Expressing Inner Life

Artists are often reluctant to interpret their work when asked. A reason could be that the artwork is like a child and the artist the parent. The parent does not want to interpret the child, but rather have the child speak.

Hand of a Muse, mixed-media on panel, 20 x 16 inches (50 x 40 cm)

Furthermore, often there is great mystery in creating art—and it is not easily put into words. Accidents come into play (that are not accidents at all), and the art seems to breath and have a life of its own. Sometimes I finish a piece and when standing back to look, I catch myself saying, Wow, did I do that?

I have been making three-dimensional art recently and often, hands are included. The one shown here is new. I wanted to use a hand with forearm. It had to be situated so that it expressed itself. I had the thought that it could be dragging colors with fingertips across the white ground. To cover the arm, I had the idea to use pieces of broken mirror. 

As I broke a mirror into bits with a hammer, a piece struck me in my left eye. Ouch! Then I thought, How stupid of me. Why was I not wearing eye protection? Thankfully, I did not need to go to an emergency room and my eye was not cut. That was several days ago and it is still sore. I wonder why my left eye was injured (everything that goes wrong with me or suffers injury is on the left), and I also ask if it was fate that by breaking a mirror, which held my image, I would feel torment? Oh well, as they say, "No pain, no gain."

Now that the art piece is done, I will make an attempt to interpret it:

The white rectangle ground represents purity of space. White contains all the colors. The hand represents human endeavor, and art. It is interacting with the white, bringing forth colors that plays from fingertips. 

Color is vibrant life, like the inner life of an artist. The bits of mirror reflect light and the real world. They are broken in fragments, but recreating to be part of a whole—coming together to be part of the magic artist that is expressing inner life like reflections in a mirror.

As I finished, I decided to pour white over the colors streaming from the fingertips, to soften their notes, and further the mystery of coming forth from an enveloping matrix.

One day I noticed that I could go on working my art motif no matter what the weather might be. I no longer needed the sun, for I took my light everywhere with me. (Georges Braque)

Enjoy

My recent 4 ½ months of traveling is now in a ½ hour clip of photos, video and music.    Enjoy.

Place Of Not Knowing

A person dear to me and I have had many conversations about dreams, symbols, imagination, spiritual paths, esoteric thought, psychology and perception. We both easily jump into the same deep pool. We share books and are both in similar soul searching processes, seeking higher truths that lead to rebirth in spirit. She dreams and remembers them. I do not remember my dreaming. When she shares her dreams that are so full of rich symbols and extraordinary happenings, I sometimes am breathless.

I often think that life is a big DREAM. Fantastic surprises come and go frequently. We are often in wonder and awe. Mystery surrounds us and permeates every atom of our existence. It is the realm that poets, visionaries and seers draw from. It is why I call this blog My Fairy-tale Life.

Rather than be suspect of mystery, I relish the place of not knowing. It is full of potential. It calls me to be creative.

I tire quickly when I am bound to pragmatism and dogma. Thank God I can be an artist and make use of dreams, symbols, flights of fancy, flesh, blue skies, storms, crumbling earth, crashing ocean waves—all impermanent.

Life in THE DREAM.

Hands

 Hands are essential to human life. How many poems have been written about them? Hardly any. Yet, think about it; we use our hands to make the world we live in. We grasp tools, drive vehicles and go places, feed ourselves, express ourselves, make music and art, write, climb, lift, caress and make love, hold babies . . . hands give us mobility, life and progress.

In art, hands are among the most difficult part of human form to convey. They are complicated appendages.

Appreciate your hands!

Walk A New Path

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will. -George Bernard Shaw

The best art allows us to see with our own eyes, but brings us into revelation. Our vision and perception gains strength. A chord is touched inside of us so that we say, “Aha.”

When it goes public, a piece of art is owned by all, so to speak, and open to a myriad of interpretations. From that time forward it is objective and subjective both. The risk an artist takes is that he may value his work highly, but the public does not.

When a new movement in art comes along, it often is met with resistance and some ridicule. It asks the viewer to take a different path from the norm, and often, the viewer says, “You foolish artist, I know what good art is. You can't fool me! The tried and true is apparent to all, so why should I go down this suspicious path with you?” In modern times, this is what happened to the first impressionists, and much later, also the abstract expressionists. First ridicule and resistance, and then through persistence, passion and devotion, a warming occurred with people. In these cases, it took years along with the slow gaining of important allies in the art business, and then the public was swayed. Now there is adulation. Just look at Van Gogh's life.

