Change In the Weather

 

A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves. —Marcel Proust

Santa Fe winter

Of a sudden, the weather here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA changed from almost balmy to sub-freezing. The forecast for the next couple days is for cold, with blustery snow showers and temperatures below freezing. 

I drove this morning for my ritual Sunday coffee, slice of walnut banana bread and New York Times. Usually I eat at a table indoors, but since covid restrictions I have been outdoors. Since the weather changed, I have been sitting in my car, reading the paper and drinking coffee.

On the way home I thought of the changes occurring in my life, and especially our move to Oaxaca, Mexico soon. We will be going from four seasons to two: wet and dry. 

All my life I have enjoyed summer, followed by autumn, winter and spring. Winters are the most difficult. In the past, I took to the mountains to ski and it helped make the season more enjoyable. I have sold all the winter landscape paintings I have made through the years. Yet, as I write this, I am shut indoors with the furnace blasting, dreaming of spring. 

Front entrance

A couple weeks ago, we flew to Oaxaca to buy our future home. During those six days, we never wore our coats, and at least once I regretted not having shorts and sandals. 

Looking through windows to the front entrance

The first time we saw the house, last August, the surrounding corn fields were full of tall, green stalks. Our property had green plants and grass. This time, most of the colors were brown. I wonder what it will be like when the rain comes . . . for sure, I look forward to living in our new home and experiencing the afternoon rains. 

Back side of our home

For Amy and I, in our new home—a house made creatively with love—we will recreate our world and ourselves.

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

Winds Of Change

The winds of change continually blow over the ocean of my being. A wave has formed and is carrying me to a distant shore. I see that it has gathered force and is sweeping everything in its path: soon I will no longer be living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, but instead, Venice, Italy . . . and from there probably Asia and South America.

The time this happened before, I wrote some blogs in advance that are worthy of review:

Depend On Love

Traveling Around The Sun

 

Grand Confusion

 

 

 

 

Opening And Closing Of A Door

The Steven Boone Gallery is doing very well—and closing! In fact, today is the last day the doors will be open for art lovers to browse and buy a piece of art from off the gallery walls. My wife is happier than I am about the change. She sees it as liberation from a business that has struggled and used valuable resources. The street, Canyon Road, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has 100 art galleries, and many find that they cannot make enough money in a thoroughly saturated market. Winter months are especially grueling and exorbitant rents must be paid regardless if there are only twenty curious people that come in the entire week. 

The business requires vast hours of attention, and now that it is closing, she says, “We have more time for just the two of us, together.” 

I am philosophical about the investment, and believe years of good will come from the effort. Seeds have been sown and some are not finished bearing fruit.

Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment.   Carl Sandburg 

An Urge

"Feeling The Pinch," oil on board, 12 x 16 inches, by Steven Boone

Sometimes an urge arises inside of me to shake things up—like an earthquake that rumbles forth and topples the established order of things. Only what is true and strong survives. This rumbling has been going on inside of me for years and is seen in my art; with its variations in style that often appear to not have correlations. Revolution keeps me on my toes and far from complacency. 

This weekend marks the beginning of a show I will share with another artist—Dirk Kortz. The exhibit is titled Twisted Portraits. We are both including portraits that have an oddness inherent in them. Something unsettled. It could be a grimacing face, or a hand reaching into the picture, smearing paint, or even a face dangling from a clothesline. I expect that these paintings won't sell easily . . . for they are disturbing. Life too is unsettling . . . and art must reflect life.

"Untitled," six 8 x 10 inch panels, oil on canvas, by Dirk Kortz

I Love Your Stories

“I love your stories Steven. Thanks for them.” 



Reply: ”Every week for over six years now Christine. This kind of consistency in my life is mostly confined to prayer and drinking coffee.”

This brief conversation arrived via Facebook, when Christine McIntyre, a friend I met in Belize, during my trip around the world in 2008 reacted to a posting from my archives that appeared. My blog is getting rather deep, so that now, every so often, I can pull an interesting story from the past and post it on the exact day of the year in the present.

Here are some selections from August postings:

August 19, 2012

Endlessly Changing

 

 

 

 

August 07, 2011

A Leap Of Faith

August 08, 2010

Gifts

August 02, 2009

Woven Together Into Eternity

August 10, 2008

Scratch Under The Surface

August 26, 2007

Rainbow Of Chaos

Endlessly Changing

“Physical bodies are transferred past one barrier after another, from one life to another, and all things are subject to transformation and change, save only the essence of existence itself -- since it is constant and immutable, and upon it is founded the life of every species and kind, of every contingent reality throughout the whole of creation.” - Abdu'l-Baha

This quote is so beautiful and profound. I found it because a few days ago my dog had to be euthanized in front of my wife Lori and I. He was not even one year old, but had come to us with weaknesses that led to his demise. In the brief time he was with us, he had made our hearts more open and full. Now, we were faced with ordering his death—and in that we were also dying a little.

During this sadness, I felt again the feelings I experienced losing my beloved daughter, Naomi, who died from cancer at the tender age of nineteen. I have always known Naomi went from one life into the next, and she is in an exalted realm now. But what about our dog, Chamo?

The way I have been living is so simple, that I do not even own a shovel, or piece of earth. Lori has a house 45 minutes from Santa Fe, but when we put down Chamo at 6 AM, August 16, I could not go back there immediately, so we had him cremated. And that is all that is left. Our memories of him fill us with emotion . . . but nothing else remains. In this world, only humans have rational souls that can communicate through all eternity, from every dimension.

As for the physical elements that were held together by divine love and made the creature that we called Chamo—they have returned to dust, to be scattered and rise again in many forms, endlessly changing in the play of cosmic unfolding.