9 November 2024
The opposite
The other night I went out to the dunes to escape reality which is funny because I normally go out there to plug into it. But alas, since then, the election results have revealed that half of America has chosen to re-elect a idiot-felon for their president. I am no longer a drinker, but if I had been, I might have tied one on the other night along with the other half of the country. Let’s be honest, The American mind is complicated and on its menu is full of every kind of contradiction available. But it’s a rich menu too, and also filled all kinds of wonderful people from every other country in the world at least for the moment. But with a racist administration, our future at least in the short term, looks precarious. So, the majority of Americans have picked what they want and apparently, they have the appetite for it. I’m not going to lose sleep over these facts of life that I cannot control. I voted, and that’s that. But “It’s a sure shame”, as we used to say in the Kentucky of my youth. So, for the rest of us who voted for Kamala Harris, let us take what little brilliance George Costanza ever offered up to the world, and let’s be the opposite of everything that Trump represents.
Let’s go on a diet and exercise, let us be kind to the less fortunate, let’s dive into Art of every kind, the messier the better, because we'll need it more than ever during these times to come. Let’s write reams of poetry, paint big colourful pictures and let’s make lots of music, crazy and sublime. Let's cross-dress and let’s love too, the noisier the better. But let’s not swear at others, or about them, nor demean them either. Let’s educate ourselves to better understand how others live and think and let’s cherish DEI and be any kind of person we choose to be despite what others might say.
So with all that circling around in my head the other day at the beach, I painted three studies that all simmer. It was a windy evening and the sky was full of possibilities and I knew it would be fun which is really the point. I wanted to escape the awful news and dread looming over me all like a devil in one of Bosch’s paintings. But hey! Life moves on no matter what I feel about it. To paint is to live fully in the moment and it’s an opportunity to merge fully with all those parts of myself that can still be moved through anger or disappointment. It’s a cliché but I’ve come to understand that all diffculties, whether in the studio, in my home, or in my heart, are always there to help me solve the problem of myself. They act like handholds on a steep rock face.
But anyway, each of these three studies are shown in their order of execution. The sky had been quite electric in fact. For once, I cannot think of too much to say about them except that they helped me to reconnect with something calm. They appear to me today, like I said; simmering, and a little hot and bothered, and yet I like them well enough. This motif whom I’ve know for several years now is like a good friend, trustworthy and smart enough to maybe even act as my own therapist.
No matter the state of my heart or mind, I usually can adapt to the day, the moment, even to the picture at hand. These three came easily because the sky pulled me into it and out of myself. I’m happy that this was possible because for so much of my life I’ve been too easily manipulated by outside forces including others, but no longer at least in the same way. My heart is steadier. It’s as if when I come out to paint, I can at least surrender to the strength of the sea and sky. That’s a big improvement. I need to remember that life will be a lot harder for so many other people around the world than myself.
Back in France about fifteen years ago, I read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, one small entry, like a picture done at the beach, one day at a time. It was a great read and like everyone else who has read it, I loved it and learned a lot about myself and my relationship with this world around me. To say that it taught me loads would be the proverbial understatment. I wish I could remember even just a fraction of it today, but alas, it has all slipped through my memory. That said, I do know that it changed me in many ways for the better. I absorbed at least some of his wisdom in the same way as I've been transformed by this beach motif one day at a time. No civilian one would ever know it, but painting has a noble edge.
I picked up my tattered copy of Meditations a few weeks ago and began looking through it again and imagined to myself that I would go through it once more in bed at night instead of doom-scrolling on my phone before sleep. His one greatest lesson I think, is that we not must not lose control over our emotions. But I realised that reading philosophy like I did in University is one thing, a mental thing that just unleashes ideas. But without putting them to use through a purposeful vocation or craft, a marriage or family even, they risk to remain but empty ideas, not a batteries to charge our daily lives.
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