The same happens in social movements such as women's suffrage, native people's rights, race equality etc. Also, the world's great religions were often met with fierce resistance when they first appeared.

I have started creating art that is a departure from my past. It just seems to be the time, and I have the passion and will to walk a new path. I have not lost anything, I can always go back. Recently, I have been constructing my paintings as much as painting them. They begin with an idea that is fed from my unconscious and I go from there. There are two now, with more coming. The finished peieces are in the public realm since people have seen them—mostly online. I am not showing them in a gallery at this time. Being public they are both objective and subjective now.

As an example of how this type of art can evoke a wide range of subjective responses, I will tell of the interpretations from different people as they viewed my last piece. The main parts are: two dolls—one standing and one falling, a niche where one doll stands and one has fallen from, a window, an open book turned to a chapter titled, “On Love”, and a hand seeming to come from thin air and holding the book open.

A close friend of mine was the first to see it complete, and as we discussed it she formulated a story that the two dolls were actually the same person. She is both standing and also toppled over and entering the realm of the book; falling into the story of love while the Hand of God holds the book open.

Another person said that at first glance it made her feel like someone is trying to hold onto LOVE.

Someone else wrote on Facebook: “People told me to be 'perfect'. Perfect like a doll... Then, some people gave me books leading to imperfect worlds... I took your hand so that I could grow into something I would never have imagined...”

Another Facebook friend wrote: “This is a dream world, and perhaps it has a touch of adobe wall of Santa Fe and old walls of places you've traveled. There is hope and life coming through the top window, so close yet set apart from the innocent girl, the fairy tale girl, with the perfect outfit, part of whom has lost control and fallen,(or perhaps some inner part of the dream has fallen) almost, perhaps it will be a surprise to her, into a book, which seems to be orderly - can't see the title. She doesn't know it but part of her falls into some type of order that this hand, old as the wall, ancient like the soul, has touched. The figure at the top might be mourning for loss, while the hand feels the order of that book, not reading it or holding it, but feeling it. It is a left hand of the intuitive, inner self. Some dream perhaps fallen yet into a book. The hatted doll is in a bit of a precarious position but so close to the window of hope. Perhaps she represents external fantasies (letting go. Just a few thoughts. She is hatted like the men you painted, but here is a feminine aspect, perhaps an inner child waiting to be helped down or through that window. the book is quite balanced...I mean the two pages, like yin and yang. Perhaps the hand knows in this book is the balance. If I want to trip on it, it could be a person, with the doll at the head, the doll and the hand the arms and the book the feet. The head then would have part in life and hope and part in image, possibly fantasy or a young female sense, the hands part letting go and part holding on to the feet holding to balance, truth. But I wouldn't want to project onto it...(ha, ha, smile).”

And now, I confess that my original conception was for the two dolls to represent a sort of fate for two different people. One who would stand firm in life, bearing witness to the window of life and the Book of Love held by the hand of destiny (or God), and the other who falls.

I like all the descriptions and they all work! Art is objective and subjective. That is the fun.

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web. -Pablo Picasso

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. -Albert Einstein

Constructing

Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a phenomenal creator. The public recognized his genius and followed along adoringly. He went through stylistic phases such as a Blue Period with sad, gaunt people in gloomy settings, and then circus and harlequin subjects. The predominant color is a melancholy blue. A Rose Period with romantic, delicately treated subjects in pale pink. Cubism where natural forms were changed to geometric-like shapes. Distortion and multi-view figures in mainly dull colours. Neo-Classicism with heavily-built sculpturesque Grecian women. Surrealism and dream-world compositions and more, including sculpture, ceramic art, constructions, printmaking, drawing and even poetry.


Most artists do not change styles frequently. They find a niche and stay there. If they are successful, they are afraid of repercussions if they change and their new work is not favored. In marketing language, this is called “branding”.

I have been aware for many years that my greatest success has been as a landscape artist. Yet, all along, I have done other work more or less simultaneously. And I have appreciated all kinds of art and music. I have resisted branding and yet have been able to make a living as an artist.

