2024-04-24 09:57
The Welcome Tree–At the West End Gallery
Between two worlds life hovers like a star,‘Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge.How little do we know that which we are!… Read More
Blog Directory > Arts & Entertainment Blogs > Redtree Times arts-and-entertainment Blog >
2024-04-23 10:30
RedTree: Stand Tall— Coming to Principle Gallery, June
Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth.
– Archimedes
This quote is actually a condensed and long accep… Read More
2024-04-22 10:12
He knows all about art, but he doesn’t know what he likes.
–James Thurber
I am fully immersed in work for my June show at the Principle Gallery right now. I need to get to a lar… Read More
2024-04-21 10:56
GC Myers- Chaos & Light
I believe that the fundamental alternative for man is the choice between “life” and “death”; between creativity and destructive violence;… Read More
2024-04-19 10:36
A New Cornucopia– At West End Gallery
By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love — the earth and the wonders there… Read More
2024-04-18 11:07
Passages: Toward Order — At Principle Gallery
Here’s my creed, against Benjamin’s. This is what I believe:
‘That I am I.’‘That my soul is a dark forest.&r&hell…Read More
2024-04-16 11:14
RedTree: Continuum— Coming to Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA
In this dark and wounded society, writing can give you the pleasures of the woodpecker, of hollowing out a hole in a tre… Read More
2024-04-14 10:52
In the High Country– At West End Gallery
Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explor… Read More
2024-04-13 10:37
Pablo Picasso- Guernica, 1937
Artists who live and work with spiritual values cannot and should not remain indifferent to a conflict in which the highest values of humanity and civilization… Read More
2024-04-11 11:19
I Don’t Feel So Good–Darwin’s First Mardi Gras, 1994
Clever people seem not to feel the natural pleasure of bewilderment, and are always answering questions when the chief… Read More
2024-04-10 10:44
To a Higher Mount— At West End Gallery
The world is an illusion, but it is an illusion which we must take seriously, because it is real as far as it goes, and in those aspects of the r… Read More
2024-04-08 10:19
Be not blind, but open-eyed, to the great wonders of Nature, familiar, everyday objects though they be to thee. But men are more wont to be astonished at the sun’s eclipse than at his… Read More
2024-04-07 10:16
Soloist– At Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA
It is very dangerous to go into eternity with possibilities which one has oneself prevented from becoming realities. A possibility i… Read More
2024-04-06 10:52
Vincent van Gogh, Irises, 1890
The task is…not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees.
― Erwin Schr&o&hell…Read More
2024-04-05 10:48
Pablo Picasso- Harlequin with Glass, 1905
How often have I found that wanting to use blue,I didn’t have it so I used a red instead of the blue.
–Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso is pr… Read More
2024-04-04 11:12
Van Gogh- Prisoners Exercisng
Perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try and learn what I should simply recognize, learning a mere fraction… Read More
2024-04-02 10:09
Alberto Giacometti- Walking Man I
Artistically I am still a child with a whole life ahead of me to discover and create. I want something, but I won’t know what it is until I succeed in… Read More
2024-04-01 10:37
Pondering Blue– At Principle Gallery
As wave is driven by waveAnd each, pursued, pursues the wave ahead,So time flies on and follows, flies, and follows,Always, for ever and new. What… Read More
2024-03-31 11:04
Exiles: Martyr, 1996
Whenever we encounter a human being in such a way that we feel absolutely certain of the infinity of that person’s worth and the eternity of his or her life, that… Read More
2024-03-29 10:29
Obstacles
Isn’t it strange how princes and kings,and clowns that caper in sawdust rings,and common people, like you and me,are builders for eternity?
Each is given a list of rules;a sh… Read More
2024-03-28 10:07
Merit Badge — At Principle Gallery
The writer who loses his self-doubt, who gives way as he grows old to a sudden euphoria, to prolixity, should stop writing immediately: the time has… Read More
2024-03-27 11:01
Riding Rhythm– At West End Gallery
All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.
—Martin Buber, The Legend of the Baal-Shem (1955)
I’ve been think… Read More
2024-03-25 11:49
This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief.
–Rumi
I am hoping this is the case.
