuff because we know the real importance lies in making more significant stuff that will help people take their minds off the mundane stuff. Mostly, I think the disorganized artist is a lazy artist. He or she chooses to ignore organizational tasks except for those that relate specifically to painting or art making. It’s a matter of self-serving priorities that ignore the mundane for the sublime.
The truth is that most artists do have strong organizational skills. They implement them constantly in the process of art making. Art is a high level organizational process that demands full attention. Artists tend to be diligent in the application of their craft. A great many of them, certainly not all, do tend to let the non-art stuff slide. When this affects the business side of art, then there is a problem.
How then, does one become better organized? As an exercise, email could be a good place to start. Whatever program is used, part of the organizing is already done. Messages come in in an orderly manner and are listed most recent to oldest or vice-versa. Like mentioned above, create folders for important ones that may need to be kept. Anything that can be quickly read and deleted, then do so. Delete the spam. Set filters that can reduce spam as well. Most email programs allow this. A few minutes each day will solve the unwieldy inbox problem. Like any discipline, it is important to be consistent. Make it a habit to respond to anything business related immediately.
Also, if you are not already a list maker, become one. A working list of things to do is a guide for the day’s activities. It also serves as an acknowledgement of accomplishments throughout the course of the day when completed items are crossed off. As most efficiency gurus suggest, deal with the big rocks first. Priorities make themselves known. Left unattended, priorities can become crises that cannot be ignored. It is no fun and really counter-productive to operate from crisis mode. The stress alone can be a killer.
Is your workspace organized? Can you easily find the necessary equipment when needed? Did you clean up from the previous day’s work? There is nothing difficult or magical about applying a little common sense to what you do. If you are diligent about doing your work, you can also be diligent at being organized. The latter will, in fact, enable the former. Use those visual organizational skills in your daily practice, and you’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish. You realize, of course, I’m talking to myself.
Posted on 2/6/2012 5:02:51 PM
By Donald Fox
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Brushes
“Do you mind?” she asked as she plopped the single sketchpad on the counter ahead of my stack of brushes and paint tubes and canvases. It was obvious her mind was already past the answer before I could say it. “No, I don’t mind.”
But, in truth I do mind – no, not about the sketchpad or the presumption and the discourteous assumption of courtesy. What I mind is everything, for I have practiced being mindful since discovering that very often others are not so. My own presumption is that mindfulness is a natural state of being, that everyone notices the lavender light of early morning, dewdrops on blades of grass, tiny spiders that live abundantly in the corners of untended rooms, the play of light through the window across the floor over and around the furniture and the magazines and the sleeping cat, or simply notices that others might rather be somewhere besides standing in line.
Of course, there may be lapses, or one may experience the simple truth that one thing is overlooked while focus is held on another. The internal perception may supercede the external. But this is merely a matter of the conscious mind deciding where to place its awareness and energy.
We are also in continual dialogue between the individual and the collective. Whatever group or groups to which we give our allegiance are not necessarily the defining factors of who we are or choose to be. Life is a journey and, hopefully, reason is the guide for that journey. Not to think, to give that up to some other, for good or ill, is to relinquish an important aspect of our capacity as human beings. We may not reason through every challenge, but we cannot resolve anything by avoidance. Other forms of knowing may come into play – emotion, intuition, or some as yet undetermined ability that generates insight and creative thinking.
I was once accused of being too much in my mind. The implication was that I identified my essence with thinking awareness, with my ego. The irony of the accusation was that it was sourced by a disembodied mind of a long ‘dead’ physician from the sixteenth century who was channeled through a trance medium. To voice his thoughts, he needed a human instrument; thus, the channeling. My only questions were, to have thoughts isn’t it necessary to have a mind? Isn’t the point of having a mind to use it? But my self-evident questions were, apparently, too flippant.
Through a variety of friends on disparate spiritual journeys, I met many souls who were more seriously concerned about their previous lifetimes than the present one. Somehow, knowing the details of past existences and, presumably, whatever karma was created then, would assist them in breaking the birth-death cycle and allow them to ascend to some higher plane of existence – not unlike the disembodied doctor who visited various human vessels in order to dispense his otherworldly wisdom. Oddly, I met several individuals who claimed to have been Cleopatra, others Melchezedek, or some other noted figure, historical or literary, in past lives (was there more than one Queen of Egypt named Cleopatra?). Each of these beings had apparently transgressed in the past and was karmically relegated to 20th century slumming until enlightened to his/her true self, would thus become a teacher and healer and would then be ready to break the cycle when the appropriate penance was served or an unspecified number of fellow fallen souls were brought to enlightenment, and ascendance was attained for all. Pity the poor cow or cockroach that has no means of communicating and would simply have to live through its present cycle unredeemed.
My own fate, apparently, is to be trapped by my ego and bound to the cyclical convolutions of rational thought. There is no logical way out of this philosophical conundrum except to slay the ego, or for the more faint-hearted, to transcend the ego and unite with the universal mind. I wouldn’t mind this at all since there are aspects of my ego I don’t particularly like anyway. Then again, there are aspects of the universal mind that, as represented by various self-proclaimed gurus, are more outrageous and bizarre than any minor infraction my modest ego could distort from reality. But, what is reality? Ah, here we go again.
“Please, you go ahead. You only have one item, and I have all these karmic goods to deal with.”
