Success

“There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way.”
Christopher Morley US author & journalist (1890 - 1957)
If this were a true statement, then some of the most inspiring people in history would have their accomplishments diminished. No, there is another, more important success: to overcome external circumstances through inner resourcefulness and the exercise of virtue. Would people know who Nelson Mandela is if he had not been a prisoner for 27 years and then emerged intact before becoming president of South Africa? Or what about the little man from India, Mahatma Gandhi, (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) who was the pioneer of satyagraha—resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa or total non-violence—which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.
So we see that sometimes success is not about "spending life in your own way." Some souls prefer to be tested by external hardships so that they continue to grow from the inside, and thus prove that spirit can overcome matter.
A test for me these days has been my dearth of income. Yet I see it is what THE DREAM is giving me now, so I do not struggle so much as observe and take interest. I know that THE DREAM holds more than I can comprehend, and if I am faithful, I will be assisted and thrive. In fact my circumstances have been improving.

A Dazzling Celebration

Lately, when I wake in the morning, often I feel like I need help facing the day, so I say a prayer for assistance. Then, more often than not, little struggles ensue throughout the sunlight hours. It is not physical, since I almost never fall sick and I am in good health. But emotionally, when I face tasks, I am soon encumbered by disinterest. I wonder if I have been spoiled by my year of living dangerously, trekking with abandon across the globe on adventure after adventure. Also, the USA is not the same as when I left, and I feel life is collapsed inward. The economy is in shambles . . . and I have no income, so to speak. I am considering selling my possessions again, and moving to Asia, where I have friends and I can live for a fraction of the cost I am faced with now.
This morning I took a walk and flowers are in bloom everywhere. Flowers struggle too! First they must emerge from their dark, hard surroundings underground in their shell. Then they need sunlight, water and nutrients to feed their roots. They must not be stepped on or crushed. They are on a mission to grow to their full potential and create the flowers that make seeds that insure the survival of the species. They struggle against elemental opposition and when they succeed and bloom, a dazzling celebration ensues.
So too, must we as human beings, struggle against everything that would keep us from blooming, so that we may reach our potential and display to the world our own accomplishment of intelligence, talent, and virtue. The difference for us is that we can have a long life of blooming, and human blooming can occur under almost any circumstance. Sometimes, nobility is most pronounced under cruel circumstances. I think of my precious Naomi, when she was in pain and slowly dying. It drove me crazy with distress too watch, and although it was not my custom, sometimes I would leave her for a few moments and smoke a cigarette to relax and distract myself. I prayed all the time for her healing, but conditions worsened. Anyway, once, when I returned to Naomi’s side, she knew I had gone out to smoke, and she gently chided me, saying, “Dad, if you are anxious, just pray. We are stronger when we are happy.” In moments like those, I knew Naomi was so much more than her withering body . . . she was blooming like the fairest rose and nothing would fade its magnificent splendor.

Strange Scenario

This past week I traveled a road that I have never been on before. I printed one of my photographs on top of an abstract monoprint. (A monoprint is a painting that is made on plexiglass and then sent through a printing press. The pressure transfers the ink from the hard glass to the absorbent paper.) I then experimented with coatings and sent the print through my wide format ink jet printer and came up with something interesting that I can continue to work with.
Meanwhile, the economy is in such a slump that I have no income these days. My paintings, which usually sell briskly, are not selling, and my items brought back to the United States from abroad are only selling on the very low end; not enough to cover my expenses. I am in THE DREAM, and now it is presenting me with a strange scenario where I produce work but it goes unsold.
Another strange scenario is the plight of seven Baha’ís in Iran. They were arrested a year ago just for being Baha’ís, and have been imprisoned ever since. In the past, similar arrests have led to execution. There is so much that is dreadfully unfair about this. The seven have not been allowed to see lawyers and not been charged with any crime. An international protest is gaining momentum that certainly will eventually lead to changes for the betterment of Iran and the safeguarding of human rights everywhere else as well.

