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The content of this position is from history and because it is a former context, the words used will not measure up to the inclusivity standards of today.

While there is no argument that the men and women that set out to form a new nation (nation means people) they, like us, had no way of knowing what acts or occasions in their present would survive or suffer extinction in their futures. Very clearly not all of what has been created in our political beginnings has been in the spirit of our model for our National development. Some of what has transpired has been contrary to the spirit of the model used.

I marvel at what the United States of America has been fashioned to be nearly two hundred fifty years in our past. The task they united together to accomplish was daring and daunting in its enormity. The world at that time was primarily ordered by Authoritarian control. Democratic governance was not in existence and so it had to be created. Any time something new is attempted, mistakes are made. Democracy's originators understood that and implied their awareness in the expression of their desire for the process. They said the effort they were making was to form a “more perfect” union. Their effort, their intellect, their thoughtfulness, their compassion and their ingenuity in the formation of the documents that guide our Nation are truly remarkable and indeed priceless. The Democracy we have received would be very difficult to recreate or reinstall if it were to be lost or dismantled. I will point out, there are those who would dismantle and destroy if that would be allowed. Rebellion is not new to the world nor is it infrequent. There are some areas of governance on our globe that have been overthrown several times in my lifetime and there are always several rebellions happening in the world today. Authoritarian regimes are always popping up to violently displace citizens, to steal national wealth, and to eliminate any opposition. Once anarchy is loosed, unlike Democracy, it's chances of recurring are great because anarchy is motivated by popular discontent but does not propose popular remedy. Anarchy doesn't require the struggles that accompany efforts to unite people. Anarchy actually fares better if people are divided. The people in the Third World are subject to political predation because they have no power to stop it. Anarchy can sprout up anywhere. Any place; today the seeds of anarchy are in our very heartland. At this hour we are vulnerable. We are vulnerable because ideals and principles are being corrupted by avarice. The character of our elected officials is wanting. The Rule of Law is given lip service but only stringently applied to the weak and the poor. Our leadership doesn't demonstrate any willingness or ability to hold obvious offenders accountable. We have become powerless to affect justice. The people we elect to guarantee our futures are able look us in the face and lie with no shame. Anarchy is afoot in our National experiment and it will displace this Democracy if we continue to prefer powerlesness. The difference between this place and the Third World is that we have had two hundred fifty years to make it work. We've had two hundred fifty years to make it more perfect and until now. I believe a graph of our National accomplishments would look like success. I don't believe that a graph of our probable future will be a success to the same degree. I don't see success because the character and manner of the principal actors is exemplary of a different kind of Liberty; a Liberty that is at odds with the principal under girding of our National formation. How does a mutation of fundamental principle as such happen? Why is it happening now? Why is it that some of us sense an approaching disaster while others see the same but as a consistent and logical progression from our beginning? Why aren't people who are more aware and intelligent than I, not sensing what is now readily apparent regarding this Nations political present and immediate future?

The individuals that accepted the responsibility to form this new nation undeniably brought the pain of their personal experience to the work of principal forming. What is more remarkable is that they went out of their way to anticipate the pain and struggling of people whose positions were lower on the power ladder. It is not easy to know the pain and struggles of those beneath, on the power ladder but they were able to do that. Those principles that they gathered and eloquently verbalized without prejudice became as navigational aids in the declaration of our National Purpose. To be sure, they knew well what they didn't want to recreate. They knew ideally where they wanted to go but all of it needed to coalesce into a practical form of governance. What they were looking for that at that moment did not exist anywhere but for then, current developments in France. A revolution was brewing as a response to absolute monarchy. I'm not sure if it is accurate to say all forms of governance at that time did not regard the quality of life of “common people” but I think I can say that specific disregard was true to most. It is possible to have a benevolent dictatorship but that would be very, very rare. It would take thirteen years for the actual disposition of the throne and a reformation of government but the thought, the intellectual premise, was forming at that moment. Rebellions often have noble beginnings but they eventually become corrupted because there are too few making the decisions that ultimately define a path. The path of dictatorship is easy; one person (or a very small group) make all the decisions and one person (or a very small group) reap all of the benefits and the “people,” go FROM slavery TO slavery in the blood soaked earth. The likelihood of anarchy as a response to discontent is probable but that is not what was going on in France during that thirteen year developmental period! They were living what they wanted to avoid! They were formulating an ideal in order to create a practical governmental path! What was happening was “popular”. A peoples rebellion for the people which had to incorporate a collective meaning and purpose for everyone, equally. WOW! Think of it! That is enormous and it would have to be accomplished by communities of citizens! All of what those communities were would need to be woven by purpose through policy. The form of the new political fabric would be colored by a notion of who this people would become and what will we expect of government?”

I've repeated the words “Nation”, “people” and “we” with the hope they resonate with my reader as the soul of the documents that frame our Democracy. They are simple words but they are so densely profound. Where do you go to get the stuff that is essential to building a National ideal? How do you collect the collective? Where is the starting point? The individual source is readily available but in it's primal form is broad rather than focused. All of that raw data will need to be transformed and even refined through discourse. Individual to individual, group to group and community to community the possibilities were verbally explored and debated unto a point of consensus. Consensus was the result of intense human interaction in that span of those thirteen years preceding the French Revolution. Consensus is never a “given” just because we “come together”.

An average of about two hundred fifty people who are familiar to each other and who share a belief come together each week to celebrate that commonality. They know each other well. Some of them have been friends for years and they may know each other's stories well but they only know what they are allowed to know. They think they are the “same.” They can believe that because they do not discuss faith openly even with family. Who they actually are is a secret that will remain a secret because they know they aren't the same. They also know the tolerance is always in short supply and judgment is plentiful. We know what could happen and so we shut up, we withdraw because the more we say, the more we reveal. Difference is frightening. People will resist coming together if they have differences. Differences cause separation and distance between people. If this behavioral dynamic is true for people who know each other well think of the obstacle is will be for strangers. Obstacles stop progress and progress is another way to acknowledge moving on. Do we need to be “moving on”? The answer to that is YES, because it is usually too painful to remain where we are! Don't forget this is dynamic and not static! Even if we try NOT to move on everything else will. We will be confronted over and over again until we acquiesce or collapse. The person in pain will not need to be motivated to move on but the one who is comfortable? Well, that is another question. How does the one that is content with the way things are, move on? Often upon the prompting to move on there is a deliberate and often forceful attempt to withdrawal further or even fight back.

We are very comfortable. It may be very difficult for us to appreciate the misery and abuse of the French populace but that is what we need to do to approach an understanding of how great a struggle is required to affect revolutionary change. Pouring out who we are as individuals isn't as difficult as understanding and incorporating the desires of others because incorporation means personal change and change is always painful. When we have an exchange that fosters interpersonal change we hurt. We hurt and we can feel diminished or that we are loosing. But the motivation was great for the French. Ninety-six percent of the populace had no power to determine their life's path. The struggle with the English Crown was a life and death struggle. The stress and oppression experience in the colonies were parallel to conditions and treatment of the French populace. Revolutionary France put the fear of difference behind them because they couldn't bear being where they were any longer. The people wanted the solution not just any answer. They were intent to merge everything they could get to grasp the right answer for a future personal and collective prosperity. Discussions between neighbors sharpened the individual focus and that focused individual source was informing to the collective mind of France.