M… Read More
2024-03-24 10:59
Coolway— At West End Gallery
Mama take this badge from meI can’t use it anymoreIt’s getting dark too dark to seeFeels like I’m knockin’ on Heaven’s door
… Read More
2024-03-23 10:39
Silent Crossing– At Principle Gallery
All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the musi… Read More
2024-03-22 10:15
Nightbloom— At West End Gallery
All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
–Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1774
One of t… Read More
2024-03-21 10:46
Constantin Brancusi- The Kiss
One day in Switzerland, in front of a beautiful mountain there was the most beautiful of cows, and she was contemplating me in ecstasy. I said to myself,&rdqu&hellip…Read More
2024-03-20 10:57
In the Light of Stillness— At Principle Gallery
Being is not a steady state but an occulting one: we are all of us a succession of stillness blurring into motion on the wheel of action… Read More
2024-03-18 10:37
Faraway Near– At Principle Gallery 30th Anniversary Exhibit
A fugitive does not hide himself in a maze. He does not build himself a labyrinth on a bluff overlooking the sea, a crimson… Read More
2024-03-17 10:50
Icons: Mary T.
Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes togetherI’ve got some real estate here in my bag”So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner piesAnd walked… Read More
2024-03-15 10:06
In sorrow a beautiful songLives in the heart and sings for allYour forgivenessInside the digital mindA homeless soul ponders the codeOf forgiveness
–Paul Simon, Your Forgiveness
I wok… Read More
2024-03-13 10:44
Pondering Blue- At Principle Gallery
Pooh gave a little cough and began.
LINES WRITTEN BY A BEAR OF VERY LITTLE BRAIN
On Monday, when the sun is hotI wonder to myself a lot:“Now… Read More
2024-03-12 10:57
Make use of time, let not advantage slip;Beauty within itself should not be wasted:Fair flowers that are not gather’d in their primeRot and consume themselves in little time.
&ndas… Read More
2024-03-11 11:22
Winterglide— At West End Gallery
True art and true science possess two unmistakable marks: the first, an inward mark, which is this, that the servitor of art and science will fulfil hi… Read More
2024-03-10 11:08
If a little day-dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.
–Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past
I don’t mind Day… Read More
2024-03-09 11:32
The Elevating Eye— At West End Gallery
Joy is everywhere; it is in the earth’s green covering of grass: in the blue serenity of the sky: in the reckless exuberance of spring: in… Read More
2024-03-05 11:46
Persevere (Face the Wind), 2003
If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength… Read More
2024-03-04 11:42
Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with s… Read More
2024-03-03 12:04
Restored, a bicycle fleshedWith power, and tore offUp Highway 106, continually Drunk on the wind in my mouth, Wringing the handlebar for speed, Wild to be wreckage forever.
—James Dic… Read More
2024-03-02 11:40
Fortune’s Smile— At Principle Gallery, Alexandria VA
Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; Let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall; Who sows a field, or trains a flowe… Read More
2024-03-01 11:17
Helen Frankenthaler- Savage Breeze
There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about.
–He… Read More
2024-02-29 12:10
BlueMoonWatch– Now at, West End Gallery
Once in a blue moonSomethin’ good comes alongOnce in a blue moonEvery thing’s not goin’ wrong
— Van Morrison, Once in a… Read More
2024-02-28 11:58
John Ruskin- Near Interlaken
Hitherto I have used the words imperfect and perfect merely to distinguish between work grossly unskillful, and work executed with average precision and science;… Read More
2024-02-27 11:34
Moment of Pride— At Principle Gallery
Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore i… Read More
2024-02-26 11:12
Mystic’s Way- At the West End Gallery
And if you can’t shape your life the way you want,at least try as much as you cannot to degrade itby too much contact with the world,by too… Read More
2024-02-25 11:50
Winterglide— At Little Gems, West End Gallery
You can go to the moon or walk under the sea, or anything else you like, but painting remains painting because it eludes such investigatio… Read More
2024-02-23 11:32
Student and Master— At West End Gallery
“I sit in the chair and think about the word chair. It can also mean the leader of a meeting. It can also mean a mode of execution. It is… Read More
2024-02-21 11:26
The Fulfillment– At West End Gallery
As for me I am neither happy nor unhappy; I lie suspended like a hair or a feather in the cloudy mixtures of memory. I spoke of the uselessness of… Read More
2024-02-19 12:07
Soul Boat, 2019
The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.
— Edgar Allan Poe, Marginalia
I wasn’t planning on writing anything today. Work… Read More
2024-02-18 12:04
Dawn’s Return–At West End Gallery
I believe that we are lost here in America, but I believe we shall be found. And this belief, which mounts now to the catharsis of knowledge… Read More
2024-02-11 11:55
Dawn of Memory– At West End Gallery
I have never described, even in the diary, the act of self-murder which takes place after my being with people. A sense of shame for the most trivia… Read More
2024-02-09 12:10
There is another language beyond language,another place beyond heaven and hell.Precious gems come from another mine,the heart draws light from another source
–Rumi
The annual Little Ge… Read More
2024-02-08 11:39
Nightbloom— At Little Gems at West End Gallery
The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a c… Read More
2024-02-07 11:46
A Great Bellow— At Little Gems, West End Gallery
Storms, thunders, waves!Howl, crash, and bellow till ye get your fill;Ye sometimes rest; men never can be stillBut in their graves.
