The title, Atoms and Ideas now reminds me of a favorite passage from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass where he talks about what poems and poets do:

They prepare for death—yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,
They bring none to his or her terminus, or to be content and full;
Whom they take, they take into space, to behold the birth of stars, to learn one of the meanings,

To launch off with absolute faith—to sweep through the ceaseless rings, and never be quiet again.

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I have made a few of these multi-colored spatter paintings laid over a base of black, silver, gold, or green brushstrokes. There is something soothing about making them. Adding many layers of tiny colored spatters then hand circling clusters of tiny dots in white pen. This one also has fine pencil details of circles and connecting lines, like a thread through the tiny universe. The paint itself creates a nice presence that is simple yet complex and deep.

When I was younger
I had the belief
that there would be 
one who I will love
and one who 
I know loves me—
almost that love 
is a fixed place.

And yes, there can be walks in 
the April woods that
feel full of infinity—every leaf a universe
and the thawing stream a bounty. 

The unspoken amazement at 
a crush of trout lilies,
pushing their way up through
last year’s leaves.

The imagining of this path
as seen from above—
two people on their way through 
the woods, as if it’s the cosmos.

With atoms visible and all 
ideas entertained—the sheerness
of it all—so immediate 
and available. 

But this love between you two
is not a place. It floats
just above as you pass by
the maidenhair fern.

Growing, living, and dying, 
in spite of 
the belief.

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The fresh blue meandering shape of this painting with its complications of winding lines and dashes made it a good match for the walk that this poem takes. I wrote it last spring thinking of the literal feeling of taking my favorite forest walk—but the writing of the poem brought out a deeper, more metaphysical and personal meaning. I saw that curved perimeter of the painting and knew that poem would complete it.

Looking at it today, it reminds me of the photographer Duane Michals’ photograph called ‘This Photograph is My Proof’, which shows a couple sitting on the edge of a bed, a man in a suit, smiling, the woman giving him a warm embrace with her head resting on his back, also looking at the camera smiling. The title and words that follow it are handwritten: “There was that afternoon, when things were still good between us, and she embraced me, and we were so happy. It did happen, she did love me. Look see for yourself!”

The image and words work together perfectly to reveal the ambiguity and mystery of memory, love, and life itself. How is our experience of the world—of the people in our lives—defined? Is it only our perception? Can an image be ‘proof’? It is frozen in time, and does that truth last beyond that moment? Aren’t images and words and the combination of them constructions that exist somewhere on their own, outside of time?

To me, this is the work of words and images—constantly asking questions about what it means to be human, what it means to love others, and the world itself.

Underneath the bloom,
me and my melancholy
are separated.

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This is one of a number of my paintings that use this strong black line to express an organic form. I learned to do calligraphy when I was very young and have always been drawn to this type of line. There is a lot of poignancy and beauty to be found in how it changes in one stroke: thick to thin, loud to quiet, bold to just a wisp.

I see these kinds of lines everywhere in nature, too. The elegance of leafless, black-barked trees in winter, the intricate patterns of lichen that encrust those trees like jewels—even the crosshatch pattern of the fur on my black and white dog's chest, growing in a swirl as he steps into the frame as I try to photograph that lichen...

The painter Ben Shahn created lines that were distinctly his own and I have admired them for as long as I can remember. He said, "How do you paint yellow wheat against a yellow sky? You paint it jet black."

Lady in the moon
rises above the treeline
like a loose, round pearl.

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A lot of my paintings carry my haiku poems on them.

I like the economy and revelation of them. About ten years ago I challenged myself to write a haiku a day at the start of the new year. After a year of doing it, I found it hard to stop. I've kept it up pretty consistently since then and now have hundreds of them.

I'll pull from old ones for a new painting, or sometimes a new painting requires a new haiku. In this case, it was a haiku written last year that got a new life as part of this painting. As the painting got going, I could see that moon from the haiku hanging up there and the idea was complete.

Wild things grow in
the woods that we walk.

Bracket fungi, like wooden
rainbows, protrude
with stiff ruffled blooms
out of fallen trees
now disintegrating every day—
turning red from decay.

Once the home of songbirds and
their nests filled with babies;
and insects, and leaping squirrels,
and knocking woodpeckers.
Once the tall lookout
of the horned owls who live here.
Once with leaves that made a sound
like music before a spring storm.
Once with bark that was fresh
grey, or brown, and patterned in
some way that distinguished
it as a particular kind of tree.
Once sending out seedpods
or sap or a leaf in the shape of a hand.
Once with branches that looked
like fine black lines in winter,
stretching out towards the
ether blue of the sky.

