The back ground is dark green, or should be. We have red and yellow leaves, of course, this is New Brunswick, Canada. And the white flecks are the frost on the grass. Lovely.
Look closely and you can see bits of me reflected in the glass of the painting. That’s why it’s a selfie. Not a total one, but a teeny little bit of one. How much of ourselves do we ever capture, in a photo, a painting, a poem, a piece of prose? Not much, I guess. And is it the real ‘us’ anyway? I very much doubt it.
Does it matter? No. If you want to see the real me, come and visit. But, be prepared: I am not who I seem and I am desperate to hide the real me from the real world. You may catch glimpses. And that’s about it.
And I have a cat, just like that. Runs to the basement, hides beneath a chair, sits and purrs in her basket, sleeps on the bed at night, winds herself round my knees at feeding time, is and isn’t, just like all pussy cats. And aren’t we all like that? Here today and gone tomorrow. All that joy and all that sorrow.
Enjoy us while you can. And can-can while you can-can!
However, not all Night Bumps are nasty and this is a baby Winking Night Bump caught by the camera, or was it the paint brush, in the act of winking. I’d have written ‘red-handed’ but not all Night Bumps have hands. Some are just wormy squirmy wrigglers. And they can be the worst.
This isn’t what he really looks like, or is it a she? I cannot tell the difference. Well, not until they bump and grind anyway. Then they are like dentists’ drills. Sharp ones, blunt ones. Keeps you awake all night, they does, just thinking about ’em.
I don’t know what happened to the photo of the painting. But we all knows all about that too, don’t we, oh faithful followers of this faithless blog that sometimes arrives and sometimes doesn’t. Oh dear. Just look what happens when you look into the sunset. https://rogermoorepoet.com/2021/10/08/into-the-sunset/ It gets all distorted. Maybe I’ll have to have another go with the camera. A camera, a camera, my Night Bump for a camera. Or should that be ‘a camera for my Night Bump’.
Oh dear. This is getting out of hand. I’d better call for Blueberry. Oh, I forgot. He’s having his Sunday Siesta. No Nasty Night Bumps in action on a Sunday Afternoon, even if it is raining.
Now that’s a bit different. Well, shiver me timbers. And I bet I can do better than that. “Pieces of silver! Pieces of eight!” And all hands to the Naval Volunteer. Ship-shape and Bristol Fashion down on the docks that are no longer docks, not down by St. Mary’s on the Quay. “Aye aye, skipper.” And look out for that black patch. Whisky is the life of man. But rum rules at the Admiral Benbow. And everyone must eventually pay on the nails. Unless they gets dispensation from the Green ‘Un on a Satterday Nite. But watch out for those wheelbarrows tumbling down Christmas Steps during Rag Week. And thee must bist recall: it’s never safe in this aerial, especially under a tiny little ‘aat that like.
I guess this is the painting that helped change my views on reality. I can’r remember what I called it originally, but this is what I first imagined. But what about this?
The signature, top right, suggests that the painting was conceived as in the initial photo. But, does it have to stay that way? Of course not. The creature, if creature it is, is a creature of my own creation. I can fit it into any form that I want. Ignore the signature. Concentrate on color, shape, and meaning. But remember that meaning is drawn from color and shape.
Dizzy yet? Disoriented? I remember doing this with some of Picasso’s paintings in the art and culture class. Turn the slide and change the title. Each angle is a new world and a new orientation upon the world. Oh me, oh my, oh Moo, whatever will you do? Next.
Twist again, I suppose. And now we have almost come full circle. Which one is preferable? Why? Can this be an objective decision? Is it totally subjective? I would love your opinions. And your suggestions for titles. Ludum Ludite – play the game.
And whatever game is that little red dot playing, or the bull’s head, or the open mouth? But now les jeux sont faits — the bets are made. Rien ne va plus. Nothing goes anymore. C’est fini, mon Kiki.
This from the days when I was a wannabe artist who thought he could actually be an artist. But no, it was not to be and the masks fell off and dropped to the ground. There was no Covid back then, so I didn’t have to pick them up and put them back on again. And I didn’t have to stay two metres – six -feet – away from the painting. If you paint with the Devil, you need a long brush. Also known s a Devil’s Paint Brush.
To paint or not to paint, that is the question. So, I chose the path of mindfulness, la escondida senda por donde han ido los pocos sabios que en el mundo han sido / the hidden path along which have walked the few wise men who have lived in the world. And yes, art, in all its forms, is mindfulness, being in yourself, being aware of the moment, being taken up by that split second when paint hits paper, canvas, or whatever, and being absorbed totally in that.
Gardening will do that for you. Also what I call hyperspace, that wonderful world between fingertips, and screen where the great ideas flow naturally, like paint, and words come tumbling out onto the page. Today’s theme: The Great Pretender. Not all the words are wonderful, nor all the ideas great. The greatest skill is to be able to differentiate between gems and dross. This comes with patience and practice. But when the words flow, and the paint settles, there are few joys like it.
One of my first cartoons. It always reminded me of Jerry Lee Lewis: “Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire.” What fun it was to paint and what a joy to rediscover it. I guess that’s the name of the game for a little while: rediscovery. Dig down into the dirt and the memoirs and the flashbacks and reproduce what’s in there. It reminds me too of the conjunction of Mars and Venus, a couple of years back. I would look out of the window, to the southern sky, and there they were, drawing closer together until, suddenly, one night, there they were. “Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire.”