&nd&hell…Read More
2024-02-06 11:46
Coolway— At Little Gems, West End Gallery
Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature. The way of nature is unchanging. Knowing constancy is insight.
—-Lao T… Read More
2024-02-05 11:59
Disney Artists circa 1959
The best advice I have ever given students who have studied under me has been this: “Educate yourself, do not let me educate you—use me, do not be used… Read More
2024-02-04 11:26
Eyvind Earle- Santa Ynez Memory
Then very slowly I go to slightly lighter colors until little by little, the forms begin to take shape and I start to see what is happening. Since I never pla… Read More
2024-02-02 11:38
GC Myers/ Work-In-Progress, February 2024
Can a finite being ever attain infinity?
After all, isn’t that ultimately the goal of the artist, to seek that intangible state of infinity, t… Read More
2024-01-31 11:40
The Song That Brought Me Here– At Principle Gallery
What we have not had to decipher, to elucidate by our own efforts, what was clear before we looked at it, is not ours. From ourselve… Read More
2024-01-30 11:45
“The world concerns me only in so far as I owe it a certain debt and duty, so to speak, because I have walked this earth for 30 years, and out of gratitude would like to leave some me… Read More
2024-01-29 12:00
Edgar Degas– The Millinery Shop
Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.
—Edgar Degas
I have always loved this quote from the great Edgar D… Read More
2024-01-27 11:31
Lit Candles, 2006
We were so close, there was no roomWe bled inside each other’s woundsWe all had caught the same diseaseAnd we all sang the songs of peaceSome came to sing, some came… Read More
2024-01-26 11:30
Breaking Joy–At Principle Gallery
Joy lies in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in the victory itself.
— Mahatma Gandhi
How do you define joy? Is the… Read More
2024-01-25 11:41
Pilgrim Rock– At West End Gallery
And thus ever by day and night, under the sun and under the stars, climbing the dusty hills and toiling along the weary plains, journeying by land and… Read More
2024-01-24 12:22
I want everything we do to be beautiful. I don’t give a damn whether the client understands that that’s worth anything, or that the client thinks it’s worth anything, or wh… Read More
2024-01-23 11:31
In Full Regalia— Coming to West End Gallery
He alone is great and happy who fills his own station of independence and has neither to command nor to obey.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, G… Read More
2024-01-21 12:13
Evercool— Coming to Little Gems, West End Gallery
One of the many suppressed longings of creation which cry after fulfilment is for neglected joys within reach; while we are busy pursu… Read More
2024-01-20 11:48
Gustav Klimt- Beech Grove I
Whoever wants to know something about me – as an artist which alone is significant – they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to rec… Read More
2024-01-19 11:42
Point of Contact, 2016
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
–Bertrand Russell
These handful of words from the great British thinker … Read More
2024-01-18 11:20
Joni Mitchell- The Mountain Loves the Sea- watercolor 1971
Everything comes and goesMarked by lovers and styles of clothesThings that you held highAnd told yourself were trueLost or changing… Read More
2024-01-17 11:50
When you feel colors, you will understand the why of their forms.
–Oscar Bluemner
I’ve written several times about Oscar Bluemner, an early and relatively obscure Mo… Read More
2024-01-16 11:44
A Matter of Perspective— At the Principle Gallery
“As for the dead”, she went on after a moment, “I have always thought that the dead think of us as dead. They have r… Read More
2024-01-15 11:24
Dare to Know (Sapere Aude)
Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from ano… Read More
2024-01-14 11:56
Winterglide– Coming to Little Gems, West End Gallery
The unconscious self is the real genius. Your breathing goes wrong the moment your conscious self meddles with it.
–Bernard S… Read More
2024-01-12 11:42
The Moon Resonates– At Kada Gallery, Erie, PA
Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just al… Read More
2024-01-11 11:56
A Rising Peace– At Principle Gallery
A new moon teaches gradualnessand deliberation and how one gives birthto oneself slowly. Patience with small detailsmakes perfect a large work, lik… Read More
2024-01-10 12:04
Early Work: Dance Hall, 1994
It takes little talent to see clearly what lies under one’s nose, a good deal of it to know in which direction to point that organ.
