Finishing One Part Of Life

Jean and I are moving toward finishing one part of our life together  marriage partners and beginning a new one as strictly friends.
I am feeling inclined to make a radical new start to my life. I want to sell as many of my possessions as possible, including my vehicle, putting away the leftovers in storage. Then I will leave the United States for at least a year on a solitary journey of discovery. Possibly, I will go around the world. I can paint, photograph, and write. I am feeling out my ideas, mulling them over, but certain that I will do this.

See more Steven Boone paintings.

Familiar Haunts

The last time I saw Tanja Mennone was six months ago when I was in Bari, Italy. Now we are together again, in San Francisco. She is visiting the USA with her friend Alessandra and the last few days I have taken them to my familiar haunts in the “city by the bay.” Several times Tanja has remarked how “open” everything feels. I think I know what she means. In this country there is great mobility and it seems whatever you want to do is possible. Italy is more circumscribed and delineated.
This morning we parted ways. They are renting a car and driving to Yosemite, Death Valley, Las Vegas and then to Los Angeles for their flight home. I am flying to Santa Barbara, where I will retrieve my van from my parents home and begin driving back to Santa Fe.

On The Road Again

On the road again. Yesterday I drove eight hours, from Santa Fe to Scottsdale, Arizona. My friend John welcomed me, even though he had arrived home from a month in Europe the evening before. We have known each other since high school. I am looking for a gallery to represent me in Scottsdale, which is a busy art market, especially during winter months. Tomorrow I continue on to Palm Springs, California to visit Adagio Gallery where my paintings are shown, I will give them new work, and take older pieces off their hands. Then I continue to Santa Barbara where my parents, brother and sister live. After a few days there, I will fly to San Francisco to meet a couple Italian friends who will show up at the same time. I can be a good American host, since I know and love 'Frisco. After four days, I return to Santa Barbara to begin my journey back to Santa Fe. The round trip drive is 1872 miles.
Scottsdale is hot! Recently they had ten days in row of temperatures over 110 degrees.

Blood

Off and on for years, I have been attracted to blood as a symbol. Blood is juicy, passionate, and intense. What a wonderful color blood is. It also represents life and death. Recently I have made some photo images using blood as metaphor. When I work on them, it is heart wrenching, and I feel tired, as if I am in battle. I have wondered why I am wrapped up in these images. Particularly at this time in my life I keep coming back to blood symbolism. I realize, my heart is wounded and I am in catharsis. After a year of separation and patience, Jean and I are moving toward divorce. Yet, we remain steadfast friends, and love each other.

Rainbow Of Chaos

Art is food for the soul. Everyone buys food to eat, but few can afford the luxury of art. Thankfully, where wealth exists, also there is art, and artists have always existed. I live in the second biggest art market in America. Amazing, that a little mountain town like Santa Fe can claim this distinction. People come here for many reasons, but especially for the offering of art.
Paul Cezanne once said that, “We live in a rainbow of chaos.“ Last Friday, my gallery told me to bring a large painting from my studio to the gallery because a collector from Houston wanted to see it. This man is a lawyer, and needed a painting for his office. An appointment was arranged. I brought the painting, and it was hung in a room devoted to my art. Meanwhile, a couple from Dallas walked in who happen also to be collectors and already owned six Boone paintings. We had a delightful meeting, and presently they fell in love with the new painting. Then the Houston man and his wife arrived and began deliberating the paintings while the other couple kept in the background. They also liked the new painting. After discussion, they chose another, called Blustery Summer, (shown above), a smaller piece, because it would fit better. The woman from Dallas gave a whoop in delight, and every one came together in jubilation. Each person was happy . . . and this is what art can do.

Eternity In An Hour

“When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.”
Paul Cezanne  (French, 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906)

This is a beautiful statement because it simply accomplishes so much in the way of art criticism, which often is full of hyperbole. If we think of nature, we naturally think of beauty: flowers, sunsets, beaches, forests and misty mountain tops. Let me add that it is also: naked flesh, all creatures, bloody wounds, storms, wide eyed babies and old folk croaking their last breath. There is much to compare and all quite stunning. Great artists have to accomplish breadth in their work. Not a task for the faint hearted.

“To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour. ”
William Blake  (English, 28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827)

What Is God?