Along with the appearance of humans came boundary issues. A lot of life's difficulties have something to do with the abuse of boundaries. Living in close contact with others made mitigation essential. Mitigating the human condition begat civil codes which then had to be implemented and enforced. All of this begat different forms of governance. One form of government in close proximity to a different form of government could be compared and contrasted. People began to learn about government and they began to explore the possibilities against what they had learned about human nature. While governments can appear to be problematic, it isn't really governance that is the driving source of our discomfort, it is our human nature that selects and directs. How government is employed will be the measure of its worth. The relation of humanity to the process of governing is extremely complex and can be very specialized. Governance being a problem to be solved for such a long time, has been a discussion for a long time. The discussion wasn't just casual , it became formally academic having many scholarly personalities who attempted to contribute to the conversation. It seems to me that education was more highly valued in the time of the formation of the first French Republic. Scholarship was revered and invited. Scholarship was an invited participant because popular thought was that being educated was empowering! From where they were, they counted every opportunity to improve their socioeconomic condition as blessing! Many scholars entered the discussion but Rousseau and Locke rose to the top of the list of contributors. The academic response was allowed to mitigate the identity question of the collective and an answer was at hand. The becoming First French Republic arrived at a place where they believed that three relational tenants best described the people (the Nation), they would become, “Liberté, égalité, fraternité  ”. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. For a people to be free of tyranny, for a people to prosper as individuals and to prosper collectively, these three tenants, together, would consciously be present in every problem and opportunity facing the new Nation. It never occurred to those founders to exempt Equality and Fraternity. They didn't anticipate that two thirds of the formula would disappear over time. They couldn't conceive of that because the configuration was so obviously essential and nonnegotiable that the exclusion of ant of the parts rendered it totally ineffectual! It happened! Liberty was cut away from Equality and Fraternity to stand alone! Standing alone, Liberty was reduced to license! To be blunt, I can do to do what ever I want, to who ever I want! Can you understand and then abide with this unauthorized revision? This unauthorized revision of our democratic foundation has enabled a response to firearms control, to vaccination mandates, to abortion and on and on. Liscense has nothing to contribute to the greater good , to the people. The reemergence of primal individualistic control is exactly why Liberty, Equality, Fraternity were synergestically positioned to produce a specific direction and purpose. The premise is Biblical! Jesus summed up the whole of the Law when he said “Love one another”. It's so simple! I will do no harm to anyone that I am in love with! Simple! Liberty working through Equality Equality working through Fraternity and Liberty, each modifying the other to do NO HARM! I am free but only until my being touches another person and then, like the ignition of an explosive, I am willingly and lovingly RESPONSIBLE! Think on it! What other corrective positive course could come out of the human disparity that was Revolutionary France? They learned that TOGETHER; TOGETHER, they were powerful! Isn't it only reasonable to nurture and embrace the power of the greater whole? That learning would never lift the individual above the community. That human crisis fostered a sense of humane responsibility for one another and that is resident in the documentation of our Democracy! That is the fundamental premise under girding “We the people”!

All my life I have been plaguing others, family, teachers, friends, associates with the question...Why? It has been an irritation to them but the question was an irritation to me first. I am about to return to the Dollar Bank Three Rivers Art Festival to bring my painting (Hope's Despair) which was selected from a field of five hundred world wide entries for the juried exhibition of 2015. When I was notified of the acceptance of Hope's Despair as one of only thirty-one paintings that would hang in the show I was amazed and bothered...Why? Why did I enter this show when I know that my valuation and pricing of my work would eliminate me from competing for the purchase prize? There were two other awards of $500 each and while that would be a “break even” (almost) award for entering, no one enters a show four hundred miles (plus) away from home to break even. The answer for my “Why?” is always in the darkness of the unknown. Something that until the right moment, would remain unseen, something that would happen as a result of the exhibition that would make a real difference in my career but was yet veiled to me is my answer to the WHY.

I confess, I am a gambler.

The proof of being a gambler is indelibly in the tabulation of loss and that for me is only an exacerbation of the question...WHY? I have made and lost three fortunes in a forty-six year career run. Now I am older and I have less time to accomplish my artistic goals and I wonder...Why? Why does it still matter to me? Will any of the products of my intent mean anything to anyone because often when I finish a work it doesn't even mean as much to me. I always start with passion and vigor but near always end up with a profound sense of occupational mediocrity. WHY? My sense of time slipping away inspired me to ask my Granddaughter who is contemplating a career as an artist to join me on my journey to Three Rivers. I want to impress upon her the importance of time and make sure she understands that an artist needs to produce art and that it is not necessary to have a college degree. I thought this might be a great opportunity to see another side of lifestyle and to examine a wide range of art that is unquestionably world acclaimed at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. I thought it might be helpful for her to feel a little of the art world's parallel to Postpartum Depression as a result of all the hype and gay la non-events that is always the art festival. She is under the impression that she needs a four year college degree to be an artist and I invited her to entreat the question...Why? I told her truthfully that I had never hired an artist on the basis of a degree. I also told her that I never hired an artist because of awards but that of the two, the latter outperformed the former.

It is a seven hour drive to Pittsburgh from Charlotte, North Carolina. We traveled from North Carolina, through a part of Virginia, through West Virginia, and into Pennsylvania over the interstate road system at speeds of seventy plus miles per hour and at each state line I wanted to erect a monument to ask for donations so that these bankrupt states could refresh the painted lines tat define the road edge and lane widths. Why is this the condition of such a significant roadway? Why is each state comfortable with the liability that comes from the neglect of road safety maintenance? If you travel that way do yourself a favor and don't drive it after dark!

Between guessing where the lanes are and trying to fit into high speed traffic flow, Emily is engaged reflecting or regurgitating what she believes I want to hear. WHY? Doesn't she understand that I am doing this to help her with some milestone decisions for her future? I have walked the path she is thinking about taking and I have some experience that should be helpful. I worked for an architect at one time who always agreed to give pay raises when asked but who seldom followed through. Neat ploy; think about it, can't argue with a “yes” response to a question that was just as easily a “no” and I never felt it was right to pressure someone who had already agreed to get me what I asked for! Wouldn't that kind of impatience be ungrateful and rude? Emily's academic career has been a pendulum swing from genius to failing and that is all that I am able to state about that. I felt like I was intruding as I tried to talk with a granddaughter that was much more of a daughter to me and I wondered WHY should this be so difficult? WHY? Each time she thinks she has a point and has captured what she thinks I want to hear she got louder, and more arrogant. We talked the whole way to Pittsburgh but I don't know if anything I had to say was really heard and I don't know what she was trying to prove either.