–W. H. Auden, The… Read More
2024-01-08 12:17
It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.
— Pablo Picasso, At an Exhibition of Children’s Art, Quoted in NY Times, 1956
I posted some ima… Read More
2024-01-07 12:15
In a Warm Breeze— At Principle Gallery
Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.
–Mark Twain, Old Times on the Mississippi
Thi… Read More
2024-01-06 11:50
Paul Gauguin–Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?
What still concerns me the most is: am I on the right track, am I making progress, am I making mistakes in art?
&nd&hell…Read More
2024-01-05 12:13
Guenther Hears the Boogaloo Softly, 1994
Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change – it can not only move us, it makes us move.
–Ossie Davis, Quoted… Read More
2024-01-03 11:26
Pull of the Moon— At West End Gallery
Let me sleepIn the slumber of the morningThere’s nowhere I need to beAnd my dreams are still calling
–Damien Jurado, Silver Joy
Workin… Read More
2024-01-02 12:28
Ventura– At Principle Gallery
And there is the headlight, shining far down the track, glinting off the steel rails that, like all parallel lines, will meet in infinity, which is after… Read More
2024-01-01 11:10
Here’s to 1942, here’s to a year of toil—a year of struggle and peril, and a long step forward towards victory. May we all come through safe and with honour.
– Winst… Read More
2023-12-31 12:23
Time Passage— At Principle Gallery
Predictions can be very difficult—especially about the future.
–Niels Bohr
On the last day of this year, I wanted to write about what mig… Read More
2023-12-30 11:58
In Stillness and Rhythm-At Principle Gallery, Alexandria
The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. We must be very humble. We must see the beauty… Read More
2023-12-29 11:43
First View, 1994
His whole life was now summed up in two words: absolute uncertainty within an impenetrable fog.
–Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
[From 2016]
I am at a low ebb right now in… Read More
2023-12-28 17:25
Absorbed– At West End Gallery
What can I hold you with?I offer you lean streets, desperate sunsets, themoon of the jagged suburbs.I offer you the bitterness of a man who has lookedlong… Read More
2023-12-27 11:37
Monde Parfait— At West End Gallery
Even imperfection itself may have its ideal or perfect state.
–Thomas De Quincey, De Quincey’s Writings: Miscellaneous Essays, 1851
I&rsq&hell…Read More
2023-12-25 11:00
The Christmas Stick, 2023
The Christmas Tree
Put out the lights now!Look at the Tree, the rough tree dazzledIn oriole plumes of flame,Tinselled with twinkling frost fire,Tasseled with stars… Read More
2023-12-24 12:13
If you’re doing nonsense it has to be rather awful, because there’d be no point. I’m trying to think if there’s sunny nonsense. Sunny, funny nonsense for children &m&helli…Read More
2023-12-23 11:47
From early in November to the last week of DecemberI got money matters weighing me downOh the music may be merry, but it’s only temporaryI know Santa Claus is coming to town
–Pa… Read More
2023-12-20 11:21
Practice giving things away, not just things you don’t care about, but things you do like. Remember, it is not the size of a gift, it is its quality and the amount of mental attachmen… Read More
2023-12-19 11:55
Santa, Early Work July 1994
“But how did he get in?” asked the children.
At this the fathers shook their heads, being themselves unable to understand how Claus had gained admitta… Read More
2023-12-18 12:31
I shared some vintage ads a few weeks back that showed Santa enjoying a smoke and an adult beverage or two. It reminded me f a post from a number of years back that shared a group of odd Vi… Read More
2023-12-17 12:04
Desire’s Passage– At Principle Gallery
Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.
–Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island (1955)
So… Read More
2023-12-16 12:18
Zenith— At Principle Gallery, Alexandria VA
Man, if he compare himself with all that he can see, is at the zenith of power; but if he compare himself with all that he can conceive, he… Read More
2023-12-15 11:38
Pieter Brueghel the Elder- Hunters in the Snow (Winter) 1565
Darkness stalks the hunters,Slowly sliding down,Falling in beating rings and soft diagonals.Lodged in the vague vast valley the v… Read More
2023-12-14 11:48
Navigating Chaos– At West End Gallery
You have discovered the spiritual universe. Many others have discovered this same world, but each must make the discovery for himself. You are goi… Read More
2023-12-13 11:55
Mystic’s Way- Coming to West End Gallery
Miracles in mysticism don’t occupy such an important place. It’s metaphor, for the peasants, for the crowds, to impress people. Wha… Read More
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