Now my work is changing again. I am constructing my artwork as much as painting it. Gone are the landscape paintings. The subjects are figures and dreamworlds. So as not to confuse people, I have considered taking a pseudonym and making a clean break from the past. Perhaps I should not take another name and simply walk in Picasso's shoes.

Steven Boone, 18 x 24 inches, mixed-media

Material Things

"Visitation" original photo by Steven Boone

For some reason I lost my attraction to material things about eleven years ago. I lived in a big house on beautiful land and did not lack for anything. It was all paid off. Stuff just didn't seem important to me anymore. I craved submersion in experience. Shortly thereafter, I sold off belongings and told friends and loved ones that I intended to “disappear into the matrix of the world.” Some laughed, but this is what I did. I left the United States and traveled around the globe for a year. Along the way, I stepped into THE DREAM, a condition of consciousness where everything has meaning and purpose but nothing is permanent. I loved being in flux—open to the next surprising event that would illumine my mind. Even the mishaps had a part to play in THE DREAM.

Laundry day, Burano, Italy

I am surprised that even now, I do not have much that I crave or need to have. I rent a house, own my vehicle, have essentials for my artwork and creative pursuits and am debt free. I don't need to own anything to be happy. I keep waiting for the feeling to come into me that says, “Buy something permanent.” This spring I got some faint suggestions that it might be nice to buy a house and live by a river, giving it my own artistic touches and making it a place of peace and creativity. But its just a romantic imagination. Perhaps it will arrive and perhaps not.

I have been going back to THE DREAM, seeing my life through its prism. It is fantastic and I feel it is my real HOME.

Dock at Ipsos, Greece

Portal To Another World

 
One of my favorite subjects to paint and photograph is water. Why? Mostly because it is fluid and reflective. The water molecule is made of 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen atoms. When they are bound together they form a very flat surface with the oxygen and hydrogen alternating in the same direction. This is great for causing photons (light particle) to bounce off in a consistent direction. They bounce because water is denser than air. Water is much flatter and smoother than most surfaces. You see reflections in water but not, say, sand, for the same reason you see your reflection in a polished piece of steel but not a rough-sanded piece of steel. All materials reflect light to some extent, but a rough surface scatters the reflected rays in all directions, so reflected images are blurred beyond recognition. On the other hand, with a very smooth surface, all the reflected light rays stay arranged in the same way they were arranged before hitting the surface, (except for being flipped into a mirror image, of course).

If the water is flowing rapidly, there is little reflection because the surface is not flat. Usually it picks up some surrounding colors, especially the sky. I have had fabulous outings in autumn, when the blazing fall colors are reflected in rivers.

Last fall I was living in Venice, Italy, the magical city built upon water. Some of my favorite photographs are of reflections. With the slightest movement on the water, the images shift and distort—a portal to another world.

Be Lovingly Present

During my recent trip around the world I had nothing more personal to me than three little framed photographs I always kept near. The portraits are of `Abdu’l-Bahá, Naomi Boone, and Paramahansa Yogananda. All three are abiding now in the angelic realm.

 `Abdu’l-Bahá (Persian/Arabic 23 May 1844 – 28 November 1921) was the son of Bahá'u'lláh ("Glory of God"; 12 November 1817– 29 May 1892) , the founder of the Bahá'í Faith. Naomi Boone (Jan. 11 1980 – July 5, 1999) is my oldest daughter who died of cancer when she was nineteen. Paramahansa Yogananda (Bengali, 5 January 1893– 7 March 1952) was an Indian yogi and guru.

I am especially privileged to have been with Naomi and walked by her side in this world. I wrote a book about our journey together (A Heart Traced In Sand) and used her own writings to reveal her soul. Naomi started writing in diaries at the age of twelve. In addition she left volumes of drawings, paintings, some sculptures, and scribbled affirmations she made during her sufferings. At one point in her last diary, she was upset that she was getting worse, not improving. As she vented, she had the thought that someone would be reading her words after she died. She hated the notion because it was fatalistic. She wrote that she would rather burn her diary. I am glad she did not.