Some still have
distinguishable
knots that feel like
eyes that watch us as we
walk and foolishly think
of our endless lives.

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Deep into the night,
orbits and ideas spin,
ending with a yes.

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The gesture of this painting is declarative and sincere. It’s why the title ends with the word ‘yes’. It was made on new year’s day, which was cloudy and cold but I was thinking about the year ahead of making things. Today it reminds me of the writer E.B. White. I imagine him reserved and thoughtful. There is a photo of him sitting at a typewriter in his weathered wood writing shack in Maine with a screenless window framing a view of the water.

He said, ”All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world." I believe we need as many people as possible who think this way, who would say this, and who would make things in the service of this idea. I don’t see it as positivity for positivity’s sake, it is a hard belief to hold on to, but more powerful than anything when it is wholeheartedly felt.

Taking in May light,
trees raining flower blossoms,
flowers blossoming.

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This painting was obviously named with a haiku written for the beauty of the magnolias and apple blossom trees that bloom in a sudden burst in early spring here in Michigan. It’s nice to think of them now in the deep of winter.

The painting is also one in a series of ‘bloom’ paintings that I have done (and like to do): The mind bloom, The companion, The dandelion… I use the black calligraphic lines to signify growth, movement, and blooms of all kinds: ideas, flowerheads, lichen, an expression, a growing understanding that leads to some kind of revelation. To me, they are thriving and mysterious things that feel organic and automatic and lay on the paper just right with a presence all their own.

New snow fills the field.
The warm observatory,
full of mystery.

Full of mystery,
a life lived underwater,
koi like orange silk.

Koi like orange silk,
float like the dark Milky Way,
a soft universe.

A soft universe,
like a calm yet wild creature,
new snow fills the field.

The conservatory is a transformative place. Cold winter days are the perfect time to visit and get rejuvenated…and while you’re there, take a look at my exhibit of 40 paintings, The Mind Bloom.

University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Gardens

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The fish.

On display in The Mind Bloom exhibit at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens.

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He circles and sees,
the hawk in January,
his eye always knows.

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This painting is one of the first in a new series that I started on New Year's Eve, 2018. There is something about the combination of these strong brushstrokes and gold gouache paint lines that feels alive to me. They also have a totemic or emblematic quality to them—as if they stand for something seemingly simple yet remain completely mysterious.

I've been asked to exhibit 40 paintings at the University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor, MI. Titled, "The Mind Bloom," this exhibit runs from January 12 - March 24, 2019.

The UM Matthaei Botanical Gardens has been one of my favorite places to visit for as long as I can remember. It represents thriving life and possibility. I am thankful to have this exhibit of my work in a place that is so meaningful to me.

The paintings in this exhibit were made over the past couple of years. I worked on them just about every day, in the morning or at night. Over time, the confluence of ideas that the paintings and words represented became familiar and connected. Themes and interests repeated and were deepened through my daily exploration.

Titling the exhibit, “The Mind Bloom”, after a specific painting in the collection, seemed like the perfect expression of this work. Always inspired by nature, and combined with thought, memory, poetry, feeling—truly a bloom that is full of vigor and charged with all of the possibility of being alive every day.

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University of Michigan
Matthaei Botanical Gardens
1800 N. Dixboro Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48105

The Mind Bloom Exhibit
January 12 – March 24, 2019
Daily 10 am - 4:30 pm
Wednesdays until 8 pm
Free admission

https://mbgna.umich.edu/event/the-mind-bloom/

 

Thank you for visiting! This is the beginning of this blog and my website—and I couldn’t be more excited.

My painting and writing start with my experience of the natural world and then leads inward and outward at the same time. The daily reading of the sky, the leaves on the trees, the behavior of birds, the lichen on a log, the flowers in bloom, the current of the river, the position of the planets, moon, and stars are the things that make me feel alive.

When I first learned about poets and poetry it was like finding out about a great secret. Poetry was confiding and beautiful and dangerous and scary. These people were experiencing the world, the people in their lives, memory, history, pain of all kinds—and love. They were giving it all the attention that it deserved. They were sharing it. It was messy and majestic. Art and artists were the same to me. A teacher of mine once called them ‘rescuers’, they could be depended upon to have already gone out ahead to find a safe spot. They were devoted to telling the truth—compelled to—even in the darkest moments of their lives.

I learned that the art of creating something made the indecipherable things in life beautiful. What it means to be human—a part of everything, but still alone. Seeing things as they are, yet still hopeful.