We bunked at the Whyndam Grand Pittsburgh which was the center of the Festival. Twelve floors up with an outstanding view of Point State Park, the merging of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers to form the Ohio River...impressive. We had to check in get presentable and be at the Preview of the exhibition which began at five PM. The schedule which I had printed from emails before we departed Charlotte had two events that I thought I needed to attend, this Preview Reception on Wednesday and the “Meet and Greet” on Friday also from five PM until seven PM. Initially I wondered...WHY two events when it could have all been done as one event but, whadda I know...right? The schedule dictated that EM and I be there for three nights which equals a specific expense in dollars but I thought the “Meet & Greet” was important so I arranged our schedule accordingly. The Preview Reception included the naming of the artist and works receiving the Best of Show award ($500) and the Purchase Award ($2500) with the only other award being the Peoples Choice Award which would be announced on June 15^th at the end of the exhibition. All the next week voting would be open from the exhibition site and through personal computers from across the world. When Em discovered the operation of the Peoples Choice Award she was on her phone to everyone she could reach asking for my support. My wife promptly called her circle of friends and the Art Guild where I am a member to ask for my support. I am touched to know that there were actually going to be people voting for me but I knew that unless a lot of people that walked through the exhibit building doors voted for me I had no chance of winning this challenge. I was pleased that immediately after exiting the elevator and rounding the first corner Hope's Despair was right there on the right as I entered the larger exhibition space. I thought that the “Meet & Greet” on the next evening might be a chance to meet potential voters and offer the story and reason for the images I reproduced because there would be no other way to know what the painting is about. I could see Em's concern for me as the celebrated artists were called forward and I assured her that I realized that my declared value of my work had already eliminated me from consideration for the purchase award, and that I was OK with not getting Best of Show. I also prepped her for the very real probability that the People's Choice would elude me as well because there is no telling what the general public would make of the painting and because I really am not a social network participant. Actually most people think my painting is about “End Times”. I looked forward to Friday night's “Meet & Greet” to “meet & greet and perhaps tell my work's story. The evening was sultry as said in “Throw Momma From the Train” and it got hot in the little room on the 4^th floor. Since this was before the actual Festival opened, I am very certain it was exhibitors with friends and family was well as the volunteers that put the event together. It was an interesting evening. I enjoyed seeing Em having the opportunity to be involved in an event of this stature. I hoped that her world was becoming larger if not richer so that she could consider art in a context building on all that she had received from the cultural efforts on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. We walked back to the hotel and retired to a little conversation and some television before resting the night. The next morning I went down to the restaurant to get a complimentary breakfast that My wife was sure would be there for me but it wasn't. It was the beginning of the fourth day of June and nothing was up on the venue. By reading the schedule I had the idea that everything would be in place by now but it wasn't so Em and I had a day that we could fill with adventure as we pleased. I really wanted to take her to the Carnegie Museum to see a world famous art and Natural History Collection. We would need the day to really see all that was there and I also thought the Warhol exhibit might interest her. I picked up a complimentary copy of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette to check out what other opportunities Pittsburgh had to offer while I had a very pricy breakfast. Em was just rolling out of the sack when I entered the room and I discovered later that she had a panic attack when she awoke and I was not there and she called EVERYONE to voice her alarm. I was a little surprised to know that Em thought I would abandon her...before the festival was over. I asked her to choose between Carnegie Museum and the Warhol exhibit because neither was free or to look through the paper for something of more interest because the whole day was open. She asked if we could tour the small towns near by where I was raised? I tried to sell the first two options over the home town tour but she seemed genuinely interested so we went to Brackenridge Pennsylvania. We toured my haunts and I shared appropriate stories while noting changes to the places I used to go. For what ever reason, the Natrona Heights Eat& Park (restaurant) was the high point to the tour. We went in to have lunch at her request and she asked if it was the same as when I was in high school? I explained that I was probably only inside the restaurant two or three times. We drove our cars round and round the restaurant until we could park and order and then we ate in the car. The management probably hated all the traffic we created and the socializing that happened from car to car because it didn't help the bottom line of the business at all. Think the TV production “Happy Days”! That is exactly what it was like. We did the whole tour before lunch and I was happy that we were getting back to the city to visit the museum. It was gratifying to watch Em take in the city and begin to negotiate this new world. From the time we addressed the purchasing of our entry passes all the way through the art and natural history exhibits she was pensive and moved as was I. She was especially touched by a photography exhibit entitled “She Who Tells a Story” which is touring the world and the work of a female Iranian photographer whose gender is a cause for suffering in the near east male context. I photographed the art as well as Em studying the art in the hope of getting a painting from the effort. I am always enamored with that museum's contents and it was a joy to share it with EM. We left Oakland and the museum after five PM to return my vehicle to the parking garage and to find somewhere to have supper before we reached the hotel. On our way, we found a Greek Restaurant not far from a parking garage and we dined on the sidewalk just before dusk. Greek food was a new experience for Em and I was proud of her daring. We had an enjoyable meal and went returned to our room at the Whyndham Grand Pittsburgh. We were interested in the activity outside and 12 floors down but we were also exhausted form the heat of the day. It was refreshing to shower and just lay down in front of the television. Next thing I knew it was morning and we had until 5 PM and the “Meet and Greet” to see the Festival. The event was not the same class and style as the 1963 Three Rivers event it was actually an Art Festival with a lot of paintings and crafts offered by anyone willing to pay the cost of a booth space. I shouldn't have been surprised because all of the ads and invitations clearly stated that the event was an art FESTIVAL. Once again I am reminded that I, like everyone want what I already believe and even if there is adequate warning I will see what I want to see. There is a salvation event only hours away and I am looking forward to an opportunity to meet people who want to know why I painted “Hope's Despair”. I am planning to pass out my business cards and make new acquaintances with Em.

I had forgotten how hot a summer day in Pennsylvania could be. Of course the humidity was high and I should have brought more comfortable clothing but again I was blinded by me and wasn't expecting an Art Festival! We toured all of the tents which offered everything from paintings to clothing for pets and there was a lot of very good food however, the prices were over the top in my opinion; $6.00 for a medium size paper drink container that was filled halfway with ice and lemonade. We toured Point State Park and returned to the boots hot and tired. We returned to the room to have a nap and get cleaned up for the “Meet & Greet”.

My next “why” is somewhat delicate and I even wonder if addressing it will serve any useful purpose. I really wanted to EM to experience something closer to a “black tie“ event and this “Meet & Greet” was my last chance because in the morning we were checking out and going home. We entered the venue on time and got into the elevator to go to the forth floor gallery where it was scheduled to be happening and there was no one there. Sometimes events are “slow starters” and thinking this might be the case we lingered there long enough to disprove that notion. One of the caterers happened through whom I asked about the “Meet & Greet” but she said she was unaware of any such event. Puzzled, thinking through at least two emails and my trek through the event schedule I am certain this “Meet & Greet” wasn't a child of my imagination. The caterer did say that there was an event on the third floor going on right now and I thought OK! It is on the third floor! I herded EM who was adorned in a Michael Kors black pant suit (not sure if that therm does it justice because it was evening, top shelf attire) into the elevator and we pushed the button to go down one floor to step into a world class evening cultural event. When the elevator door opened we stepped from an atmosphere of cultural hope into a lobby that was heavy with flatulence and I said the first thing that came to my nose. Oh God, someone farted. Em who had been doing a great job of not allowing the olfactory signals to become a verbal announcement quickly responded “I know...do you believe it?” So much for the opportunity to experience a class “act”. We went into the larger room that had not been contaminated to find a few individuals looking at photographs that were exhibited on the walls. The photos looked “third world” and I didn't see any connection with the art one floor up. I went to a table where volunteers were and asked if this was the “Meet & Greet” and they said No, this is a photo exhibit. I asked where the “Meet & Greet” was and they said they thought it ad been Wednesday at five PM. My contribution to that insight was “that was billed as a Preview Reception and the announcements said it was supposed to be tonight at five PM on the 4^th floor. Of course I was promptly told that I was on the third floor. At this point I realized that I was going nowhere fast and it was useless to keep looking for an event that was certainly nonexistent. I turned to Em and said that I intended to meet & greet so we picked out several targets and we imposed our selves upon unsuspecting photo viewers. Actually near everyone we met that night was directly or indirectly connected to the photographer that took the photos (his “Meet & Greet” apparently didn't go so well either). We startled people who were trying desperately to blend into the walls and not be seen for fear of having to talk to a stranger but it was fun. Why did any of this happen? Why does the “H” key of the keyboard never print the first time I push it? Why...the huge gathering of people in a lobby that was filled with methane? Why was the “Meet and Greet” so well announced? Why? Em and I walked back to the hotel and got ready to leave the next morning.