I have never been able to draw or paint with any skill. Then, one day, I read Matisse and his commentaries on his own work: “Making meaning out of colour and shape.” So, there you are. I don’t know what it means, but, as Salvador Dali said “I don’t know what it means, but I know it means something.” And the moment means something: staying in the moment of creativity creates great joy. That joy, the joy in joie de vivre, is there to be rediscovered. So: share the joy. Laugh at the innocence. And, following Picasso, “paint the world as a child might see it.”
How could one not give thanks for the bounties of Thanksgiving? Listening to Cross Country Check Up, last night, as I have done for the last 55 years, I was amazed at how people, some of them in dire circumstances, were able to find things for which to be thankful. I haven’t made a list of the things for which I am thankful and I certainly didn’t call in to the talk show to give my opinion, but let me think…
I am thankful for the beauty of the natural world. Just look at that sunrise! Yesterday we walked in Mactaquac and admired the beauty of the changing leaves. Migrating geese put on a display, taking off from the waters of the head pond, flying, then settling down again. We: I am grateful for the presence of my beloved, still beside me after all these years. I am grateful that we are together and that we are both of us able to walk and indulge in this province’s autumnal beauties.
I am grateful for faithful friends. I will not name them all. If I did, this blog would never be finished. This morning, an e-mail from Geoff Slater, whose paintings and drawings have often appeared on the blog, spoke of the nature of ritual and how we use it. He spoke of external rituals and how, during times like these, when our normal lives are upside down, we lose the ability to follow our external rituals. This may cause dismay and a loss of stability to many. However, he also reminded me that we, as practicing artists, have established our own internal rituals. These keep us going in the difficult times, for they are always there to fall back on. Following his line of thought, I explored my own daily rituals, the ones that have kept me going throughout Covid-19. Thank you, Geoff, for those ideas and for your long-term friendship.
I am grateful for the initial offer, from the University of Toronto, to come to Canada to study all those years ago. Canada gave me a chance to challenge my established rituals and to build and shape new ones that were more suitable to my inner being, a being that I had kept well hidden from the Masters of the Universe who limited my creativity, and ruled the rituals of my Boarding schools and my undergraduate studies. Above all, I am grateful for that rich, inner world of creativity and dream and I am doubly grateful for those who have allowed me and encouraged me to express it and set it down for others to share.
So, Thanksgiving Day: a day on which to give thanks for all the blessings that are in our lives, large and small. Sure, times are tough. Sure, we could all do with more money. Sure, we could go on and on about our wants and needs. But today my want and my need is to give thanks for who, what, where, when and why I am. As my friend Norman Levine once wrote: Canada Made Me.
I woke up yesterday morning to find frost on the ground and a white layer over the green, green grass of home.
The sun rose, and emerald patches shone through while the frost stayed layered, icing on the lawn’s Thanksgiving cake.
Occasional leaves lay a scattered orange carpet. White threads seemed to move as the breeze blew, shadows shifted, and the sun warmed my world.
Then I saw them, the ghosts of summer’s butterflies, long gone the live ones, but their spirits drifting over the grass gifting me with warm, sunny memories to contrast with that first fall frost.
“The only difference between a madman and me is that I am not mad,” Salvador Dali. It is a great honor to borrow his words and to be able to make the same declaration: the only difference between a madman and me is that I am not mad.
Mikhail Bakhtin: carnival, the world turned upside down, the world going bananas and those bananas dancing, as you can see in the painting above. It is a mad moment frozen in the still time of paint. And why shouldn’t bananas dance? Some one out there will remember Thunder Bay, 1981: ‘you just have to go bananas’ and the bananas duly appeared at half time instead of the oranges. Saint John, 1985: same thing.
And now the dancing bananas have emerged once more to fill your minds with pleasure and your hearts with joy. Go, bananas, go. Bananas-a-go-go. Way to go, bananas. And I tell you, given the current state of society, going bananas is the only way to go. So, in the next election, I shall form the Banana Party and we can all stand firmly, shoulder to shoulder and shout “Oh, Mighty Banana!” and “Go, Bananas!”
Ah yes, and my next painting? Maybe it will be Banana Custard or Banana Splits, not that I have ever done the splits!
So, the writing is back. I have reformatted The Nature of Art and the Art of Nature and am now checking it through one last time before I send it to the publishers. This feels good. I haven’t stopped painting though. Luckily the original, hanging on the wall, looks better than the photo. My angles are all wrong and the colours are definitely not as sharp as in the original. As I always said, when introducing Spanish Art via slides and photos: “Do not trust the imitations. Go back to the original.” Easier said than done, especially when the original may be tucked away in a foreign museum hidden in a small town. As Dylan Thomas once said of Swansea Museum: “it’s the sort of museum that ought to be in a museum.”
As for the Introduction of Art, and please note I do not write ‘the teaching of art’, here’s my article on my career as an art facilitator! ‘In the beginning was the picture and the picture was in the book.’ I guess my art career ran parallel to my career as a facilitator of Spanish literature, prose, theatre, and poetry. Some things you can present and introduce. But no, you cannot teach them, not unless you are completely without humility and understanding.
