Digging Up Bones, Late in the Night

My New Exhibit at Studio 48 Gallery in Arlington’s Gracie Lane Boutiques

We will all return to the Bateau-Lavoir. We were never truly happy except there.

Pablo Picasso in 1945, quoted in Picasso and the Painting That Shocked the World, by Miles J. Unger

I did some of the best work of my life there.

Robert Motherwell, reminiscing about his East Hampton years, 1944-1952, quoted in Robert Motherwell: The East Hampton Years, 1944-1952, by Phyllis Tuchman

I am on dangerous ground. My mind wants to gild my memories. It wants to present the past in soft focus, as muzzy and sentimental as a greeting card. It doesn’t want to remember the long days spent drinking . . . No, I cannot afford to romance my past. It does not serve me. To stay emotionally sober, I must focus the lens of my perceptions clearly on the now.

Julia Cameron, Finding Water: The Art of Perseverence

I am up past midnight in my sacred Studio Eidolons. Sandi is busy in the other room, and I feel the warmth and camaraderie of her presence. The next two days will seem frenetic, as we organize, pack and load for a 6:00 a.m. arrival Friday at the Dallas Arboretum. But we’ve been here before, many times, and panic is not in our psyches. I’m enjoying the quiet of the night as jazz softly plays in my studio and I attempt to state my present mind in this blog.

The string of quotes above touch me deeply. I have read several times of artists in their senior years somehow pining to return to the way things were when they were younger. My sentiments, however, align with Julia Cameron in her Finding Water. I have no pretense about my life in 1987 when I was trying to figure out what direction to take. I’m posting a photo below of me in the back yard of my garage apartment in those days, posing before a completed acrylic on canvas of my hero Friedrich Nietzsche, laboring into the night. I miss my trim physique and full head of hair from those days, but that is all. I am not romanticizing those days. They were pure hell. I recently re-read my entire 1987 journal that recorded those torrid, suffering days, and all I can say tonight is Good Riddance.

I am happy to live closer to 2022, posted above. In 1987, I wondered if I could ever reach a calmer, more contemplative life as a creative. Now, retired after a successful teaching career, I’m happy to do what pleases me most, and grateful for the health and strength to set up an art booth and enjoy a quality festival atmosphere for a weekend.

And speaking of which–last night I was notified that I have been juried into the Trinidad Art Fest 2024 to be held in Colorado. I have been waiting this year to see if I could get in, and now we are making exciting plans to participate in this show July 12-14, and then journey on to South Fork, Colorado to enjoy the cool San Juan mountains. I’ll be ecstatic to return to the trout streams and play with some plein air watercolor activity. No, I don’t pine for the days I knew in 1987. I’m grateful I’ve been allowed to live to my seventieth year and enjoy the things we do now.

Trinidad Coffee Memories. Framed Watercolor

Thanks for reading.

I make art in order to discover.

I journal when I feel alone.

I blog to remind myself I am not alone.

Tags: Americana, Artscape 2024, Dallas Arboretum, David Tripp artist, nostalgia, Studio 48, The Gallery at Redlands, watercolor