Gimme Some Duffys

I’ve written about how much I like reading old newspapers, if only to get a kick from the claims of the advertisements of the time.  One of my favorites that ran in our local papers was from Duffys Malt Whiskey, which was promoted as a tonic of sorts which built strength and fought disease.  Bronchitis, pneumonia , malaria and the maladies of old age were helpless before the smooth taste of Duffys. The wrestler in this ad claims to have risen from his sick bed with just the aid of Duffys.

And a massage.

There were also ads with doctors endorsing Pabst Blue Ribbon as a strength builder and protection against wasting diseases.

Ah, it was a grand time to be sick!

Now, I know guys who believe that they are bigger and stronger as a result of drinking whiskey, usually after 10 or 12 shots, but I have to laugh at the idea of it as medication.  Makes me wonder what future generations will look at when they examine our current world and say, What the hell were they thinking? Kind of like the scene from Woody Allen’s comic classic Sleeper when the scientists of the future who marvel that we, here in the present, thought of hot fudge as being unhealthy.

We always think we’re the end point of progress and for a brief moment that is true.  But in the big picture we’re just points along the continuum and things will continue to change.  What is thought of as solid thinking today may be challenged tomorrow .  On and on into infinity…

Just thinking of this makes me tired.  I could use a shot of Duffys right about now…

Adrift…

It’s a funny time of the year for me as an artist.  I’m at the end of a creative cycle and have a little more time at my disposal, which is nice.  Allows me to catch up with things I too long neglect or just don’t make time for normally.

But there is a part of me that is made uneasy by this freedom to do other things.  My next shows and goals seem very far in the distance and I’m unfocused,  floundering around a bit, trying to find my bearings as to where I see my work moving.  It’s as though I am somewhat lost without having to be at work, without having an immediate goal.  Sort of like being rudderless in the waves.

This is not an unusual event for me at this time of the year.  The nice thing in having done this for a number of years now is knowing that this time, and the accompanying uneasiness,  is only temporary.  I realize that this is all part of a cycle and that I have the tools to get through this feeling of being adrift creatively and that the time will come soon when I will be once more fully engaged.

It reminds me of  something I read in the comments of a friend’s blog, when the discussion was about getting through a period of depression.  The commentator said he had learned to accept these periods of darkness as part of who he was and that it became easier once he recognized that when the black crows flew in, they were his black crows.  And eventually he knew they would leave if he could only be patient and wait them out.

I understand what he meant.

Once you know there is a cycle, you know the other side will soon come around.

And I think it’s important to have this part of the cycle, as uncomfortable as it may seem.  For me, it always seems to spur new searching and new creativity.  For that reason alone, I have learned to embrace my own particular black crows…

In Our Nature

Another Sunday morning.  Hunting season here, so I listen for the inevitable gunshots that ring through the forests around my place.  Not too many.  Certainly not like it was a number of years back when it sounded like a shooting gallery on the first days of the season.  I’m not a hunter, never really have been , but I have no problem with responsible hunters in the woods.  The hunters who have a level of reverence for their prey and selectively hunt.  It’s the cretins with no respect for the creatures they’re hunting, who are only out there for a thrill kill, that bother me.

There’s an element of selfish cruelty in these guys that pisses me off because it’s the same element of selfishness and cruelty that is present in so many of the horrible deeds that make one want to turn off the evening news in disgust.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  It’s nothing new, just a part of who we are as a species.  How can one expect something to do other than what is in its nature?

That brings me to my song for today from Neko Case, who is a real favorite of mine.  It’s People Got a Lot of Nerve and its message  is pretty close to what I said above.  Why be surprised when any creature, including man, does what is in its nature?

Have a great Sunday…

Time and Tide

I was looking for a painting in my files and came across this piece, Time and Tide, from a few years back.  It was a piece, an 18″ by 25″ image on paper, that  I well remember but had lost a few of the details in the creases of my memory.  I had forgotten how well this piece came together and the impact it carried.  Even though it possesses many of my standard elements, such as the red roofs, it feels as though it is a bit of an anomaly.  Maybe that’s why I had to stop over this image and look for a while.

The title, of course, is a reference to the old proverb, time and tide wait for no man, which is basically saying that all men are equal in the eyes of time and nature, that no man has any greater reign than another in those realms.  We are all equally powerless before the passing of time and the movement of nature.  It’s a message that I often see in my work, or at least hope to see.

