It’s Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Retailmas………everywhere you go……….tra la……

Past Thanksgiving, now comes Christmas……..actually should be called Retailmas.  Now we should be doing all of the things we said we were going to do………”after Thanksgiving.”  Ha.  Face it…now it’s “well, after Christmas, New Years, the holidays.”  Tell me about it. Next week we gotta get organized. Having survived Thanksgiving, Mom  Mannes in hospital, family in from around the country…………I have getting after it……..goal: painting everyday in the studio.  Well, almost every day.

One of the works in progress – a diptych – two large canvases to be displayed in a cycle entitled “Emergence”.  The diptych – two women closest to my heart – literally – stepping out the fog of anesthesia to “breathe me back to life”.

Another painting –  I have been playing with the concept of art and physics in painting.  This work in progress points out how we looked at our bodies until recently – bones muscles, tendons organs, blood, and how we see them today, atoms, neutrons, neutrinos, constantly moving bits of matter – millions of small, tiny bits of matter that comprise the body………..and until recently the color of energy was RED – for millenia, but ever since the Bunson Burner and its BLUE flame, the color of energy  has been BLUE.

And I am not just painting each day as a tip of the hat to sanity in this crazy, mixed up world……….I also play the piano in the studio…..to ease my mind.

And check it out – on the piano a Quang Ho original work – a pair of white Chuck Taylor Cons – given to me by Mary for a birthday, and painted by Quang – complete with an image of moi (?) at the key board of a Baby Grand.

Life is very, very good.

We are supposed to appreciate the fact that it is great to “live in interesting times”…but these are perilous times…we are going to have to learn new ways to mourn and get used to the country and the world in turmoil…real, explosive, gut wrenching turmoil and confusion.

Kingston Trio had it right, a long, long time ago…”the whole world is festering with unhappiness…and nobody like anybody very much.”  I really like Jimmy Kimmel’s new campaign slogan “Let’s Make America Great Britain Again”.

In that regard I have been thinking about the ludicrous idea of making this country great again – it is already great – and hence a political painting that I have entitled:  The New Gerrymandering.  I was going to call it, The Lower Fifty Three but thought that was too overt.

I also find myself watching the news less and less and instead divert my attention to things that I can really do…creative things…things I can do something about.

For example, the last time Mary and I were in Sanibel we reveled in the sights, sounds, smells, shells on the Gulf of Mexico (before the dreadful devastation of the recent hurricanes) and yes, the detritus…of the shoreline.  Mary collects the perfect, beautiful, I collect the detritus.

You have to get away from it all – get off the grid….

Beauty in the heavens….

Beauty in the detritus…

And, yes I caught a fish last time in Sanibel…

Enjoy it all, be in awe, soak it all in every day that you can.

As Zorba the Greek said “embrace the whole catastrophe”

Cheers!

– Daniel