To thine own self be true

The layers of illusion-reality

(“Embarkation”, subject of a rare signed book Embarkation: The Genesis of a Painting which I own, that I bought at a local gallery)

(Colville’s signatures are usually on the small side)

(an awesomely rare signed personal letter)

……………………………

Thomson, MacDonald, and Harris were the first great artists of the 20th century, but because they focused on landscapes exclusively, they lacked the range and variety of Alex Colville’s work.

Colville subtly and deeply affected my consciousness and sensibility. His work speaks eloquently and timelessly about man’s inhumanity to man (his WWII paintings and drawings), man and nature, the unnoticed juxtapositions in daily life, the implicit dangers within life, and the mysteries of people, relationships, and life.

My list of favorites is a long one:

-Dead Paratrooper near Deventer Holland (1945)

-The History of Mount Allison (1948)

-Tragic Landscape (1948)

-Children in Tree (1957)

-Dog, Boy and St. John River (1958)

-Dog, Boy and School Bus Ocean Limited (1962)

-June Noon (1963)

-Snow (1969)

-Professor of Romance Languages (1973)

-Looking Up (1975) –on a poster in my garage

-Swimming Dog and Canoe (1979)

-Main Street (1979)

-Cyclist and Crow (1981)–on a poster over my bed

-At Grand Pre (1982)

-Steve (1988)

-Chaplain (1991)

-Embarkation (1994)–c.f. above

-Coyote and Alders (1995)

-On a River (1996)–on a poster over my study door

-St. Croix (1997)

-Dog in Car (1995)

-Terrier and Crow (2001)

-William (2002)

…………………………

Most of my journey the last 5 years have been about consciousness which was a recurring theme in Colville’s work. Colville was the first Canadian painter whose work I saw which intrigued and fascinated me. His best work, for me, always starts with a definite immediate feelings, mood, or impression followed by a sense of implied context and hidden narrative. Much of his work has moved my heart, mind, and spirit. No app could ever replace Alex Colville and his body of work!

Find the blog author, as usual the band leader, 20.

(Wayne, the main computer programmer for Calgary City now retired, mentioned in next poem, in white sweater playing a righty12 string left-handed–talk about a learning curve! Chris Harman, now the prominent Baltimore women’s doctor, singing harmony. Sandy, a younger teen on electric bass; fate unknown.)

Look Ma, no monitors! (How bands played live through the ’70s. You really counted on an external ‘sound man’ for balance with no feedback.)

We/I got a lot of gigs some at U of W via The Folk Concert booker, who was my cousin, and who later took over my place in the band when I moved to Edmonton.

(the 15 year anniversary CD recording of my songs in Wayne’s basement, Calgary)

(Poem for Wayne and the way it was 15 years earlier…)

Remembering who or what I was
slowly, in pieces returning,
the way I felt without
ever knowing where
I was really going.
In a dark grove somewhere,
the smell of evergreen
all around and the sound
of voices mixing together
harmonizing like a warm dream.

Never having to think,
only singing the next song
playing the next gig,
enjoying the passing fanship
and increasing respect
of peers and those searching
for something similar
in a world ever-revolving.

I hear that spirit today–
the simplicity of it all
a guitar, some drums
and bass moving through
the chord changes
and lovin’ sounds.
Sounds beyond school,
university and some
much-dreaded 9 to 5
waiting for us all
down the road.

It was all too easy and obvious
back then, those dreams.
Whatever was possible
arose in a basement
in a club, or on a swing
sitting around creating, sharing.
It was its own thing very much.
It was its own magic
and raison d’etre.
Our youth, our music–
together we were, once.

“Watch the day fade away, babe
Watch the passing of Sunday (Sunday!)
Watch the day fade away, babe
Watch the passing of Sunday (Sunday!)….”

-Ian and Sylvia Tyson, “Sunday”, Lovin’ Sound

Who or what would you be willing to die for?

The sort of question which helps to set or confirm priorities and values. The sort of question which, first of all, clarifies one’s own level of self-centeredness vs. other/s. It, of course, may not come to that, but is perhaps still relevant in such medical matters as donating blood or organs. The notion that, despite one’s situation or mortality, one may help or contribute to, even live on in someone else, so to speak.

As I have said several times previously in this blog, the best gifts are the gifts of self. This big question and the other discussed possibilities reveal how that may be true in extraordinary, unexpected, yet significant ways.

(an RD installation)

Something about energy and enthusiasm, chi most likely, and its movement toward…?
Where is one going today? Is there a sense a movement or moving forward toward something (maybe even someone).

Likely something resembling felt meaning and purpose. “This is my goal or plan for the day. This really reflects who I most am, what represents my best, and some vague road to peace, pleasure, (outer) destiny, (inner) peace or personal fulfilment.”