There was an express check out memo under my door in the morning so we gathered up all our gear and hauled it to the vehicle to follow unlined roadways back home.  Just because we're on the way home the WHYs don't stop; A radio broadcast told me that Dialmer Benz is testing an automated semi tractor truck which means that 3.5 million employed drivers will become unemployed.  WHY?  Is automation always progress?  Is progress always a good thing?  I didn't make any significant connection.  Em has decided to go into the health industry.  We didn't find the kind of class that I had hoped to be inspiration to me and EM to strive for the higher road.  To quote Tiger, "bother"...

     With the completion of Hope's Despair and readying it for transit to the Tree Rivers Art Festival In Pittsburgh Pennsylvania I have elected to add to my Sea and Harbor collection. My collection might be more classified as illustrations than paintings but I want to move toward a painterly style. I don't use oils which may be some of the problem. A painterly appearance is helped by the nature of the medium. The density of the paint with the wet blending of color on the canvas add a textural quality that is synonymous with a painterly style. Manufacturers of acrylic mediums insist that their products are capable of producing the same end result but, I haven't been able to do it. I have comfortably used extender with the medium in the production of Hope's Despair but that work does not have that painterly quality. Why is that important to me? Because I want my work to look like the “big guys”; I want to produce paintings as exciting as the great museum pieces of the world. I love the paintings with the perfectly mixed knife of color that is strategically placed on the canvas! I want to do that! It is that one stroke that makes painting (which is very difficult) look so simple and easy! We all know that less is more but if I try for less and it turns out to be more, how can I ever get to less? In my attempt to move toward a stylistic shift I have chosen to go “interactive” in the expansion of my Sea and Harbor Collection. Interactive is the nomenclature of the Acrylic manufacturer to acquire the quality of oils in a water base medium.

Before relocating to Charlotte North Carolina I lived in Charleston South Carolina in a suburb known as “Goose Creek”. We were minutes from downtown and the beaches and River Front Park. I enjoyed fishing and shooting photos of the shipping in transit and dry dock in the larger port of Charleston. Container ships, automobile transports, barges and tankers were regulars in the port and each came in with the assistance to McAllister towing. I have not been one to associate the business of “towing” with tractor tugs at work in the harbor but that was my bad. McAllister towing is a company that offers towing services from sea side to land side in many forms. During that time I photographed two tugs that have the distinctive red, black, and white identity with the large “M” in service in the harbor. The tugs are separated by time, one being constructed in 1971 and the other being put into service much later. I photographed both but only prepared the Dorothy McAllister (the 1971 tug) for painting because it is visually what anyone would expect a tug to look like. The design of the other is a step away from the traditional appearance toward “modern industrial” and perhaps a little less romantic. I don't know anything about the other vessel at this time because my plate is full with the Dorothy McAllister and I can always bite off more than I can chew; don't want to do that. Preparing the photos for painting means that I begin working with my photos to select the one that I will use for the painting and then I create a file of larger photo details for my aging eyes. I above all want to see this vessel in its entirety so that my reproduction is an experience of water, weight, metal, power, direction, and color. In Figure 1 I have laid in the sky the bridge and the water. I tried to keep the canvas wet to get the paint build up tat was a density equal to oils but found that with the addition of the retarder the paint tinned. I didn't know how much retarder should be used and this process is “seat of the pants” flying. The paint is also thin as it is in its most dense form (right out of the tube) and cutting it with the retarder is actually working against where I want to go texturally. There are other additives that can be used to do different tings to the paint however, the paint is better for thin applications in the direction of washes than a build for textural density. It is possible to build density with the acrylic however, it is harder to do as a slow dry medium. I blocked in my drawing with color (Figure 2) to visually measure (eyeball) my space relationships to make corrections and establish a solid spacial platform. Water is tough for me to paint because I have the aura of ocean water in my soul from being out there and loving it. A swell has thousands of geometric variations that define the surface of the water but I can't see those in the photograph. To know they are there but not be able to see them, to detail them, is like a joke with no punch line. I painted the right side over and over again hoping that the new interactive approach would make my quest more reachable but when I applied the “unlocking” formula (a spray that softens the dried paint to make the surface workable again) it went as deep as the layers on the canvas and thinned the paint even more and I repainted the repaint again. The painting as it is now is shown in Figure 3. The water at the right front is better but still not what I want it to be. I have resorted to using small linear +- applications to sculpt the swells in order to imply volume and movement. The vessel is much tighter but it isn't finished yet. The sun light against the red painted steel is not as luminescent as it was that morning and I will be addressing that on my next visit. Every time anyone asks me how the work is progressing I always reply, It is a struggle...because it is. I don't believe that overpowering the medium is the way to get the best out of the tools because that approach doesn't work anywhere else in the natural order of things. I think I've found MY way of using interactive acrylics but I know my way cannot ever be the only way. The surface of figure 3 does have a textural quality which places me a step closer but still with a distance to go.

I suspect that this painting will appeal to a very small audience but I had hoped that it will appeal to males in industry needing office wall treatments. I have walk in visitors occasionally and at the start of this painting a woman visitor confessed to being a “tug boat” fan! Whodathunkit! I like heavy equipment but I also want to celebrate American heavy industry. Heavy industry is disappearing from the GNP. The large industries that built this country are dying or are dead and I wonder what that will do to a country with vast national interests. I was taught that our industrial power was the key to turning the tide against the Axis powers of the last world war. I don't believe that we have seen the last of world conflict in an all out global assault, I believe we are coming closer to that conflict every day and we no longer have the capability to affect the kind of change we brought to WW2.

Years ago I was retained to assist a major industry in bringing a facet of its business into the latest century in form and function. This was a design project that shifted its base of knowledge from a human base to a new computer based form called Artificial Intelligence. This particular business had many industrial venues which produced a variety of industrial manufacturing products one of which was the locomotive. One day management began to notice there were fewer people in the process that had the working knowledge to continue the locomotive manufacturing process. Between death and retirement the human base for the continuation of the industry had been celebrated/mourned right out the gate! It became paramount for the continuation of the industry that the few surviving manufacturing leaders convey their knowledge to an accessible storage system and into the care of the company. While the steps from the forges to assembly were textbook, there was an abundance of “practical know-how” that wasn't recorded anywhere, but had been passed on from man to man and was now was endanger of being lost forever. Two very large industrial pursuits in this corporate giant were up against the same kind of dilemma so it became prudent to develop Artificial Intelligence as the best solution. All that to ask this, what happens to this country when its industrial skills are lost?

Let me fill in the particulars regarding this mechanized marvel: the vessel was built in 1970 and rebuilt in 2005. This is a “Z” drive tractor tug that is powered by two Cat 3516B engines. The DM is equipped with two John Deer Power Tech generators (99KW). The vessel length is 109' and the overall length is 109'. Her beam is 29' and er depth is 16'-3”. Her gross tonnage is 243, her net tonnage is 72. Her draft loaded is 13'-5” and er draft light is 12'. She carries 20,000 gallons of fuel oil and 710 gallons of lube oil. Her engines produce 4000 horse power and a bollard pull of 50 tons. Her free running speed is 12 knots. She can accommodate a crew of eight in heated/air conditioned space. She is equipped with a Jon Rie Inter Tech Series 200 bow winch and 450' of 7” neutron rope. The fire fighting equipment on board is 6-71w/Goulds pump @ 2000 gallons/minute. Fire monitoring is done by two 1,500 gallon capacity foam units. Two Schottel SRP 1012 Propellers transform 4000 horses into movement. This craft is built to “man handle” any load but the truth is that the awesome power in this tractor tug has to be applied with the care and control of a neurosurgeon.

