Unanticipated Blossoms

Yesterday I visited my abstract painter friend's Dumbo studio. It was wonderful to smell the oil paint, sit in the southern light, and talk about books and images.

She and I have discussed her work a lot in the past several months, and I enjoy our conversations. Her work maintains a tension between representational and abstract presentation. This is an area that holds my fascination. Her project is about the relationship between humans and animals.

She let me photograph some of her current paintings, a series depicting birds (above).

After the studio visit, we walked over to Brooklyn Heights for the Kids Art opening at BRIC's Rotunda gallery. Our mutual friend runs an outstanding arts education program for the gallery. Each year the gallery shows work created by public school children who participated in Rotunda's programs.

Some children who participated in the program attend, along with parents, teachers, artists, and principals. The children perform docent activities happily. It is a wonderful, heartfelt celebration.

The painter recalled that we have attended this event for several years. I've reached that age in which time moves too fast for me to track. There is a great divide between my sense of time that has passed and the actual passage of time. It feels as if I have attended the event for the past three or four years, but in reality it has been nine years.

Yet this phenomenon seems to indicate a good experience. I suppose I inadvertently made good use of time because the outcome of the event as it relates to me is so positive.

For example, although I have no formal relationship with the gallery, I recognized a half dozen people I knew in the audience and had an opportunity to reconnect with them. All of these people are people I genuinely enjoy. It is a pleasure to catch up with them each year.

One of them is a woman with whom I worked almost 3 years ago. She was a designer who was laid off in 2006. I liked her a lot and was sorry to see her suffer unemployment. I've encouraged her to work at Rotunda ever since the lay off. She just started working there this spring, and I am delighted the connection bore fruit. It is a perfect fit for her.

I don't often recollect connections I've made for people. When I was assigned to an assessment team at the publisher several months ago, it surprised me when the team leader for the project reminded me that I had helped her daughter get a job. I didn't know her well and it had been a couple of years since I made the connection.

In general, I regard life as a struggle for most people. If I can assemble people to bring them joy or make something happen, I am happy to do it. I consider any good outcome a blessing. As far as I am concerned, these things are pleasant happenstance and I don't think anyone owes me a favor.

Perhaps I have inadvertently embodied the goal of tending the garden without a focus on results. I'm glad that is the advice I adopted without realizing it. It feels good to be a force for good in the world. I swear I can die happy knowing I tried to make things better, and sometimes succeeded.

Taming the Obstacle

Lately I've been thinking about obstacles within. I know I spend my time stupidly, and then am angry with myself that I haven't produced any paintings or filed enough job applications.

So, I've been thinking about why I let myself putter instead of being more industrious.

A friend and I recently discussed a mutual acquaintance, a very talented artist who produces scant work. I don't know him well, but two friends know him intimately. He appears to be hindered by a desire to create perfection. His expectations are so high it is unlikely that he will meet them. Therefore, he doesn't attempt to create anything.

As we discussed this, I recognized some of the sentiment in myself. It is something I have struggled against in my own art practice.

Conversely, I am a non-writer who is able to maintain a fairly robust blog. It is riddled with imperfection, but I can live with it because it isn't precious to me. And unlike my paintings which have a small audience I care about, I don't really expect anyone to read my blog.

This idea led me to ponder the increasing disposable nature of writing. I recall as a child thinking that writing was a permanent enterprise. Any assigned report invoked writers block as I imagined the improbability that I would produce something worthy of gold embossed leather binding.

Today I wondered where this notion emerged. It may have been my own twisted invention based on popular culture's output about writers and their work. As crazy as it sounds, my mother may also have facilitated it. Many people keep copies of their school work, but she is the only person I know who reads it and regards it highly.

This morning I read yet another essay about the demise of print publishing. While I prefer to read any text on paper because I find a lit display mildly distracting (resulting in less careful reading), I acknowledge the merits of a paperless world.

The world is fluxuating continuously, yet writing in books seemed fixed. Hence, reprints and multiple editions with revised forwards. Now that writing is lifted from the permanence of bound paper, it becomes a fluid stream of text. Much in this stream is carelessly formed and read with little regard. Most of it is not intended for posterity.

As an amateur writer I take comfort in the disregard for and disposable nature of the modern writing platform. The medium now reflects art making; a process that happens over time.

So I conclude that the goal is to just do whatever I need to do without considering outcome.

As I write this several literary allusions I can barely grasp emerge in my mind. I recall some Chinese and Indian philosophy emphasizing action without concern for result. A notion that confused me at the time. It struck me as a call for aimless action.

In the West, Voltaire's characters in Candide recommended that we tend the garden. I suppose it should be tended without expectations of yield, but just worked thoughtfully.