“Spring”
I have a mixed reaction to spring weather: I want to run wild… and I wonder where I left the allergy medicine.
There’s nothing quite like coming out of winter weather — whether it’s the blizzard of snow or the dank gray chill of wind and rain. The soul loves light.
Last week I was working on the painting “Man & His Dog.”
As I stood with a wide palette knife in my hand and yellow ochre on my palette, I looked out the window at the wind pushing the fallen yellow pollen, forcing it to roll in little yellow waves across the pavement.
Then it clicked.
I turned to the row of unfinished art on the floor, picked up the panel of crows flying… and tore into it without thinking.
Soon it was on its way.
A rare experience – and just plain fun! While it isn’t finished, it’s close. (image above)
Spring according to DC
The New Yorker cartoon this week presented another view of spring. It’s symbolic of the consistent rhetoric from the White House that “things couldn’t be better!”
Really?
A few days ago I placed a “Forever” stamp with the American flag on an envelope – and it hit me between the eyes.
Really?
So what to do?
My days include waking, reading, eating, working, eating, and sleeping… and a few times a week, listening to the news on my 16-mile drive to the studio.
Although I consider myself happy, I feel punched and rolled by the news this Administration reliably delivers.
As a kid I knew there would be personal disappointments but, in general, I also believed I could count on my country. Naïve? Certainly. But I must admit I have more or less maintained that belief through decades.
The truth?
George Carlin said: “The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
Historically we’ve continually destroyed each other and what we have created. And it doesn’t seem to be changing.
With the Trump players in charge, I am painfully aware of my naiveté’. Recently I read our species murder trait is as regular as our sexual habits.
Albert Einstein said: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity.” But Fritz Perls expanded the idea: “What is much more widespread than the actual stupidity is the playing stupid… not listening, not seeing and play helpless.”
While we may feel helpless, it doesn’t mean we cannot be involved. We can hold on to each other and meet each other with compassion.
While I can’t change policy affecting hungry people, I can donate to help feed them. It feels like a pivotal moment, as so many in this country are in need of being seen. The victims simply have no power. And when given a voice, they have no credibility.
How I Spend My Time
I have read all of Mark Nepo’s books and from them comes a world of wisdom. One line stays with me: “We need to be kind to ourselves, because it’s a prerequisite for being kind to others.”
I know withdrawing isn’t the answer. But I also know what I choose to ignore can be as important as what I focus on. So from here forward I am cutting my reading time in half.
In closing
Pulling our attention back to art, I leave you with a passage from E. M. Forster, from his 1938 essay “What I Believe.”
“The work of art stands up by itself, as nothing else does. It achieves something which has often been promised by society, but always delusively. Ancient Athens made a mess—but the Antigone stands up. Renaissance Rome made a mess—but the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel got painted. James I made a mess—but there was MacBeth. Louis XIV made a mess—but there was Phedre. It is the lighthouse which cannot be hidden.”
I would add: Trump’s made a mess – but there is Panagotacos’s Spring!”
AI didn’t write this post