Naomi suffered tremendously before dying, but strove not to let it show. An active athlete in High School, she was on the track and field and cross-country running teams. She was in the Ski club, German Club and went to Germany. She began having difficulty with her leg, and we discovered she had bone cancer. The cancer had metastasized to her lungs as well. The tumor in her hip was very large and expanding—fracturing her bone. The treatments were horrendous. Her hair fell out, she was on crutches, was isolated for spells in hospital rooms . . . constantly hooked up to machines. Meanwhile she was attempting to finish high school between treatments, and applied to college.
She underwent a bone marrow transplant—doses of chemotherapy so high it destroyed her bone marrow. It also destroyed her immune system. Once when she sneezed, her nose bled and would not stop bleeding for three days. A specialist had to be called to constrict the blood vessels in her nose. She was given back stem cells that had been harvested from her earlier, and her bone marrow revived. She was accepted to an art college, and graduated high school.

All along, she fought hard and made every effort to live normally, even taking a job. The cancer retreated but came back and killed her. She had said that she did not want to die a slow agonizing death, but this is what happened. Her leg was terribly swollen, she could not feel her foot, was in intense pain, nauseous, and suffocated to death when her lungs filled with fluid. Yet, just the day before, she managed to say to someone massaging her, “I love my body, it has been so good to me.”

Remarkably, Naomi seldom complained and actually was more concerned for those around her. I barely left her side for two years. After she died, someone said we were like twin flames, and I know that is right.

My life has not been gentle since my father died two years ago, then my wife and I divorced, my first wife died, and then my mother passed away. I have felt sorrow, loneliness, pathos and more. Yet, I have not been blind to the good that occurs and my many fortunes and blessings.

I take solace in her words, and when I feel tired, or that life is unjust, or empty, I remember them. I have taken sentences from her writings, some just before she died, and written them here:

Healing! Loving! Knowing! Wishing! Hoping! Being! Enjoying! Living! Mending! Giving! Praying! Sending! Shining! These gifts of life are what make it possible to fight so hard to keep it.

This world is so full of opportunities that one can hardly keep up with them all. Life is so beautiful, I cherish it and want to be able to see every part of it.

I want to show God that I have learned much and feel I deserve acres of life to unfold for me. I love this life and I want to be here for as long as God allows. I trust that God knows my love for life and the happiness it gives me.

I am chi. I am full of the life force, full of the flowers, trees, the smell of lavender and roses, the feeling of the wind blowing against my face as I run, and the wonder when I go snorkeling and see the other world! That is only a little bit of what the life force is. I am chi, that life force.

It seems there is no way of knowing that everything will be okay. The only thing I can do is trust in God and the power I have within.

Sometimes I am afraid that I might die. It is not that I am afraid of going somewhere else, it is that I don't want to and I am not ready to leave this world. It is not death I fear, It is losing life and people.

As of now, I let go of my fears and troubles. In their place I let God do the work. I let light and energy, wholesomeness and happiness enter my soul. I know everything will be alright because God is with me no matter what.

I am filled with a wonderful sense of happiness. It is an indescribable sense of utmost freedom and joy. When I am in touch with it I just think, Oh, God, thank you for this beautiful body and life. I have learned how to use THANK YOU throughout everything.

Everything is important and nothing is important; everything is illusion back to God. Everything is already accomplished; you just have to bring your consciousness to it: Divine order is always in place. There is no place to go and nothing to do.

In every heart there is a deep sorrow, one that edges in like a whisper on a cold night. The delicacy of a person who is outwardly strong is as delicate as a rose before a frost inwardly.

May I be protected from internal and external harm. May I be healthy and strong,
 May I be happy and at peace.
May I care for myself joyfully.

God is with me, I just need to give it all to Him.

Hardship is something that will make us stronger. I don't know if I have complete evidence of this, but I think that in every situation there is good in it.

Show up and be lovingly present, no matter what it looks like out there or inside yourself. Always speak the truth of your heart.

Dear God, I want to tell you that I am thankful for my remarkable body. The joy in my soul has helped my body know how strong it actually is.

 

 

Blink Of An Eye

During the magical and carefree time of my early life, when I was barely seven years old, I remember one spring day playing outdoors with neighborhood kids. I thought about when I would turn eleven. It seemed so far away as to be an impossible dream to reach. Time was within the framework of moments, not years. 

Eventually I reached eleven, and now, looking back from the perspective of six decades of life, those five years it took to reach eleven seem as a blink of an eye. 

There have been many milestones that I have reached along the way from birth toward the end: first steps, first day in school, first job, high school graduation, college graduation, marriage, children, opening an art gallery, traveling around the world, artwork completed. Also painful benchmarks, such as a teenage mental breakdown, the death of my first daughter, my marriage breakups.
Miraculously and unexpectedly, I have reached another benchmark today. This is episode number five hundred of my blog.