What is God? This is a question that man cannot solve. Even if the brightest minds of all time gathered to ponder and arrive at an answer, they would inevitably fail, insomuch as the thing created can never comprehend that which created it.
In thinking about creation and eternity, I realize how severely limited I am, being a finite point in the infinite.
God is All-Wise, Perfect, and All-Knowing. He alone is without limitation. Being Perfect, He also beholds perfection. Can we behold perfection? Baha’u’llah has said: “Nothing do I behold except that I behold God within it, God before it, and God after it.” This must mean then that He is beholding perfection. Somehow, He must have closed His external eye and opened His inner eye. The external eye could not fail to see human misery, abnormality, suffering, war, famine, disease, premature death etc. Who sees perfection with their external eyes? Yet Baha’u’llah was not blind to the world and its dilemmas. So how could He perceive these predicaments and behold God within them? I will ponder this for awhile. In the meantime, feel free to post a comment if you have thoughts to share.

Nothing Stays The Same

Nothing stays the same. The moments we enjoy are fleeting. This makes the loveliness of the rose more precious since we know its beauty will soon fade and vanish before our eyes. Likewise, if we are in desperate situations that we long to escape, patience will see us out, for change is a given. In some seemingly inextricable situations, death is the savior from life. In those situations we can only try and change our inner perceptions of outer circumstances. As Naomi said, “Hardships can make us stronger. Every situation in life has some good in it.”
Andy Warhol said, “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” The freedom to change is a blessing and curse. If we are stuck in routines which are unfulfilling, but are afraid to shift into new ones, then the unfulfilled promise of freedom becomes our curse. Likewise, sometimes, shifting paradigms at first are painful and can make us curse. This is like an athlete training for gold, feeling such pain he thinks he can’t go on, then, remembering his goal, says to himself “no pain, no gain.”

Circle In The Water

"Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperses to naught."
William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)

I wonder at the circles my life is creating. Many have already “dispersed to naught,” and some continue to ripple outward. Interestingly, my artwork will ripple in the world for many years, since it is designed to have a lasting impact as long as it is seen. Relationships continually send ripples; when we interact with others, we are changing each other in subtle ways that carry forth in subsequent moments.
My book “A Heart Traced in Sand,” continues rippling in the great pond of life. People continue to write me letters of praise, telling how moved they have been reading it.

Each life sends out ripples, and we are all in the same water, so must know on some level the movements. Even thought can ripple waters . . . how many times have you heard someone say “It is amazing you called, because I have been thinking of you.” Their thinking rippled the water enough to wake your unconscious into sending messages to your mind and cause you to call.

In the end, we have to be aware of the ripples we send into the world, making them positive. Think what our planet would be like if we all were positively conscious this way.

The Artist’s Fortunes

Artists are often romanticized for living lives of creativity and passion, outside the typical norm of society. It is also a sometimes brutal path, as Van Gogh and many other famous artists have shown. Being married to a creative muse is a fulfilling and demanding relationship. The outer world comes second. But the outer feeds the body, and has rules for gaining favor and privilege. The inner muse could care less. And this leads to conflict that often ends in some inevitable suffering. How often has it occurred that an artist is consumed in his creative work, making masterpieces that the world is not ready to absorb? Meanwhile, the artist’s fortunes steadily diminish to poverty. So many have died paupers, and later, the world throws accolades on their graves. Mozart, Rembrandt, Turner, Van Gogh, and the list goes on . . . all impoverished when they died. Yet, we would be impoverished if such beings did not give us of the richness of their inner life.
I am exhibiting this weekend at PhotoArts Santa Fe, and although there are many people who give me compliments for my work, sales are not happening. So I think of the good company I am in, and I am thankful for my creative comrades, living and dead, and I send them my love. It is the best companionship.

Dreams

On weekends, I go to a movie. Usually, it is hard to choose, since there are more than one I want to see, and more coming all the time. Last night I went to Paprika, a movie that reviewed favorably in the local press. It is an animated Japanese film with the plot based on the thin line between our waking and dream life. In the film, the protagonist is a researcher who has one foot in both worlds, and finds herself embroiled in a fight to keep a new tool that allows people to experience each others dreams, from falling into power hungry hands that would use it to control lives.
Imagine, we spend one third of our lives asleep. How much of that time is dreaming? For a long while I have noticed that when I wake from sleep, I am a bit sad. I guess that it is because I am stepping from the rich, boundless world where dreams live and spirit roams free, back into life as usual in a very limited body within this material existence. Also, my dear Naomi, ( A Heart Traced In Sand ) who I am so bonded with, exists in the other world, closer to Spirit and the freedom of dreams.
Well, at least in my creative living, I can bring the unconscious and dreaming into relation with conscious existence and make art.