—line 01—
I have been calling these little paintings “inner landscapes” but what came to me today is that they are “mountains of a desolation.” These paintings – they are a thing to make, when I don’t know what to make. I’ve been making these because I like making them. I like how they look. I like seeing the layering of paint and color and texture. In the meditation practices of Thich Nhat Hhan, breathing is a form of grounding oneself in the present moment. Maybe similarly, and without needing justification, by painting them I am thusly aware of my making a thing, and the practice of making them is a kind of grounding in what is. Sometimes, what is is good and fine, sometimes hard, and sometimes it’s just meh.
Many years ago, I read Dark Night of the Soul by John of the Cross. I didn’t understand it, first encountering the text at 30. At 37 I began to understand it, having experienced real grief and loss. By 40 I had left behind much of the spiritual support structures which had previously nourished, but ceased to do so. At 48 as I write this, I am still learning to understand – and to befriend – the solitude of the wilderness.
In a Dark Night of the Soul, the zest for life loses its seasoning, aspects of our lives which used to give us joy cease to do so, and events that might have felt meaningful before now can feel random and stupid. Some can’t bear it, and turn to vices – justifiably. Or retreat to comforting forms and narratives that once provided nourishment, but which no longer serve.
Maybe painting is a comforting form I have retreated to. If it is, well, I needed a companion to walk with me.
John of the Cross says to remain in the desolation, to stay with it, to walk the path of the Dark Night – that there is a new seasoning to life that occurs. But to receive it, one must wait.
—line 02—
I think of the Dark Night in a non-linear way. I don’t think one goes through it, then is finished forever. Perhaps, one leaves it prematurely. There have been times since where I’ve experienced, if not general happiness, moments of joy, and I thought my own Dark Night had finally ended.
I think a creative practice can also enter a Dark Night. I was introduced the other day by someone as an artist who does a lot of walking. I do walk, a lot (moreso because I have recently gained five pounds). My previous work was very much rooted in walking, and the associated energies of movement and interconnectedness. But that work for me lost some of its zest. The energy that sustained that work had moved on, into the elusive ether of the something else. These paintings are, if anything, a kind of creative toil, like braiding grass or knitting, while I wait for that energy to return – if it ever will. Faith plays a part here.
My recent days, weeks, and months have been filled with the mundanities of 9-5, doing dishes, receiving lots of rejection letters for art applications (STILL, 25 years into this art thing, I am bothered by these). I know a bit more about entering the season of the Dark Night. More familiar. Not easier, but managed. I continue to walk a lot, and I continue to paint, as my acts of waiting. Nobody ever said waiting had to be sitting still.
Or perhaps I am being impatient, and I have not let the Dark Night’s work do its full task.
—line 03—
Jon and Haley were early supporters of my art. I haven’t kept in close touch in recent years, seeing them from time to time, running into them at a Sounders game. And social media updates, which is how we learned that Jon started having headaches, which turned into the discovery of a brain tumor. 11 months of treatment turned to hospice/palliative a few weeks ago, and he recently died.
The morning I found out, I pulled up an image of a painting I did back in 2008 for their church, the first of a series of four paintings commissioned by them. It’s a portrait of Jon, who modeled for it. I kept the image on-screen throughout my workday, quietly reverencing Jon’s passage and remembering of my gratitude to have known him.
Separately, Haley forwarded a note from someone in their church, sending condolences who had found some solace by the artwork still on the wall, along with this accompanying text.
It was a strange synchronicity. But the note. I wrote that, over 15 years ago, in an overtly evangelical language – a language of certainty. Reading it today, I am shattered by the unintended language of uncertainty within this text – the ‘beginning of one’s walk’ and even being ‘remade by Christ’ which reads very differently to me now.
It’s safe to say one has no idea what an intention for a painting made in a very different season of life might offer one day in the future, and to encounter this now, in this way, is so very very strange.
—line 04—
I am thinking today of the artist Bas Jan Ader. In 1971 he made a short film called I’m Too Sad to Tell You (1971) — simply weeping on camera. There is no offered explanation or narrative. We simply witness his sadness.
When I discovered his work in grad school, I immediately loved it. Humorous little video vignettes of his falling off of roofs, being blown over by a breeze into the bushes, riding a bike into a canal. It was funny, but so much more. Art-historian types named ‘gravity’ as his medium. I like this notion. Gravity is an energy which both roots us to the earth, and hurtles us through space as unimaginable speeds. Gravity is what makes black holes; in fact, a black hole is only gravity. And gravity brings weight, and heaviness, and pathos – the meaning behind our heaviness.
If I see you today, and you ask me how I’m doing, I’m going to say, “fine thanks” because I really can’t say I’m too desolate to tell you. That would be kind of awkward. But, it’s also actually ok. I’m too desolate to tell you, but it’s not a problem to be solved. It’s just a thing that is.
It’s the blues, man.
—line 05—
Three hours. From that Saturday morning laying on the couch and I heard our squishy cat Georgie yowling from the hallway, which he often does when he’s hungry, and I thought annoyingly “what’s his problem?” To finding him crawling across the laundry room floor on his two front legs, his back legs not working at all. To rushing him to the animal hospital, where the vet diagnosed a blood clot had paralyzed the lower half of his fluffy cat body. To feeling him purring as we held him, sobbing and telling him how sorry we were, as the first administered overdose ceased the purring, the second one to stop his heart. To digging his grave and laying his body as snugly as I could, and Heather bravely shoveling the dirt back in. Three hours from chilling on the couch, to placing two heavy slabs of concrete as an Ebenezer – a stack of stone which means…something… – and then watching the sun peek through the trees to illuminate his resting place.
Things that happen unexpectedly, all in a three hour span of time. The heart gets ripped open, like a bucket of ice water thrown into your face. But also a kind of softening or thawing out. Life shimmers, joyfully and also tragically.
—line 06—
This week I picked up a semi-finished, abandoned painting I started a few years ago, working from a photo of a hiking friend on a Grand Canyon trail. I turned it into more of a dreamy allegory, for the darkness and death I’d been walking. Walking the valley, as it were. So it’s turned into a kind of self portrait. I do like the way this is painted, with different shapes and textures, radiating out from a center.
—line 07—
On this morning’s walk what should enter my earbuds but the sweet pop sounds of Kyrie Eleison by Mr Mister. 1985 was of course the best year ever for music.
The wind blows hard against this mountainside
across the sea into my soul
it reaches into where I cannot hide
setting my feet upon the road
Kyrie Eleison down the road that I must travel.
Kyrie Eleison through the darkness of the night.
…this is a good title for the previous painting.
Kyrie Eleison is of course Latin for lord have mercy. Lord, have mercy, which, if it means anything, let it mean for me today that this exquisite Life and its prana – this air I breathe and walk and exist in – help me to bear its at-times unbearable and increasingly uncertain path – one overflowing with longing, heartache, and searing love.