When I stop to look at pieces from the past, I’m always looking at the differences in the textures and the way I’m handling the colors from what I’m doing currently.  Sometimes I’m able to find something that I really liked in the piece, something I was using that really contributed greatly to the piece, that I was not consciously aware at the time.  It was just part of the process.  For instance, the texture in the open part of the sky in this piece was just done in the way I normally would do that at that point in time.  But as time goes on there are subtle, unthought of  changes in the process that after a time alter the whole feel.  So when I look back what I’m trying to ascertain is how a painting of mine is different and if those differences are things that I might want to revisit. Perhaps I was at a certain juncture then and moved in one direction yet there was another direction available– do I want to step back and try that other direction?

That’s the beauty of art, one can go back in time in a way and for a while defy time and tide….

Ragtime

This week, after having made deliveries of new work to the galleries that represent me over the last week,  I’ve been catching up on some maintenance around the studio, getting things ready for the upcoming winter.   It’s a break from thinking about painting and a chance to recharge the batteries.  Sometimes much needed recharging.

As I mentioned in a post a few days ago, I’ve also been spending a little time looking at old newspapers as I do a little research into a few ancestors.  It’s also really interesting to see an article concerning a relative next to an ad of that time, such as the one shown here, with Annie Oakley endorsing a dandruff shampoo.  It makes you realize what a transitionary period those early years of the 1900’s were, with so many aspects of rapid progress taking place in a world that had changed much slower for centuries before.

For instance, in the article that was near this ad, there was an account of a wrestling match here in Elmira.  Wrestling was a big deal around here back then with matches held several times a week in various locations such as men’s clubs, hotels and the gyms of local athletic clubs.  The story here told of the night opening with a vaudeville-type tumbling exhibition from a touring wrestling family complete with selections sung in rich baritones.  There was a short boxing match followed by someone performing ragtime, which was new to that time.  The headline event, usually a match between heated local rivals or a local favorite facing a touring pro, finished up the night.

I had heard stories that my grandfather, Frank “Shank” Myers, had lived and participated in this rough and tumble world but had never seen any evidence until I started reading these old papers.  But there he was, a 17 year old kid described as an Eastside mat ruffler, rolling around in smoky halls with strangleholds and body throws.  In one little notice, he was advertised as the preliminary match for a match headlined by Americus, shown here, who was touring pro who would come into town and take on the  best of the locals.  It was to be held at a hall in a local hotel that had been remodeled for the event.

I was able to find several articles with his exploits but only in a short period of time due to the lack of continuity in the newspaper availability from that time.  I did find a few pieces from a few years later, in a match from Binghamton, a slightly larger city about 60 miles away, between a Binghamton man and a well-known champ from NYC, where he was mentioned.  He was introduced to the crowd as the lightweight champ from Elmira and he issued a challenge to the Binghamton grappler, for a match to be held there, in Binghamton , or Elmira.

I may never know if this match ever took place but it ’s great to finally fill in little details of a world that only existed in a cloud of familial myth. An interesting time…

 

 

Control of the Narrative

This is a painting from back in 2002 titled Muse.  It was part of a series I was painting at that time, in the months after 9/11, that some of my galleries still call my Dark Work. It was painted in a style that I call my obsessionist style these days, meaning that it is painted by building layers of color over a dark ground as opposed to the reductive style I have used so much in the past where I apply a lot of wet paint, puddles, then pull it off the surface until I reach the desired effect.

When I was doing these paintings they seemed like a stark contrast to the reductive work, especially given the tone of that time.  They were well received although not with same gusto as the lighter, more transparent,  work.  I felt very strongly about this work but allowed my desire to please the galleries need for my most sellable work override my desire to pursue this work to further levels.  I moved back to primarily painting the wetter reductive work and was able to continue to push that work further through color and texture.  I never regretted the move back to this work but there was always a little nagging voice in the back of my mind that I hadn’t pushed the other work to its full destination and had let outside influences hinder an inner process.

I have begun to see my body of work as my own personal narrative, the story of who I am and how I am seeing my world at any given time.  In order for it to be so it must be an honest and complete reflection, guided by my own inner muse and not outside forces telling me what I should or should not do.  It took a while but I realized that I have the ability and right to control my own personal narrative, to tell my story in my own way.