Power is a blessing tat can quickly become a curse in the hands of the inept. If everyone with power approached opportunities with the same gate as the tractor tug pilot there would be fewer problems in our world. The notable thinkers of the ancient world cautioned all who had the responsibility to bestow power, to refrain from making the gift to the person that wanted it most. Their theory was the person that wanted it least was the one who would manage it the best. Managing it best in this instance meaning that the power would be applied in a manner so as not to do harm. The world witnessed what will always happen when power is given to someone who is unworthy just last week on the north side of the port city of Charleston. Another unbelievable video example of the abuse of power by a community trustee. That video was hard to watch because the officer took a life with no provocation and absolutely no hesitation. While the man he shot did some bewildering tings, there was no reason for using deadly force. I don't believe there was reason to use any kind of force. Too many of us use force unjustifiably. We use it in traffic, in the work place, on the playgrounds, in social situations, and in the family but because we don't have the right to use deadly force we are bullies instead of murders. Behavior that is emotional is prone to rely on the application of excessive force.

I just watched a video of Samuel Jackson (actor) who was trying to incite his fellow celebrities to become more vocal regarding the police abuse of power in regard to men of color. I say “tried” because I think his appeal wasn't an appeal at all. I would expect a seasoned actor to understand his medium and the importance of moving an appeal to the formal state of a request so as to engage more people in the support of the problem. What should have been a “request” came across as intimidation. Most of what Samuel Jackson does comes across as intimidation. Intimidation is never the way to gain support because it is threatening behavior. The video commentator resisted Jackson's appeal (or lack of appeal) but I'm not sure if it was because he was resisting intimidation or because he really had a view of these recent events that in some way justified police abuse of power. Intimidation is bullying. I don't know of anyone that enjoys being bullied, black or white r otherwise. I find hypocritical irony in Jackson's attempt to lead the way to justice when he is taking the money of the bank card industry and is influencing the sale of many poor and middle class persons into economic slavery; many more individuals than the number of black males killed by police. By the way, this economic bondage is exactly like the bondage the Hebrews were under in Egypt and it was called slavery. Moses' response was to cry “Let my people go” but Jackson can only entice by asking, “What's in your wallet?” Power is like wealth, few of us are able to handle it without causing a lot of harm.

It is snowing outside right now in Roanoke Virginia. Just a few hours ago the light level outside was like those moments between dusk and night. It was cold and GLOOOOMY. The light at this moment is coming through a cloud layer and even though that is an obstruction it is exponentially brighter than before. Humans do better in the light. Light is in a way a coded permission for us to be bolder and to be more active. The dark on the other hand is a reason to us to be cautious. We do venture out into the early evening but mostly into places that are well lighted. When artificial light is diminished, the result is less and less human activity. The light is empowering to us because our eyes are our prioritized sensory receptors and that fosters a sense of control. Our vision is our default sense for most if not all of our human behavior even though sight is not necessarily always the most effective sense to be relying upon. According to researchers that contributed to a Discovery program about human perception, our vision will over-ride one or more of our other sensory receivers. The selection process is instantaneous and unconscious and the result is very often less reliable. Think for a moment about the value of an “eye witness”. There was a time when the eye witness was regarded to be a irrefutable evidence, but not so today. What just happened at Sandy Hook Connecticut? What Happened in Aurora? What happened in the theater in Colorado? It is easy to regurgitate the ending and use that as a summary but that is not an in depth answer to the question. Our absolute trust that our visual perception is an irrefutable evidence is the reason we can all come away from these kinds of scenarios passionately believing that we know what happened and yet all testifying to different accounts. The Discovery program spoke to how unreliable our visual perception actually is.

Every faith movement has a teaching that is a warning that all of us have the propensity to careen down the hallway of life believing that we “know” exactly what we are doing but, our outcomes testify that we don't.  The Judeo Christian narrative has all of human trouble beginning with “knowing”.   Other religions have very similar warnings of being too confident and too passionate because we are all prone to becoming “corrupted” and the corruption is a filter for all of our experiences.  The warning in a nut shell is that what we think we are going to receive will be one hundred eighty degrees from our actual harvest.  I wonder if you have heard that the roadway to hell is paved with good intentions?   I confess that there are many events in my personal life that have ended in disaster but each time I started out to do something “good”.  The ebb and flow of our human frailty in and out of darkness is my inspiration and my motivation for this painting.  To my mind, the fitting beginning for the work is a dense back-drop of black. The black is always just a decision away in everyone's life.  If you are a stranger to darkness you are either childlike which is to say that you have managed to stay uncorrupted or, you are suffering from an incredible sense of self awareness.  I don't want to gloss over the last alternative too quickly because “an incredible lack of self awareness” means that those around you know that you have problems and that you need some kind of help.  The most available kind of "help" is advise.  The thought is that if our problem is put into words we can know the problem and then work on some remedy.  If you're a person of the last alternative you have been the intended target of personal messages, virtual telephone calls, but you have been oblivious to the ringing phone.  The scary part of this scenario which is the premise I am painting, is that everyone of us have a ringing phones! Each of us can't comprehend how everyone else is so stupid to not know the phone is ringing...while our own phone is ringing off the hook. While our inability to perceptually understand our own context seems to me to be inescapable, the affect of our context is individually and profoundly felt.  making the same mistake over and over again is costly and painful!

I don't know of many people regardless of their financial status, their social standing, or even their birth advantage, who do not ebb and flow in and out of the darkness of human frailty. Black is the base from which I have sculpted a pictorial witness of hope's despair.   It is easy to understand how poverty, a damaged self image, a deformity, a mental illness, depression, eating disorders, persecution, and predation to mention a few, play in swathing the crippling darkness around our lives however the polar opposites are just as likely to draw us from the light.  Being wealthy, being beautiful, being popular, being athletic, being talented can also bring a shroud of darkness to rule over us. 

It is as thought all of the things we know aren't good for us, rule our development.  We don't want them but there they are!  We want the good things, those things that will be good to us and to those around us but it doesn't happen.  Even if we manage to get a good thing, the corruption with in us will create a way to use it for a dark purpose.  The truth is that anything that can contact us can become a taunt from hell.

The perception that we act upon is unreliable and we don't seem to have the capacity to be aware enough to be able to create our own change.