 When I started writing My Fairy-Tale Life, I had no thought to its duration. Somewhere along the line, the posting became a discipline that I took seriously. It is now a treasure of experiences and photographs reaching back over nine years in steady weekly progression. I have written from every time zone and from thirty countries. Posts have been personal, thoughtful, whimsical, philosophical. I try and get a picture of subjects mid-week and have something done by Sunday. Sometimes I have not known what to write about. I am fortunate that besides writing, I am a painter and photographer. The visuals I include are good companions to the words.

Now, as I look forward, I wonder what the next five years might hold. The dreamy child still lives in me. Moments can be vast, but now, I have perspective, and I see years go by rapidly. In the end, I believe the perspective of childhood, that all is magical—a fairytale.

 Here are some interesting views of My Fairy-Tale Life:

http://www.my-fairytale-life.com/view/timeslide

http://www.my-fairytale-life.com/view/snapshot

http://www.my-fairytale-life.com/view/mosaic

http://www.my-fairytale-life.com/view/flipcard

Chorus Of Song

Every created thing has strength to transform. It is spring, and metamorphosis is occurring. For me, it is time to quiet the voices from outside and inside and listen to a pure chorus of song. It is possible.

I am primarily an artist. Painting is how I have earned my living for decades. Along the way, I became a photographer too. My work has appeared on book covers, in magazines and on gallery walls. I am grateful for the life I have lived, and now, I am giving more time to writing. 

I have had so many adventures that just one year of my life would make for a memoir. Thank God, my memory is good and I can draw from a grand storehouse of experiences to write about.

Here is a fun episode:

In February of 2010 I traveled to Rio de Janeiro to attend carnival. It is one of the biggest events on the planet each year. I knew in advance I would be in for a wild ride . . . and had some trepidation, mostly because I have a wild side.

During the trip, I focused on photography, not painting. Each day, I went out in the streets, taking photos. I bought an expensive ticket for one of the premiere nights of carnival in the Sambadrome, when upwards of 50,000 costumed participants parade from sunset to sunrise. I also bought a ticket to one of the samba balls that occur on several nights previous to the parades.

One day, I wandered far from my hotel. I was in “the zone” as I like to say. That is, my body is absorbed in the world, so that the world becomes my senses. I am not conscious of myself as a separate entity. I am not male or female, American, old or young, black or white or any race—all barriers vanish, everything flows in a great current. My eyes look for an opportunity to catch some poetry from the world.

I came to a blanket set out on grass by a street curb. Someone had carefully placed an assortment of objects there; a clock, sandals, torn photograph, fan etc. The things placed on the blanket seemed odd, fascinating, and personal. They looked as though they stayed there day and night. Leaves were scattered over everything. I took pictures. Suddenly, from behind me, a door crashed open and a crazed, bare chested black man with huge afro hairstyle dyed bright fluorescent pink came charging at me. I had no time to say anything—he was livid and yelling non-stop. I managed not to be intimidated by this rabid dog and stayed calm, although a bit fearful of his mental state. Did he sense that I found his objects whimsical and tragic? Soon he was insisting that I pay him for taking the pictures. With a tinge of chagrin, I took some coins out of my pocket and put them in his hand. He started yelling at me again. He wanted more money. At that point, I toughed it out. Holding firmly to my camera, I turned my back to the fellow and walked away. The vision of his crazed countenance stayed with me.
I walked toward my hotel and took more photos. A couple young ladies came up beside me. One of them touched my arm. “Sir, do you speak English?” I replied yes. She held her friend's arm in hers, and said, “I must tell you. What you are doing is dangerous.” At that point, I had left “the zone”, and felt a tinge of danger pass through my veins. “Thank you”,  I replied.
I hugged my expensive camera tighter, feeling torn between needing safety and experiencing the full impact of Rio de Janeiro's street life. I wanted to go into all the places.

This happened one other time. I had started going down concrete stairs into a favela neighborhood, following a trail of fabulous graffiti leading into the heart of darkness. A woman coming up the stairs stopped me. Waving her finger, she frowned to indicate I must not continue. Again, I felt my creative yearning crushed by danger. 

Thumb up . . . streets of Rio de Janeiro