I’ve done this in many ways for years already.  I am constantly given ideas for paintings or am requested to do commissions but seldom do I follow up on them unless they fit in with where I see my work heading.  In that aspect, I normally reject outside influence.  I stick to my narrative.

The piece above, Muse, actually fits this post well in that it now belongs to a man who asked me to do a painting of his son, a truly gifted guitarist.  He sent me photos and they were wonderful.  He was long and lanky with a really interesting ethereal  look, a portrait painter’s dream.  In fact when I looked at the pictures I could only see him as painted by other painters I know.  I struggled for a while trying to do something with this but in the end I realized it wasn’t part of who I was at that point, not part of my narrative.  I let it slide and after a long while, apologetically explained this to the father who was extremely gracious.

So I am back focusing more, at this time, on this obsessionist work, allowing it to be a bigger part of my story.  I will continue to paint in the other style but I just feel that there is something waiting to be told, something to be discovered in this other work at this time.  That is my decision made without outside influence, my choice for my personal narrative.

A Different Time and World

I wrote the other day about doing some genealogy about my great-grandfather, Gilbert Perry, and how interesting it has been in reconnecting with an ancestor about who I knew so little about.  One of the great pleasures has been reading the old newspapers from the late 1800’s that are available online via  the Northern New York Library System.  I am constantly fascinated in browsing the ads and notices of the times, seeing how day to day life changed and evolved.

This ad for a balloon ascension with Professor Squire, a la The Wizard of Oz, at the Franklin County Fair in Malone, NY appeared in the September 2, 1872 edition of the Malone Palladium.  It was on the front page alongside accounts from the Republican convention of that year where Ulysses S. Grant was nominated for the presidency as well as death notices, ads for pianos (they were selling Steinways up there!) and dry goods.  Ads looking for tin peddlers, a furniture dealer selling metal burial caskets, a lumber dealer, carriage painters and a mail order ad for a tea dealer on Wall Street in NYC.  There was a list of  rules of behavior that would be enforced at the Fair.  No drinking or betting on the trotters.

It was all pretty interesting, a glimpse into that time, but the part that caught my eye was near the top of the page, just under the death notices.  It was a Notice of Liberation where my great-great grandfather, Francis Perry, was giving Gilbert Perry, my great-grandfather, the remainder of his minority, giving him freedom from furhter financial obligations to his father.  Gilbert was free to transact business as he saw fit.

It was at this point that Gilbert formed his first crew and headed into the North woods with his first contract to deliver logs.  He was just 18 years old.  He continued to be a logger for the next 60 years, only stopping a few years before his death at age 81.  My Aunt Norma has recollections of visiting his farm in St. Regis Falls when she was small girl in the early 1930’s.  She said there were big log sleds scattered all around, the type pulled by teams of horses.  He was throwback even then to an earlier time before big tractors and chainsaws.

So in this little piece in this little newspaper from the north I see the beginning of my great-grandfather’s world, one that led to my grandmother’s much different world and to my father’s even more different world to my world which would probably seem incomprehensible to a man so at home in the woods.  Or maybe not…

Body of Work

I’ve had the term body of work in my head recently and was reminded of it once again by a couple of sports related stories in recent days.  First, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick made a risky decision this past weekend that failed and may have paved the way for his team’s loss.  This morning, sports talk radio was filled with analysts calling it a bonehead move but one analyst made me think when he said that sure, it was a mistake but he wouldn’t judge him on this one mistake. Instead, he would look at his whole body of work.

Then there is the case of Andre Agassi who, in his recent biography, revealed that during a year in the 90’s he had regularly used crystal meth during the tennis season.  He was widely attacked for this revelation, many judging his entire life on this episode of bad judgment.  He expressed surprise at the reaction, saying he hoped people would judge him by the whole of his life and not a time he openly and honestly regrets.  He wanted to be judged for his body of work.

It made me think.  How many people out there have judged me on one bad moment I may have had?  Something idiotic I said?  How many people was I holding judgement on whose only exposure to me was in a less than stellar moment in their lives?  How many of these people had changed, grown and evolved, yet I only knew them from a much less developed time in their lives?

I guess the same dynamics are in play when I speak of my painting as body of work.  There are certainly people who have seen my work and it may not have hit them favorably at that point and they formed a judgement that becomes set in their minds, making it hard to overcome.  Like Belichick and Agassi probably realize, there’s not a lot that can be done except to try to focus on what you can control, to try to constantly evolve and improve and create a body of work that shines brighter than the inevitable lowlights we all encounter in our lives.