The one thing that all of the human representations in this painting have in common is that each one believes he/she is irreproachably right, and even righteous. Everyone is acting on the best of intentions but look...at what is going on. In the Christian church, there is a quip; “you”re preaching to the choir” which is to say the people that really need to hear the message...don't usually because they didn't even show up!  The people who do hear the message are usually those who needed to hear it least.  This phenomenon in the Christian community has been addressed by Jesus and the “speck or splinter in the eye” illustration.   It goes like this; Before you correct someone make sure you don't need the same correction.   If we don't appear to be able to maintain the degree of self realization that is necessary to be able to know when we have lost sight of the mark, what is there to do?   Where can we turn to get back on track?   Where can we go to learn the “best” way?   Who can we listen to learn how to turn a life into a “noble” course?   Who can we turn to “be” rerouted on the “right” way?  If we shouldn't offer anyone correction and we are too arrogant to receive advise, could books be our remedy?   How many books do you suppose there are that might actually teach us how to be human in a way that will do others good?   There must be books upon books to help us through this mire after all, this is an epic human problem.   Even when we set aside the books that have been written to be pure entertainment there are still thousands of books at our disposal.  I would think that the “Holy Books” of the civilized world might be a very good place to begin our search, because spiritual endeavors are essentially about peace and harmony.   Spiritual pursuits are never just about an individual “self” being at peace because we don't exist alone in this place.   Spiritual development is about confirming the value of all living organisms and accepting our individual responsibility to insure their peace as well.  The teaching that comes to mind is “love one another” and “do no harm”.   But wait...being able to READ the words on the pages doesn't guarantee that we will understanding the meaning of the message.   History will validate there have been many powerful and highly educated individuals who were very well read but who nonetheless committed horrific acts against other human beings and even creation in the very name of the god they purported to follow!  There doesn't seem to be anything that we can come into contact with that we cannot turn into a lethal weapon.  Not that these instruments are any kind of weapon at all but that by our affliction and/or corruption...we have the ability and more importantly the desire to transform any instrument into a killing device.   If we could gather up all of the mechanized weapons in this world and destroyed them all, we would still find a way to kill each other.   Don't forget that we didn't begin our violent history with mechanized, long range killing apparatuses, the violence began with our hands at close range.   The human figures in my visual metaphysical framework come out of my Christian experience but the symbols that make some of them recognizably Christian could easily be changed to be a symbol of any of the major world religions and the painting would remain a valid statement.   On a daily basis we all do harm to the people closest to us. We really do assassinate our “brothers” and “sisters” in the name of the very God we serve as "business as usual".   When they're dead, we're glad they are dead!   The wonder, the terror of this is that no one in camp ever seems to be aware of the magnanimous conflict our behavior is with the example of Christ!  For a Christian, the preeminent example is Christ, for the Muslim the example is Ala; I know you get the idea.   This painting is a suggestion that it is quite possible to be totally blind at the very moment that we think we have perfectly clear and unobstructed vision.   Because our trek and purpose have originated in the pages of scripture which is not to imply that the actor actually read it, but only that we “picked it up”, I have chosen to paint that quality of sight as a dense albeit “golden” mask that is sutured directly to the face.   It actually hurts to have the mask applied.  Even if the recipient is history's biggest novice, there will be a steady stream of teachings that will conflict with the basic platform of loving that are obvious red flags.  Loving is an inescapable characteristic of every mainline faith even if it is not particularly pronounced.  Because the novice followers know they are new to this theater and still because they are still humble, they trust their leadership believing that when they know more, and that “it” will all come together.   They continue on the path of despair with the belief that knowledge will cure the discrepancies, realign the bad fits, and all of it will make total sense...but it never does.   The gaps and contradictions become quieted in mind because everyone else seems to be OK with it.   In other words "sheep conformity" kicks in and the follower stays but is from then on...non participatory. "Sheep conformity" will provide a way for others who frankly are not in the camp for any spiritual reason to accept near everything that is presented to them with out investigation or question.   Those who remain will trade their humility and innocence for complacency but factions will move into arrogance and a sense of superiority as they grow into their own select “issues” as a substitution for genuine discipleship. The transformation in this woeful direction is enabled by teaching that is traditionally designed to build the “institution”.   Know that as this is happening, those who haven't yet grown into their mask...sense it as an awkward fit and at that point have a decision to make.  They either choose to ride it out or they choose to walk.   This experience is uncomfortable because the novice follower is nonetheless aware that an regular inordinate demand for time hardly ever becomes a spiritual benefit.  There is a lot of time spent together with the following but little time or attention on personal spirituality.  The novice doesn't yet know that an institution is incapable of orchestrating any personal spirituality but the institution won't admit that.  Some will recognize that what they thought would be happening...isn't, and they leave.  At this point many opt out never to return again; those folk aren't in the painting.   Those who remain, will slowly learn to mimic spirituality at every gathering opening and at every gathering closing but only the new god, the “institution” and "community" will be taught in between.   Ancient writings, some worthy to be considered scripture but many others that make no claim to that status are offered as having the same authority because doing that is useful for the purpose of building the “institution”.   The bare bones fact is that the core teaching of Christian spirituality is so simple and so text limited that it is impossible to build an institution on it alone.   The simple precepts that evidence spirituality are apparition like in the dark background of the painting.  The institution has traditionally used them as programs knowing that programs can make use of coercion and shame.  Programs are examples of passive social pressure models that conscript and envelope participants.  In the business of realizing a greater humanity in the name of love...does that model fit?   Inappropriate methods like this get the attention of the novice follower and legitimately make them wonder; it doesn't take a PhD.   When Jesus spoke to these evidences they were intended to be just that, evidences of a genuinely transformed heart.  Doing these things every day will not transform my heart or anyone's heart.   Trying to do this without a genuine transformation will wear you down and rob you of your joy.  Is this business about our united responsibility to transform the world or is it personal with the expectation that any genuine personal transformation toward Christ-likeness has the power to change the world one person at a time?   The institution is portrayed in the painting as an ancient ornate structure that is a burning ruin. Fire is consuming the structural timbers and the remains have fallen to the highly polished floor below.   The fire wasn't started by anyone in particular but is a fire similar to the kind of fire that can combust in an old pile of oily rags.  The fuel has been accumulating since the path to recreate a Judaic religious community as the new operational forum for Christian thought.   Over the centuries theological knowledge has been deliberately concealed from the body of believers.  Concealed truths are secrets.  Secrets are like oily rags; one oily rag tossed upon another in a secluded dark corner where the air was stale until slowly the heat produced smoke and then flame.  The flames have been raging since the end of the nineteenth century when Europe and the west began to benefit from the scholarship resulting from the second World War.  People were on the threshold of the information era and the institutional game was revealed for what it was.  Too many people in Europe and the west had been through it and the first hand knowledge of all that it wasn't forced  the institutionalists to look to third world shores.  If that sounded predatory I didn't mean it to.  Some of the leadership is simply beguiled. Some of the leadership is intimidated. Some of the leadership know exactly what they are doing and even that it is wrong.  There has been a struggle within the institution regarding scholarship integrity since the personal computer made research so fast. The fire hasn't been enough to make the leadership count the cost. Even now the plan is the same stop the, often the programs are fitted with new titles but the objective is the same. Every day in the institutional context is a day of inertia and momentum away from an original desire for a more meaningful personal form of humanity. I have had many conversations over a twenty year period with people who came into the church to only to find the all of the wrongs of the world stronger inside. The problem has been studied and the conclusion has been that once this has been the experience, it is certain those people will never return. They don't! More and more each year the institution has placed pressure on its leaders to bring more people in. That has risen to the top as the only criteria that will prove effectiveness of a minister. Bringing people in was easier when they were uneducated, but people are much smarter today. In today's world we are more likely to find non church members behaving more like Jesus than the membership does. People who have no religious affiliation or have a very casual one are doing redemptive work in the world because they are grateful and they simply want to help! The male in the lower left corner in the art doesn't have a mask because he is my symbol of the secular believer. He has an arresting hand on another individual who is in harm's way not because it is the program, not because he thinks that he has to to be acceptable but because the guy needs help. Having a great following is an affect of reverse sheep conformity. Staggering membership numbers is a kind of declaration that we are RIGHT! This is the thought: if everyone else (a definite over exaggeration and deliberate swing to the extreme) is with us, how can we possibly be wrong? We're smart enough to know that argument doesn't hold water when our teenaged son or daughter uses it but, we embrace it in this context because the scheme is working. How can it be wrong if it is working? An aside: there are a great number of schemes that worked quite well but which proved to be criminal in the end. Ever heard of World was I and II? How about Jonestown? For some in the following there is a day of awaking that is mournful because it is the day that we realize that we've been had. No one wants to admit that they have been had. Worst of all we can look back at all of the righteous confrontations we've had over the years and count the people that we harmed. Some of the deceived feel it but stay where they are because they have a reputation and a legacy. The part of the legacy for them that is most worrisome is family. Very few leave at this juncture. They remain, they repress the sheep conformity but they also usually lose the desire to seek the spirituality that they wanted at the beginning of their journey. Not wanting to admit that years of their living was misguided and knowng that the leadership can't be trusted they just sit there.