Pavlov's Dog

I have always needed openness to feel good. When I feel closed in or surrounded, I tend to get uncomfortable. Certainly there are many people who are my opposite and tend to need the comfort of familiar surroundings, and like being enveloped—and this is the wonder of humanity, that each being is unique and has special qualities all their own.
When I was a young man, I did not want to have a tie around my neck because it felt constricting. The ocean makes me nervous because it can swallow and eat me. There have been times when I have been in groups that demanded my involvement and unconsciously my body rebelled so that I felt nauseous or had to frequent the bathroom.
In work too, I can feel trapped, even by success; in my case, landscape painting. Repeated success combined with financial reward can lead to what I call “Pavlov Dog Syndrome.” Ivan Pavlov, (1849-1936) was a Russian scientist that made his famous discovery that dogs salivate before food reaches their mouths and that they learn by association to salivate even when a lab technician comes into view if they expect that the technician is going to feed them. In Pavlov’s experiment, the technicians always wore white lab coats and the dogs learned that people who wore white lab coats would feed them, so after awhile, they associated white lab coated people with being fed, and just the sight of them would make them salivate. So too, after repeated success selling certain types of artwork, an artist can become conditioned to “being fed” and even salivate at the thought of the food that is to come to his table when he produces more of what people like and will buy. For me, this is claustrophobic because soon it can be like living in an artistic box of limited dimension. Like a prison cell. But some artists say that this cell is actually a finely decorated palace and they are quite comfortable doing what people like and to be paid handsomely.
Lately, I feel unsettled creatively. After being so free, traveling around the world, what am I going to do next? I cannot seem to attach myself, or be attached. I do not want to own anything and do not particularly care if what I have comes or goes. Just the ideas for projects make me restless and I fear being trapped. So this is what THE DREAM is presenting me with now and I am treading lightly, just observing where the flowing water wants to go as it makes its way through the landscape to the sea. Soon enough, the energy will gain strength to carry me into a new unknown.
"Good taste is the enemy of creativity." Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

You Smell Good

Today, I got in trouble with someone and I had to apologize for overstepping boundaries. I often allow my personality and temperament to flow unconstrained and exuberantly, like a journey on a free-spirited river that is sometimes placid and other times dashing against rocks and swirling in turbulence. For the most part I am along for the ride and call it THE DREAM. In this state I feel boundless and excited, and need to touch the world to unite with it and know where I am. For example, one evening last October, while sharing dinner with my fellow safari travelers in Tanzania, a man from South Africa stared at me from across the table and abruptly asked, “Why did you kiss that Masai woman today?” His direct query took me by surprise. Earlier, our vehicle had broken down on the bumpy dirt route out of the Serengeti, and we were stranded while one of the crew worked to fix the problem. I had gone out of the bus to stretch and met a Masai couple by the side of the road. I immediately felt attracted and so walked over to them. The man sized me up as I stood smiling, and I asked to take their picture. He nodded okay, and I took photos of them together, then each one alone, and finally just of their hands touching together. Afterwards, spontaneously and without thinking, I leaned over and kissed the woman’s cheek. She was highly amused and giggled. “But didn’t you see that the man was holding a club when you kissed his wife?” the South African asked. To be honest, I did not think that any of the interchange could end badly. That is my way. But today THE DREAM took a different twist.
Outside of Santa Fe there is an Indian tribe that controls an outdoor marketplace that is famous and where I have just begun selling my items from world travel. This morning, as I stood talking with my assistant, a young, very chubby, Indian woman who worked at the market came to speak with me. She was wearing nice perfume and in a moment, I was riding in the stream and going with the flow. “You smell good!” I beamed at her as I put my arm around her shoulder and sniffed her hair. A half hour later, I was summoned to the tribal office and severely reprimanded. Feeling a bit humiliated, I apologized profusely, but nonetheless received a warning. I felt like a school kid that had been scolded in the principles office.
For a while afterward, I questioned myself and even incriminated a little. But really, the stream that carries me is big and beautiful and my heart is full, so I imagine that someday again, I will stop in my tracks when I come to a fragrant rose and simply from exuberance, reach out and touch it.

Chicago

This last week, I flew to Chicago, the place of my birth. My daughter Sarah is finishing her studies in dance at Columbia College, and as part of her senior project, choreographed and performed in a modern dance. Chicago is notorious for its bone chilling winters, and the trees are just beginning to show buds that will become the green leaves of summer, but the weather was surprisingly warm. Chicago is called “the windy city” because it rises from the shores of Lake Michigan where heady breezes blow.

