1977: working (& playing) with Raphael Bing

September 14, 2015

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (15 Oct 1844 – 25 Aug 1900) Jacob and the Angel […]

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Works in Progress… and moving retrograde

September 12, 2015

“To understand the complexity of relationship there must be thoughtful patience and earnestness. Relationship is a process of self-revelation in which one discovers the hidden causes of sorrow. This self-revelation is only possible in relationship.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti (11 May 1895 – 17 Feb 1986) As many of you have concluded, this autobiography is a […]

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Backtracking to 1977: works on paper, plus

September 10, 2015

“When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt.” – Henry J. Kaiser (9 May 1882 – 24 Aug 1967) The Tree • watercolor and colored pencil on paper • ca. 14″ x 18″ • collection of Raymond Buckland Some arts created as book cover illustrations were more personally satisfying than others, as I discovered over […]

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1978 – the watershed year: Part 2 — more rapture; more unfinished business

September 3, 2015

“Life… is not simply a series of exciting new ventures. The future is not always a whole new ball game. There tends to be unfinished business. One trails all sorts of things around with one, things that simply won’t be got rid of…” – Anita Brookner (16 Jul 1938 – ) With These Hands • […]

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1978 – my watershed year: Part 1

August 29, 2015

“The great men [Thoreau, Goethe, Emerson, Tolstoy] forever radiate a sharp sense of that profound requirement of an artist, to fully understand that consequences of what he creates are unimportant. Let the motive for action be in the action itself and not in the event. I know from my own experience that when I create […]

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1978: Drawing like an Egyptian and painting like a Maine-iac

August 22, 2015

“Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his[her] personal vision of the world. No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination. One of the weaknesses of much abstract painting is the attempt to substitute the inventions of the […]

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176 years ago today, August 19, 1839

August 19, 2015

“You grow up the day you have the first real laugh at yourself.” – Ethel Mae Blythe Barrymore (15 Aug 1879 – 18 Jun 1959) On 19 August 1839, the French government presented to the world free (with the de facto exception of Great Britain) a gift that has transformed the way we see ourselves […]

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1977: some Finished Business for a change…

August 18, 2015

“Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.” – Richard Wright (4 Sep 1908 – 28 Nov 1960) In addition to the pieces of “unfinished business” from 1977 that I’ve reviewed lately, there was a good amount of “finished” work that spring, including the drawing […]

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More Unfinished Business: Mandala Madness

August 16, 2015

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes (29 Aug 1809 – 7 Oct 1894) Kosmo-Fleur aka A Crack in the Cosmic Egg • egg tempera and oil paint on two 48″ diameter 3/8″ plywood half-circles hinged together. One wintery evening in […]

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Unfinished Business #2: Like a Bride Descending…

August 11, 2015

“And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” – The Revelation of St. John the Divine, 21:22 A day or two after I had completed the initial egg tempera stage on One • Three • Seven, the painting featured […]

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Forward into the Past: 1977

August 10, 2015

“One fails forward toward success.” – Charles Kettering (29 Aug 1876 – 24 Nov 1958) One / Three / Seven • egg tempera and oil on masonite panel 48″ x 48″ • 1977-1980 • collection of the artist Unfinished Business #1. Going autobiographically back in time to the spring of 1977, I was living in […]

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Photo ops at the turn of the 20th Century…

August 8, 2015

“Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” – Malcolm Stevenson Forbes (19 Aug 1919 – 24 Feb 1990) At left, a scan of four pages from a small soft-bound photo album put together in approximately 1905 by Nellie Alice Kemp [Freeman] (7 Feb 1882 – 27 Jul 1966), a teacher […]

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Belated birthday tribute to a cousin long gone

August 5, 2015

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” – Jane Howard (1923-2014) On Tuesday, my cousin Gordon’s wife Isolde Hedwig Kümmerle [Cole] born Ellhofen, Germany on 3 November 1939, emailed me with a reminder that her sister-in-law, […]

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“Excuse me while I kiss the sky”

July 31, 2015

“Excuse me while I kiss the sky.” – Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) Today Friday July 31 we celebrate a Blue Moon. Last night I discovered online that there are two types of Blue Moon: seasonal (a definition used by the Farmers Almanac) and calendar month (the more popularly accepted view). Interesting facts about these two definitions […]

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Eye 2 Eye with the Past

July 26, 2015

“One eye sees, the other feels.” – Paul Klee (1879-1940) My fascination with the tintypes that are the basis for these explorations of portraiture goes back to childhood. I was a curious child probably under the age of ten when I first picked up and examined the tiny album that held these tintypes; an album […]

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