A pattern is quickening. I`ll work with one medium until I hit a wall and feel like its properties become too onerous. The drying time of oil painting, the severe edges in collage or maybe the frustrations of blending watercolor on Yupo, something gets in the way. Usually this happens after intense effort on a piece that refuses to resolve. So I try to just move on. Failure is normal and there have been many lately. My tendency has been to brood and question all my life choices but I just don`t have time now. More than ever I just require motion, the act of painting, to feel whole or even stable.
Nine years after my visit to Iceland, I`m starting to paint it. All I have to work with are photos and memory but fortunately, Iceland creates a vivid impression. It`s easy to remember how I felt. Often it doesn`t seem right to paint a landscape I`m not personally intimate with, but even that principle is too confining. Who cares?
I was driving to an appointment in Tualatin recently and this thing [electrical box of some sort?] grabbed my attention. On the way home I found a place to park and walked back to it. The color was what first appealed to me but when I got closer I saw the bull. It is stunning!
A multi-level buying boycott that has begun. Even more than our votes, how we spend our money is a hugely political action. To put the breaks on the runaway Trump catastrophe, I`ve imagined that something massive involving the economy would be required. I hope this is successful enough to repeat. Money is about the only thing that the powerful listen to.
Remember shopping at locally owned businesses is ok. In my region, the employee owned grocery store, Winco, is ideal. If you can only do one thing in your economic boycott, don`t buy anything from Amazon. I realize they`ve become indispensable, but there are alternatives. Our household is now Amazon free and it was not easy.
Winter issue, yours truly featured in an article written by Michael Chesley Johnson, a well known plein air painter and writer. We talk about my trial and error methods using memory to guide me. It can be purchased here. When there is a newer issue, I hope to have a link to the article I can include within this blog.
Somehow I bumped into her on Instagram years ago. Andrea Gibson, the poet, died of ovarian cancer last July. Her four years of treatment and hope is the subject of a new documentary called 'Come See Me in the Good Light', streaming on Apple TV or Prime Video. It`s a good story, the transformation of an agitated artist into a fearless advocate of love. Early in the movie she spoke a poem about a soul grieving the loss of its body, how it would gladly take on a toothache....vey moving. She noticed the small things and shows why they matter.
With her permission I posted this poem a couple of years ago. So to the point it`s like scripture;
she really touched some nerves.
She stayed as long as she could. God bless Jane Goodhall.
With so much terrible destruction in my country now, I found the AIDS Memorial, by chance, a counterweight of sorts. Reading the stories about these very young men has been actually cathartic. Of course I remember the times but a deeper look into individual lives and circumstances has been meaningful. What is under appreciated is how the epidemic came right after a massive, historic sense of liberation. Finally we could live openly, without shame. It was a claimed freedom and not bestowed by any authority and [unsurprisingly] was deeply resented. This reversal caused by disease and with so much suffering is almost beyond imagining now. It was like war.
Often these tributes are written by close friends and often by relatives who were not yet born at the time of the death. The groups hashtag is #whatisrememberedlives . Some of those memories are extraordinary;
“This is likely to be an unusual post. A straight woman and a gay man. She was his 24 year old ballroom dancing student, he was her 40 year old dance teacher. Little was she to know the impact this man would have on her life.
At that stage of my life, I was an unhappy, unfulfilled and disillusioned person. With the benefit of hindsight, life had dealt me a series of experiences that had denied me self-esteem, self-respect and peace of mind.
One day on my way home from work, a path I had trodden many times, I randomly looked up and saw a sign ‘Arthur Murrays Dance Studio’ on George Street in Sydney. It was the beginning of a life changing experience.
I became the studio owners student. Howard Smith Greening. An outrageous, incorrigible, loving, fragile, talented, stunning human being. Who happened to be HIV positive.
Howard lived life at full tilt. An Oxford Street Queen, he frequented clubs, parties, raves he took pills, had random encounters with strangers, loved to travel, and dance. And could that man dance. When we danced together it was poetry.
We did a comp in Perth to a routine he choreographed. Travelled from Sydney to compete. He and I had a tiff during rehearsals, he stormed off with great drama. So the pressure was on. We took the stage a day later and all the pieces fell into perfect place. We were so ‘connected’ movement just flowed from our bodies in perfect unison. Exhilarating. The experience reduced him to tears. Seeing him cry over our performance was the most remarkable thing. So humbling.
Howard was the first person in my life who loved me without rules. He showed me life could be fun and not just hard and confusing. He taught me to be defiant, challenge the status quo. Look life right in the eye.
I would come into the Studio 3 to 4 times a week. Sometimes dance, sometimes just hang out with him. We’d do the daily crossword together. Drink coffee, so much instant coffee!! Talk, laugh, gossip.
He never told his folks he was gay. It made me sad. He said they wouldn’t accept it. I wonder how his mother feels about it now she has cradled her son in her arms as he took his last breaths. AIDS is a cruel and painful death.
I could never feel sad around Howard. His life force was so powerful his aura and his smile would instantly lift my spirits. And he was generous with his smile and his laughter. He had his dark moments, we all do, but they have faded from my memory.
He pushed me away when he started to get sick. It broke my heart. But he knew what was going to happen and he didn’t want me to witness it.
I have a photo of us together at one of the balls we went to, it sits on my dressing table. I think of him almost daily. He reminds me to live my life, be cheeky, dress well, be charming but show your teeth when you need to and that it’s ok!
I named my business after him. Whoosh Consulting. Whoosh … that was how he entered a room … whoosh …
Howard taught me how to love another person for who they were. No agenda, no rules, just love. What a legacy to leave behind!
My darling Howard, you are the most amazing thing that ever happened to me. I am unbearably grateful for the time we had and for your continued love beyond the realms. I can’t imagine my life without your influence. I am awesome because of it. I am a reflection of all the good things about you.
I will love you forever and I miss you every day.
In memorial Howard Smith Greening, born Chain of Ponds SA 5th December 1953, passed 1st October 1995. 42 years young. Whoosh ….”
I had to laugh seeing this photo, it is so accurate. This is a good dad too, he remembered to feed his baby. He looks just like one of my best friends who did indeed father a child in the 1980s. This is a snapshot of the working class culture I grew up in.
I was researching a different artist when I came across Bob Stuth-Wade. Here was realism but with a vision. The emotionally powerful work stopped me in my tracks. We slowly began to correspond and I learned we are the same age and were raised to be good Catholics. One of the most interesting things about him is he bought his house in Texas while still a teenager and raised his four sons there. He seems to be a true Renaissance man, an artist who can build anything and do many other things. He also bought a collage of mine which meant the world to me.
Almost time.
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