Sarah called her dance Desert Skies, and used one of my paintings of a southwestern sunset as a backdrop. Six dancers performed to elegant music with flute, in flowing burnt-orange pastel dresses that harmonized with the sunset. The dancers entered the stage from both sides, seeming to arrive into the landscape of the setting sun. From there, the bodies often came together only to fly apart in patterned movement, coming together again . . . falling, rising, running, grasping the sky with arms like wings, twirling, spinning and finally becoming one pulsing circle that fell to the ground in ecstatic exhaustion. The evening included six performances, and afterwards, the students, their parents and admirers all gathered together for a social time. I found Sarah in the hall outside the auditorium and she was flushed from exercise and excitement. She said she felt happy to have accomplished her task but a bit sad too that it all was ended.

Big cities have wonderful resources to keep people informed and entertained, and whenever I arrive in Chicago I always visit the Art Institute of Chicago. It holds many masterpieces, and some I never tire of seeing, such as an exquisite small self-portrait by Vincent Van Gogh.
The institution is constantly providing the public with new features, and I was able to see a wonderful special exhibit about the famous Norwegian painter Edvard Munch who is best known for his iconic painting called The Scream.


My stay in Chicago lasted three days and when I boarded the airplane to travel 1125.18 miles (1810 kilometers) back to Santa Fe, New Mexico, I felt like Sarah did after her dance performance—satisfied but a bit sad that this wonderful sojourn had drawn to a close.

Journey Around The World

I have made a movie. The name “movie” implies movement, and nowadays action movies are packed with so much movement and sound that they can make you dizzy. My film is more meditative, a sort of glorified slideshow that took me all week to make as I learned along the way. It is called, A Journey Around the World, and is comprised of the photographs I took while circling the globe, also including music reflective of each country I visited.
Eventually, I will edit down the size and upload a version to YouTube, but for now, you can see a more complete and entertaining original and share it with friends. Make sure you have your sound turned up, and then, enjoy! Click here: Steven Boone, Journey Around the World

Philosophy

Human beings are by design, philosophers . . . and I dare say, the more intelligent a person is, the more philosophical. Philosophy is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, and can be a guiding principle for behavior. Everyone at some time asks, “who am I, and what is the meaning of life?” Baha’u’llah has said, ”True loss is for him who has spent his life in utter ignorance of his true self.” And Socrates spoke these famous words: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
For years, I have sought to invent myself beyond the historical forces that have molded me with values and prejudices. At one point, I had a desire to be broken apart so that I could be made anew. Not long after, my daughter Naomi, seventeen at the time, was diagnosed with cancer, and two years later died. In the interval, I completely broke apart and fell so low that life itself seemed an illusion of despair. With Naomi dying, I felt myself dying as well; all my parts were as if broken.
There is a passage from the Bible that Dostoevsky used in the preface to his great book The Brothers Karamazov. It is: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12:24 Examining this statement from a personal and also philosophical viewpoint, it is extremely telling, and a metaphor for life itself. Seeds are the kernels of life that hold the promise of fulfillment when they become plants and bear fruit. They are made up of three parts: the outer seed coat, which protects the seed; the endosperm, which provides food for the embryo; and the embryo itself, which is a young plant. In order for the seed to grow, certain actions must occur between the seed and its environment. The hard, protective shell must disintegrate, and proper conditions help the young plant to emerge into daylight. It is this “dying” of the protective shell which allows the emergence of the essence of the plant. Likewise, in human life, the protective shell might be regarded as an individual’s ego that serves to form an identity that offers protection against the assaults and rigors of the world. But the ego also binds people so tightly, that they remain apart from everything. The inner essence of human beings, in order to grow to fulfillment, needs the ego to die after it has served its usefulness early in the development of the individual. Then the person can truly give himself to the world, and receive in return. Easier said than done; David Starr Jordan, author of The Philosophy of Despair, said, "Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.”
In my case, after Naomi died, I found myself far more humble in this world. My ego was shattered and a new perspective on life had developed. Everything was precious because I knew that even the blades of grass, once they die, cannot be replaced identically. Every part of nature is special; and most special of all is humanity. In a sense too, Naomi’s passing left a big void inside of me, so that I sought for her in everyone, and even if slightly, found my hearts desire in everyone.
If all of humanity became educated to be philosophers and search for truth, we will see each other as special, and as we grow and overcome the shell of our egos, the earth will be remade too . . . into a paradise. It is waiting for this.