Posted on 1/14/2012 7:26:14 PM
By Donald Fox
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Metro Stop
Okay, so I haven’t been to the King Tut exhibit yet. I’ve visited the museum here in Houston many times since the Tut exhibit opened mid-October, but those visits were to see other things. Actually, I’m a little miffed at the young king. Back in the early 70s when I was still living in North Carolina, my wife and I took a journey to the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. to see the young king when he visited there. Well, various remnants visited there. The king himself was a no-show. He’s not in Houston either although I understand there’s a resin replica of his mummy. The king, it seems, is a bit too frail after 4,000 years to make the trip.
Anyway, we went to Washington with the primary goal of visiting the Tut exhibit. There was no internet in those days, so you couldn’t buy tickets online. In fact, you could only get tickets on the day you wished to visit; that is unless you were a head of state or some other bigwig. The ticket windows opened promptly at 7:30am, so we thought, no problem. We’ll just get up early and walk the few blocks from the hotel, get our tickets, and then go have breakfast. In various parts of the hotel the day before, we heard numerous people talking about the exhibit. There was quite a buzz. We began to think we’d better get up pretty early to beat the crowd. Somehow 3:30 came to mind, and that’s what we did.
Certain parts of Washington, like other big cities, never seem to sleep. As we headed out just after 3:30, the streets were just as busy as they had been when hours before we had gone to dinner. Still, it was a pleasant walk that took us about ten minutes. We could see as we approached the National Gallery from its front side that there already was a pretty long line. It started at the entrance and ran the length of the first block. Not too bad. We headed for the corner, and as we turned it we noticed that the line kept going. We just couldn’t see how far. We walked the length of that block (Washington blacks are pretty long) and rounded a second corner. Much to our dismay, the line stretched out before us. Almost to the end of the third block, we finally came to the end of the line. We could see other people converging from all directions. We were last in line for only a few seconds, and the line continued to grow behind us like an accelerated time-lapse movie of a growing vine. It was only then that we heard someone call our names. A colleague of my wife’s father was there with his daughter. They had driven up the day before with the same idea as us.
The next four hours gave us plenty of time for conversation. At one point the daughter thought she’d go see if she could find out any information about the number or available tickets. She was gone about half an hour. When she came back she had been counting the people ahead of us and reported that we were about fifty people beyond the cut-off, and that was if everyone in line was only buying a single ticket. As it turned out, she was right, and we didn’t get tickets. The visit was not a loss since we could still see the rest of the National Collection, the Phillips Collection, the National Portrait Gallery, other parts of the Smithsonian, the Hirschorn Collection, and the Air and Space Museum. But no King Tut.
I don’t really bear a grudge against the young king. It wasn’t his fault that we didn’t get to see all of his treasures. Now, though, I’m not in much of a hurry. I still have until April 15th here in Houston to see the exhibit, and I will. But, there are so many other things of interest here all the time that I won’t feel bad should I miss the young king again.
Posted on 1/4/2011 3:52:54 PM
By Donald Fox
1 Comment
Young Reader
Her eyes caught mine as I stepped into the room. The air was charged, and I could feel my hair lifting upward as though an invisible comb were passing close by. I glanced around the room, but the others appeared not to notice my entrance. All were absorbed in various tasks, some laughing, some listening, some making grand gestures, but no others revealed the slightest awareness of my presence.
I turned away from her unwavering stare and looked at the lush flowers in the crystal vase that sat on the opposite side of the room. I was not used to such boldness and needed something to calm my nerves before I could even think of approaching her. Yet approach her I must – there was no doubt about that. She was the reason I had come.
We had met once before, years ago in another city. I was younger and bolder but still unprepared for the impact of those dark eyes, like deep wells of mystery and delight into which I fell, and have continued to fall ever since. That fathomless gaze may be my undoing. Fortunately, fate intervened and drove us apart. The string of events and circumstances I could recount in detail, but the truth is I couldn’t withstand the power of revelation those eyes commanded. I could never let her know that. I felt like some confused character in a seamy melodrama, smitten with bewildering love, and doomed to a life of fantasies and what ifs.
Yes, she was from a wealthy family, an aristocrat, of cultured and noble birth. A poor artist, I could only dream of what her life must be like. The chasm between us was enormous. Yet, the way she looked at me cut right through all of the objections my fearful mind could raise. Still, for her sake, I knew it wasn’t meant to be.
My knees were weak as I slowly made my way around the room. I paused at the piano, but I couldn’t hear the notes so delicately touched by the nimble fingers of the young musician. I nodded and returned the smile of the seated gentleman enjoying his cigar in the corner. Could he guess my quandary? Were the whispers and averted eyes of the others testimony to my indecision and foolishness?
I turned one corner and then another in my slow motion journey that would ultimately bring me face to face once again with that enigmatic yet all-knowing stare. I could feel her watching me. I knew she must be amused, perhaps a little bit impatient, but she would never let on. She was much too gracious.
Finally, only a handful of people stood between us. I took a deep breath and excused myself as I politely cut through the last physical barrier. My mind raced. How would I respond? What could I possibly say?
I stepped closer until I stood directly before her and looked up. Those rich, black eyes held my gaze as they looked deeply into mine. All my defenses were gone. My soul was laid bare. The only words I could mumble were, “My God! How can anyone paint like that?”