I've painted the issues that force seekers away from the real point of their journey to be bubbles. These issues, like the bubbles that children blow on a summer day are at a larger scale but because we really can't know, because there is no absolute solution, there is no single answer. The thickness of the skin of a soap bubble is to my mind synonymous with the probability of there being any corporate answer. The issues are real and certainly worthy of addressing however, never to the point that we loose sight of the reason that brought us to this point. No one solution will satisfy everyone! There is no one single response that will make everyone happy because the very nature of these issues are private and personal. Many congregations and outsiders mistake the activity created by these groups as being the evidence of vibrant congregational life but nothing could be farther from the truth. The issues become community gates that admit those of like mind but shut out those with a different point of view. While the like minded of that local congregation congeal, in the larger picture the issues are divisive and parasitic with regard to the original quest. It is only because the following is ignorant of the character of God and the necessarily corresponding character of Christ that they suffer on believing that what they do is the work of God.

By the way, Jesus' purpose wasn't to create a regimen of exercises designed to cure all of the world's problems. The salvation of others is not our first responsibility. The integrity of our personal transformation and how we meet life is the only affective witness. Those who choose to ride the bubbles upward and away from the safety of “the way” provided by Christ. They should be able to realize the danger of venturing so far away but the business of the issue keeps them focused. The bubbles rise upward until our time line ends and they burst leaving us anywhere but healthy spiritually; and its too late! As the skin of the bubble contracts to nothingness all who were once upon them fall into the abyss. According to Jesus, all God wants is that we stand on the integrity of our living. The truth is that even before the bubble burst the riders were losers. Being so far away from the simple truth they gave away the joy of living and cultivated frustration, chaos, and futility.

I am now at that place in time where I have to deal with the extreme right and left of my canvas and you will recall that I don’t have reliable photographic reference soooo…what now?  I had been moving smoothly through the background until now.  I don’t want what I am about to say about process to seem mechanical to you because my method up to this point has been intuitive.  The right side of the painting will need to be redone because the rhythm of contrast and color took time for me to “lock on to”.  As I studied the light and color movement I began to “feel” what was happening in the photo frame that made this composition exciting and only then was I able to reproduce it.  The dynamic of the photos is to change with every added element.  The sun being a point source of light is radiating incremental differences in light and shadow so there is a predictable variation with every branch, tree, and object.  The time of day, the day of the year, the direction of the shot, and even the equipment will affect the photograph.  When I ran out of the photo reference at the extreme left of the canvas and as I began to use the “make-up” shot…I tripped!  I intuited the next step but the visual of the “make-up” photo didn’t fit!  What do I do?  I did what came natural to me and what would probably come naturally to you in a similar situation.  In the sixties there was a psychological study of the play ground and the tendency for new arrivals, especially if the child was smaller, more timid, or just “different” to be harassed.  The discovery for that study was that as soon as someone weaker or looked even more “different” arrived on the playground the harassment shifted and even the one that had just experienced being the target of unjust, undeserved ill will, joined right in.  Bullying is a resident member to our human nature. To every plan that is foiled or for each unexpected turn of fate there is a direct default response; FORCE IT! CRAM IT IN THERE! MAKE IT FIT!  BULLYING is the universal default management style!

Bullying is in the news now but bullying has been around forever because it is party to our socialization processes.  I think there is enough evidence in human history to prove that when the species feels crowded, we begin to kill our own.  Does it have to be?  Probably not however, a change of nature is required to stem it or stop it and that kind of interpersonal change to my personal experience is nothing short of miraculous; that is to say a real miracle.  I can’t imagine anyone in this time not having been indirectly if not directly touched by it, but for that one who has been sheltered Wikopedia will explain.

“Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior manifested by the use of force or coercion to affect others, particularly when the behavior is habitual and involves an imbalance of power. It can include verbal harassment, physical assault or coercion and may be directed repeatedly towards particular victims, perhaps on grounds of race, religion, gender, sexuality, or ability.^[2][3] The "imbalance of power" may be social power and/or physical power. The victim of bullying is sometimes referred to as a "target".

Bullying consists of three basic abusive types: emotional, verbal, and physical. It typically involves subtle to obvious methods of coercion such as intimidation. Bullying can be defined in many different ways. The UK currently has no legal definition of bullying,^[4] while some U.S. states have written law against it.^[5]

Bullying ranges from simple one-on-one bullying to more complex bullying. A bully may be only one individual but will always have have one or more 'lieutenants' who are more than ready to exacerbate violations over interpersonal boundaries. A bully can be a community and even a nation. Bullying in school and the workplace is also referred to as peer abuse.^[6] Robert W. Fuller has analyzed bullying in the context of rankism...

Bullying can occur in any context in which human beings interact with each other. This includes school, church, family, the workplace, home, and neighborhoods. It is even a common push factor in migration. Bullying can exist between social groups, social classes, and even between countries (see jingoism). In fact, on an international scale, perceived or real imbalances of power between nations, in both economic systems and in treaty systems, are often cited as some of the primary causes of both World War I and World War II.^[7][8]”

I had a genuine Aha experience when I read the definition because I immediately recognized that definition of behavior to be a time proven default management style that has been deeply embedded in culture: eastern culture, western culture, familial culture, social culture, corporate culture...you get the idea. Bullying is everywhere.  In my personal corporate experience I have found that the more inept the manager, the greater the tendency to rely upon coercion, assault, and abusiveness to “motivate” (for want of a more accurate word) employees.  It may be a surprise to you to know that the anti-bullying laws created for the protection of children might be able to be used to address bullying in the work place.  Two people very close to me have to deal with exactly this kind of behavior now in their respective workplaces and I commiserate with them.  Before I retired I had to deal with the same “management” style (I use that term loosely) and as a direct result I retired early!  Anytime an artist or manager, has lost sight of the larger picture and is no longer in tune with the rhythms of life, the meaning of being human in the business place and in our individual responsibility for the larger social context darkness ensues. As the behavioral stretch for a humane higher ground shrinks everyone is adversely affected.  Buried on this canvas at the extreme right and left, underneath the paint are some very colorful words.  Focusing too tightly on one aspect of a complex integrated whole is a sure way to invest a lot of time only to find that all the effort was at the expense of the larger picture.  Belittling someone today to prove to them they are powerless and that YOU have supreme control is a sure way to lose a lot of business time next week because someone will need to build those people back up before they will be able to function at even the former level!  However talented and determined to remedy the result of the unfair attack, they will never again be at that same level again because they were personally assaulted; the respect for that manager is gone forever.  That manager will never get it back.  On top of not having the visual details the way I wanted them I compromised ALL of the painting! I “leaned” on it! I “pushed” at it! I tried to “force” the pallet! (Leaned, pushed, forced; verbs of coercion) I tried to paint to an intellectual understanding of the pine! After hours expended, I blew it.  Not only did I fail to progress the work but, I also lost precious time and then in recognition of “all that I accomplished”, I did issue forth ugly albeit colorful words that are too misshapen to be repeated here!  (I have a real concern that if the surface of the paint is broken in either of those areas those words will be reanimated like the Frankenstein monster and flow back to torture the civil world.)  Perhaps a warning is in order?   WARNING: Children should not be allowed to stand directly in front of the right or left flanks for fear of any loosed reanimated descriptive s!