Some daze the wheels spin or one feels ‘lost’ doing even the tiniest, most mundane things. To accomplish the smallest thing seems to require the greatest effort. Other times, one spiritually leaps over many tasks, distances, accomplishing literally everything. ‘On top of one’s game.’

It’s a matter sometimes of how the day registers. “Today I will likely do this much.” Or: “Today I will accept the flow of life and circumstance and not try to change the universe or others in any way at all.”

On the other hand, consciousness is consciousness, and one is aware always of how much or how little is going on as life ebbs and flows. Acceptance and letting go do have their roles, especially when one is finally removed from the daily drudgery of Work and ‘making a living’. In earlier years, there is always motion, routine, the ‘locked-in’ effect. Ambition, if one has any. Joni Mitchell’s “So many things I would have done…” is more likely the commoner tale of the lifetape–the projects only dreamed and left unfinished and unaccepted by others. And there is such a thing as “Going against the prevailing current” especially involving the many others, not just bosses or unimaginative people who control whatever purse strings.

I speak only from experience and add that, recurringly, I have found it necessary to ‘leave the formation’ and do and find what interests me or ‘is me’. I cannot hold others responsible for whatever their limits and limitations might be. That is for them to work out or through. Always I must make of my day what I shall do on my own–as me, for me, to begin with.

After all, if one pretty much knows who one is and what one is like, in both strengths and weaknesses–those limits and limitations I spoke of–then one is at least operating from a known base or within some common-sensible context regardless of what others or the greater world, including nature, are doing. It is much harder to get lost if you have answered the Alice Caterpillar’s question (“Who are you?”) as much as you likely can or will.

An inner centeredness removes much that is seemingly in flux. That centeredness has the surety and confidence of inner freedom or autonomy that is not dependent on the whims of others and the buffets of the exterior world. Far better to have that state relative to family, friends, love, and even work.

Facts: there will always be change, obstacles, setbacks, crises, disappointments, disillusionments, stupidity, ignorance, and the numerous limits and limitations of others, let alone oneself. But one will always be most responsible for one’s own fate, one’s own life, one’s own satisfactions, pleasures, engagements, purpose, and meaning. No one else.

is always Exquisite. September is also a good month timing-wise. There is so much available for the soul’s estate in his work and he readily allows a sensitive reader to reconnect with Nature and a more leisurely flow.

(Aside from a copy of the best of his journals–try Odell Shepherd, this Library of America edition has all 4 of Thoreau’s books: A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, Walden, The Maine Woods, and Cape Cod. If I was to recommend one book for anyone who loves Nature and its poetry/philosophy possibilities, this would easily be it)

(There are a few good videos about Thoreau and Walden, but if you want to see the pond from your armchair along hearing his words, this is a winner–WaldenDVD.com. BTW/ /it takes about an hour for the average walker to walk around the pond as I discovered in 1991.)

The amazing 4 hour American Experience documentary on Walt Disney was so good when I first saw it in 2015, I had to own it and see it again; every minute was that informational, entertaining, and thoroughly engaging.

Walt Disney was not a perfect person and made many mistakes along the way: losing his first collaborators and the rabbit character of Oswald to an early rival company, overspending hugely on Bambi, Pinocchio, and Fantasia to the point of near-bankruptcy, not heeding cautionary advice on the controversial Song of the South, and holding a grudge against his Burbank workers on strike to the point of firing them later down the road and calling some Commies in naïve, but sincere testimony to HUAC.

In many ways, he was a simple person who heeded his Inner Child as seen in his love of miniature train projects and in building Disneyland and Disneyworld. He was often criticized for this simplicity and reducing Americana to saccharine and schmaltz, but the people loved it! The documentary does particularly well on showing Disney’s crazy scheme to build Disneyland in 6 months, showing the unbelievable media coverage, and massive throngs of fans lining up for attractions, which were in many cases unfinished on opening day.

Disney had fantastic determination and followed his bliss to the hilt. He simply wanted to move people and make kids laugh, though he occasionally got distracted by his desire to create art. He succeeded with the meticulously-crafted Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and somewhat with Fantasia. His main success with film fans and critics, though, came with Mary Poppins toward the end of his own personal film chronology.

This is a highly recomended documentary for anyone interested in the man who died back in 1966, the man behind the long-running ubiquitous corporate label. It is also for the legions of fans who watched his ’50s and ’60s Sunday tv shows and bonded with this avuncular surrogate father-figure. There is and will only ever be one Walt Disney. He easily deserves to stand alongside the likes of Edison, Ford, and Einstein. And in many ways, he remains the nicest and most sympathetic of all four of these giants.

(*For more views and responses to this documentary, check out the Sept. 15, 2015 blog entry.)

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”