102. Past




Reason




One’s 50’s and 60’s

In one’s 50's one has the strength for a final accomplishment.  You still have some power.  All your realizations and evidence has been gathered.  Your thinking has become honed.

In your 60's this need to accomplish diminishes. One’s needs become important. Just staying alive returns one to more basic concerns.  Escaping the accumulated pain of life through pleasure takes precedence over sacrificing for a larger vision.  These factors don’t eliminate the need to accomplish, but they have to be taken into account.

99. Past




Leading

(In this section I discuss various areas that lead one to question and perhaps believe in a maker. This is number 2 in a section of 11 reasons.) 

 




Cruelty abounds  

2) There seems to be cruelty in life that is hard to observe.  On an animal channel I observed hyenas killing and eating a wildebeest.  It was a horrifying death.  On another program a story was told of a giant catfish that bit and dragged a child beneath the surface and drowned her.

In some prisons lines are drawn racially.  White, Spanish, and Afro-American prisoners form separate gangs, as if integration never happened.  Prisoners can be  hard and cruel to one another.  I pity those who are slightly vulnerable.
   
In Africa’s Somalia there was no government and youths rule through gangs.  It is your worse nightmare.  On a road crossing, a gang extracted money from travelers.  The rope across the road was made from a man’s intestines.  In another African country children were trained to kill. One faction warred against another, and prisoners were asked if they wanted long or short sleeves (the cutting of limbs).

      Horrible stuff.   This can be a horrible place this world, a land of death.  How could one not look for deep answers?

101.  Past




Leading

(An unattached observation to suspect there is something bigger.)







The light that leads to the truth

If one meditates in a certain way, bringing a humbled being before all that exists, vulnerable and wanting, eventually there might appear a light, a spec of light.  As has been said many times, a light in the dark.  Later, after much time, this light can lead to the truth of existence.  Why should the light stay just a light?  Let it lead to the biggest thing possible, even a maker.

98.  Past




Reason




Countering trivialization    

It seems as if I am more of a counter puncher.  When problems come my way I react accordingly.  The same is true for ideas.  However, the biggest problem now is indifference, the degrading and devaluation of the individual thinker. As a result, I am forced to project “out there” what I think.  It is a way to preserve intact my intellectual search for truth.  Otherwise it becomes weakened and compromised and trivialized by life today. By putting this stuff down on paper, I demand its importance.       

100.  Past




My Parents




Mom




The world   

Mom and I
when she was young
and I younger
both wondered.

I saw this
in her eyes
and wanted to solve
the world.                                                                              1

97.




Principles

Art

Tempering art

The plan is to present observations and insights from life that allude to an above presence.  The art visually stimulates this quest for realization.  It is more than illustration, it is art. But it is not a culmination in and of itself.  It is part of a bigger whole rather than standing apart saying 'look at me.'

However, art has its own rules.  Having difficulty with my last drawing raises new concerns, a call for revamping old ways and a new intensity.  Time and energy are required.  It almost feels like an attempt to have me fully worried and obsessed , demanding more than is appropriate and becoming all consuming.  I want to keep the art under control and manageable.  Art can't selfishly exist for itself.  It has to be part of a bigger picture and fit in. This is not art for art's sake, art for greatness' sake, or even art for beauty's sake.  How about this is art for making a contribution's sake.

96. Past



Principles

Art

(Note:  Now it's more widespread, but for about a year I got a taste from an atelier tradition, albeit compromised, that had a link with impressionist art and a whole different take on it.  It's a piece of hands on history in contrast to written history.  If you read through the insights in art should be interesting, and the concept of history itself put into perspective. I touched the past with people connected to the past. After a year I left and went my own way.)

Beyond “history” 
                 
My studying and the consideration of making art led me to realize history itself is not a definite.  For instance, let's examine the 19th century movement called Impressionism.  Van Gogh, Pissarro, Gauguin, Degas, Manet, and Monet were some players in this movement.  The common impression I received from history books, discussions, and lectures was that artistically impressionism was an attempt to capture movement and motion in shorthand.  Since movement was fleeting, there was only time for an “impression” of the object to be recorded.  It was a take on the scene.  The light and dark of the scene, forever changing, was encapsulated within a time frame.  An example was Monet's water lilies and cathedral paintings at different times of day.  Realism was sacrificed for a general optical effect of the light and atmosphere of an object or person. 

At some point I studied with a student of the Boston portrait painter Richard Ives Gammell and received another perspective.  Painting used to consist of layers of translucent gels mixed with pigment.  Colors were kept pure and not diluted, preserving their integrity.  Intensity and hue and values remained true and sharp.  Jacques Louis David knew this craft completely but passed it on only partially to his student Ingres.  Ingres wanted a more alla prima method of painting, truer to observation and less dependent on artistic formula. This conflict between inherited formulas versus direct observation has been a polarization throughout western art.

Under Ingres hand colors were mixed, applied directly to canvas with less layering, and nature, combined in his case with a classic bent, was recorded directly.  The price was that the colors were muted because without the protective layers of gels and mixtures their freshness gradually disappeared. Also when mixed the colors became muted.  This, plus lack of old school canvas preparation and too much  canvas absorption caused dull colors.

The Impressionists, to bring back color vibration and intensity, and still directly observe the subject, applied colors directly without mixture and depended upon their complementary colors to arrive at color combinations.  Simply put, to achieve an orange color on a flower yellow and red would be patted adjacently on the canvas and the effect would be orange.  Vibrations between the two primary colors would keep color alive.  The impression of orange was achieved without actually making orange.  Hence, as befits this procedure, comes the name “Impressionism.”

When I learned this interpretation, it sounded truthful, and the historic interpretation seemed irrelevant.  Yet with time the old interpretation seems also true.  Painting was a notation that captured a brief happening as it appeared to the eye during a particular time.  So which view is correct?  Well, what I find in life is that history doesn't tell the full truth, but has some truth in it.  My first hand encounter with what was passed down orally also is the truth. 

History can tell a story, and as in a story, the plot has to move on, right or wrong.  Digging up and uncovering hidden truths can fly in the face of this.  How do we resolve this?  Demanding absolute resolution is a mistake.  Observing and being aware of the tension with curiosity and inquisitiveness is healthy and leaves enough space and breathing room.

95.

My family



Mom


Transfer 
 
It's been three years 
since my mom died
and I wondered why
I didn't think of her more.

Alone in the apartment 
I heard myself talking
to Munchie her teddy bear
and laughed to myself 
for what I had become
was partly my mom.                                                                     1