All that to say this, when I’m not certain of what is to come next, I have learned to step back to find myself in the larger scheme of things.  Whatever will happen, it will be best if the action is a harmonious, positive extension of what has been.  Extreme changes always require more time, much extensive planning, hours of personal guidance, and one on one individual support.  NOW is the time for a creative solution.  I can’t make the image of the “make-up” photo carry the weight of the panorama if I paint the image exactly as it is.  The weight or burden must be legitimate and one part should never be elevated to the worth of the whole, unless of course I have changed businesses or the subject of my painting.  A part has a legitimate demand burden in relationship to the whole but it is always a fraction of the whole.  Corporations fail because the legitimate burden is artificially multiplied for the sake of personal gratification by competitive middle management.  In the East the camel has been the eighteen wheeler of antiquity and hence a saying; “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” How many more straws, how much more abuse before disaster?  When I abuse the pictorial harmony the result is the same as it is for the corporation, the basic parts stop working for me. I knew that the flanks would be a problem to me and even so I was caught and toppled by it.  It is time to regroup and to thoughtfully plot the revision of each flank. 

“Oh No!” Another interruption! I’m still moving in and still dealing with the demands of life in general. I don’t know about you but restarts are troubling to me. Each time I leave my painting to deal with some issue I have to go through the process of finding my “place” again. I have to go through the process of re-establishing my color pallet and my application method. Restarts are time consuming and therefore always costly. Every time I feel the pinch of a time thief I think of those painters like Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and notable others who just wouldn’t have let any of this “stuff” interfere with their work. Some even walked away from their personal obligations to paint! They not only left places but they left loved ones behind for the sake of their art! I could never do that. I admire that and at the same time I resent it. When I get taken away from my work, I think to myself, to hell with all of this “stuff”! I need to be more like one of those guys and just paint! I wish I could but there are others who depend on me: my partners in life which include spouse, doctors, grocers, family, taxes, and telemarketers. It really doesn’t take very long to do a painting especially with acrylics. Tools of modernity have allowed artists like me who haven’t left everything and everybody to paint, reclaim some of the time lost to interruptions and delays. I don’t know about you but I appreciate every technological advantage at my disposal especially since I can’t responsibly do anything to prevent interruptions.

If you studied Art History in the 60s you have probably read the many commentaries of Bernard Berenson. He was to say the least prolific with regard to his commentaries especially regarding the masterpieces of the art world. He was leading his piers with the best education and he was passionate about art. I remember so well his comments regarding the remarkable technique of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes with regard to the harmony of his color pallet. In the years after undergraduate school where I first became introduced to Mr. Berenson I have met a score of artists who insisted that painting like the Masters essentially meant that a dab of burnt umber should be added to every color on the pallet. In other words there would need to be a “muddy” quality to the paint and this was at least partially because of the high praise for the beauty of the Master’s color pallet according to the Art Historians all of who echoed Berenson. It wasn’t all Berenson’s doing though, this course was validated by anyone’s visual inspection! How could anything about this be amiss? Bernard needed to have a tatting on his wall that says “Oh No!” because in the late 60’s the church set out to take care of some business that the Art Historians didn’t know anything about. I know that most of the other historians and critics of Berenson’s time just repeated Berenson and even though they may have actually viewed the works there is no evidence to suggest that anyone ever talked to the clerics that lived in the chapel context. Why would that be significant? It is significant because it was up to the people of the “cloth” to keep the chapel lighted and they did that with tallow candles. The person that works with tallow candles will know the nature and consequences of the implement. In small spaces as well as the vastness of the chapel ceiling the nature is the same however it is the small places that the consequences are readily encountered. Any cleric in the Sistine Chaple will tell you in a heartbeat, Tallow candles are DIRTY! Carbon from the flame is sent upward with adhesion properties that bond it to whatever surface they first engage. Sure enough, when the chapel ceiling was cleaned just a little over forty years ago the true color of Michelangelo’s pallet was revealed and it was vivid, strong and exciting! Well…what are we to do with this then? The Master’s work is no longer extraordinary because of all that the Art Historians have said about it! Why then is it a masterpiece? It is admittedly true that the “color harmony” wasn’t the only quality to Michelangelo’s work; there were other aspects that placed him on the edge of his period as well as his undeniable and visually obvious draughtsman ship but it is first and foremost the commission that has placed him in textbooks. There are many directions that I could go with this but the reason I brought it to this blog is because color is undeniably exciting and rich. When Pope Julius evaluated Michangelo’s painting he didn’t see paint coated with centuries of carbonized animal fats. Julius saw an artist who boldly used color in a way that was as edgy as his draughtsman ship. He appreciated it and gave it the highest praise possible, the commission to do the ceiling. Art shows are fun and the compliments that come of showing are OK however, at the end of the day the compliment that goes the distance and the compliment that will prepare the way for other works of equal value or greater, is the one that is an exchange for the work; the purchase.

I wonder about the wisdom of being too accessible. I think it is quite possible for a talented artist to be verbally inarticulate. Blogs, as I understand it are essential to sales in the internet community but it may be better to have someone other than the artist do the writing. Even though Bernard Berenson had it all wrong regarding the artist and the work his explanations sounded great! Bernard Baruch (prominent financier in the 1920s) made a fortune when everyone else was selling/ crashing during the collapse of Wall Street in the 20s because he didn’t answer the phone! Accidents are just that, accidents! Accidents are unplanned and under the intellectual radar and they are often the very component that will launch a work from obscurity into public consciousness! But what happens when the artist can’t explain the very quality that made the difference? What happens when the artist can’t explain the very quality that makes that art extraordinary? Is that to be accounted for good or for bad? There are more than just a fair number of artists who have been dazzled by their own intellectual depth as it was broadcast by some art critic! We can turn out to be deeply intellectual if not downright philosophical because of a viewer’s interpretation and following. Much of the time the silent thought of the artist has been, “I was just making a painting; who knew”? There is nothing wrong with a little mystery as a matter of fact mystery has the potential to sweeten the deal. Not telling all in Blogs and /or personal interviews may be what needs to be done to allow for the viewer to participate in the the piece and I think that the more people we get to participate in the work, the more that work “belongs” to everyone. I suspect that public ownership has a lot more to do with recognition and demand in the long run. It is probably much more complicated than that; most everything else is, besides; the older I get, the less that I am sure of.

Everyone that has ever picked up a brush has been told directly or indirectly that using white or black to emulate light or darkness in color is a mistake. There is no doubt that it is absolutely true that white dilutes the richness of the hue; the black is a lot like the tallow over the paint on the ceiling; both diminish the richness that we all expect when we encounter color. Take a good look at the colorscape around you; isolate the largest field of color and then try to match it with pigment. Every time I do that I discover that the energy level of the field is always greater than I first thought. As you can see in the photo, I have blocked in large areas of color that “approximate” an average hue and temperature. I prefer to establish the mid range and work up as well as down; one way but not the only way. Of course the average will shift as the nature of the light will change it in recesses and protrusions of the mountain. From these blocks I re-establish the shapes within my grid areas and develop detail. I want my viewer to smell the pollen and to hear the rustle of leaves blown by a summer breeze.  I want you to be drawn into the shadows and I want you to try to see more. Of course there won’t be any more to see but creating an appetite in the viewer is the evidence of a good painting. It is the same for entertainment and that is the reason we pay the price for sequels. MORE makes the world go round! More can enslave as well as liberate! Wanting more is basic to our nature but not every work or product has the power to satisfy this part of our nature; but I think art should do that.

“The ability to express an idea is well nigh as important as the idea itself.”
Bernard Baruch