I try to keep that in mind when I’m in the studio, that I cannot worry about those whose opinions of my work I can’t control.  I can only concern myself in satisfying that person whose opinion I can control and that’s me.  If I can do that, I will create a body of work  worthy of the most critical eye.

The piece at the top is Climbing Beyond the Blue and is on its way to the Kada Gallery in Erie, PA today.  I’m on the road again, visiting my friends in Erie before the holidays and delivering some new work.

Adirondack Memories

This is a scene from the Adirondack Mountains of New York near the town of Forestport, taken in the 1890’s.   There’s a possibility this is one of my great-grandfather’s crews.  I don’t really know.  Never knew much about  the man as I was growing up, didn’t even know his full name.  My family had little link to the past, few photos and very little oral history.  So little was known of our ancestors and their lives. Thanks to the access to old records and newspapers that is now available via the internet I have been able to find out much that would have been otherwise lost to our family.

For example, the great-grandfather I mentioned above was known to have ran a lumber camp in the Adirondacks, supposedly in the north near St. Regis Falls, where my father’s mother ( who died in 1979) was born and raised.  That was about the extent of our knowledge of the man.  I knew his last name was Perry and he ran a lumber camp.

A couple of years back, I did a quick Google search with what little info I had and much to my surprise an entry appeared.  There was a Gilbert Perry listed in a book from 1895 profiling the citizens of Oneida County, NY, in the southern part of the Adirondacks.  That didn’t seem to jive with what I knew but when I read the article it stated he was from St. Regis Falls and maintained a farm there as well.  His children were listed and I recognized one name as being a sister of my grandmother, who was not listed as she wasn’t yet born.

It was a thrill to finally find something on an ancestor, something that gave their life form.  I learned that he was a hard-working, ambitious entrepreneur who ran a number of lumbering enterprises as well as a couple of retail stores and his farms.  He was considered one of the pioneers of Adirondack logging, having several camps and crews of men numbering in the hundreds along with 50 or more teams of horses.  At the time, he was signed to bring in the largest contract of lumber in the Adirondacks.

After that I started doing more research and a whole new world  opened up to me when I came across the digitized newspapers from that time and region.  Local newspapers at that time were a true mirror of the area and people they covered, giving many details on their everyday lives and their travels.  I was able to piece together a full picture of the life my grandmother’s family lived in St. Regis Falls and Forestport.  I was even able to come across a full account of my grandmother’s wedding to my grandfather, something my dad and his siblings had never heard or seen.  It gave my memories of my grandmother a new depth.

I was even able to find numerous mentions of his lumber camps, including an account of a normal day in the camp, in a number of books outlining the history of the Adirondacks along with many stories of the men who worked for him.  One was a character named Atwell Martin, called the Hermit of North Creek, who is recalled in many stories and tall tales, including one where Paul Bunyan, having heard the tales of Martin’s exploits, traveled east to visit him.  They got along famously at first but ultimately ended up in a fight where trees were upended and used as clubs and the great Paul Bunyan ends up slain.  His body was buried in the headwaters of the Black River, the dam at North Lake.

I am still doing research but it’s an interesting and different world I keep uncovering, filled with great exploits and hard lives in a harsh environment.  It’s just been a thrill to find a link to a past of some sort…

Mingus Eyes

Sometimes, at this point in my year, I spend a considerable amount of my time revisiting past work, going through old image files or leafing through older work that I still have in my possession.  It’s kind of a reminder of how my mind has been sparked in the past and I’m always looking for a revival of that spark, especially at the end of a period of time when I have been working a lot and have fallen into what I feel is a too predictable pattern with my painting.

I tend to focus on the odd little pieces when I’m doing this.  Pieces with figures in them, odd compositions, odd shapes- things of that nature.  I came across this little triptych from 2002 and had to linger over for a bit.  I remember it well, the way the surface had a smoothness, almost enamel-like finish and the way the three pieces played off one another.   I never fully understood the meaning behind this piece but I was always reminded by it of the music of Richard Thompson, a writer of many wonderful distinctive songs, many of them with dark undertones.

So, I’ll keep looking back, hoping for a rekindling of inspiration,  and in the meantime, here’s some Richard Thompson with Mingus Eyes…