Everything Is In Motion

We are all travelers. All is in motion, even when appearing to be at rest. Time is always moving and everything is related to time, so everything moves, becoming “older” with each moment. Furthermore, our world and all its parts are in constant rotation: the earth is rotating on its axis, and orbiting the sun, which is in a galaxy revolving in the universe, which is in revolution of another universe; and so on.
These thoughts arrived last night when I was at a party and people asked me about how it feels now that I have stopped traveling. Really, we are always traveling, and my trip around the world is but a small step in the grander scheme of motion. Moreover, I am comfortable knowing that the flux of my travel never ends, and that my perception of the moment is most important. Quality moments depend on awareness, and the love found when one's being is commingled with the surroundings; not resisting, but surrendering and engaged.

Another question I am often asked is, “What was the best place?” That is another matter for analysis, because it depends on what I have just discussed, which is quality moments. If I am always engaged and having good quality moments, why should I deconstruct the whole experience and break it apart so that I then label segments in a sliding scale of bad to good? No, I prefer to keep my experience intact as a living whole that is entirely inter-related and inter-dependant. Of course, some memories are stronger, like when I first saw an elephant roam into my view at the Serengeti in Africa. That is a bigger impression than waiting to board an airplane in Bangkok, because boarding airplanes is something I have done many times and includes long waits in a static environment. But somehow, the two experiences do not exclude each other. If I were a Masai tribesman who had grown up among elephants, then the airport experience might be more memorable.

Sublime And Complicated

“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” This is something a madman might say, or, maybe an artist. Actually, Pablo Picasso, Spanish, 1881 – 1973, said it, and I will share a few more of his sayings. Love him or hate him, Picasso changed the course of art history and became one of the most famous people of all time. He also said, “Everything you can imagine is real. And, “I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”
I share Picasso’s passion for pursuing imagination, and trying to do that which I cannot. It is what led me to give up my home and journey around the world for a year. Now that I have returned to Santa Fe, I am exploring what I can do with some of the over 10,000 photographs I took. I bought a large inkjet printer for my studio and can make prints up to 44 inches wide and any length. It prints on paper or canvas, and furthermore, the color and sharpness can be strikingly good. Recently, I made a painting of a sunset that I then photographed and printed on canvas the same size as the original. Then I stretched it on stretcher bars, coated and painted on it until it became as vibrant and impressive as the original. Now it can be sold as a semi-original piece of art, at a fraction of the cost.(See: http://stevenboone.com/giclee.html)
It is such pleasure to draw from the naked human form. I have been doing this for thirty years and never tire of it. Now that I am settled in one place again, I have rejoined a group of artists that gather once a week and draw a nude model. It is so sensuous and invigorating to look intently over every square inch of a naked person, and consciously trace their form onto paper. Some artists are better than others at this, and everyone has their own style, although techniques can be the same. It is quite difficult to arrive at a successful outcome that warrants attention. Serious artists spend considerable time studying anatomy. I took artistic anatomy in college, and learned how bones and muscle give contour to the human form underneath skin. And then, proportions are important, and the angle from which a figure is viewed directly influences proportion. (Click to see Steven Boone figure drawings.)
Some artist models are better than others. For me, the best are those who have something of the artist in themselves. They are comfortable being gazed at while they are naked, and intuitively strike poses that are challenging and enticing. Models that are self-conscious sometimes just get into yoga poses, and often it is boring to the eye and not particularly fun to draw.
It is amazing how prominently the human form figures in art history. Check it out—look through an art history book sometime and notice how artists through the ages have focused on the most sublime and complicated feature of our existence: the human form.

“There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.” Picasso

“There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.” Picasso

Division Bells

I imagine I know what a prisoner feels like when he is released from confinement and walks out into the big, bright planet as a free person. Suddenly, he acutely appreciates everything, and especially marvels that he is free to touch the world once again. The sun warms his flesh, colors are vivid and true, and he drinks deep the fresh air, relishing life as if he is born again. Now that the nineteen-day fast is over until next year, this is what I felt like yesterday, when I began my day and could eat or drink whenever I wanted. I had been a willing prisoner, but now my aim is accomplished and I have a fresh and vital perspective going forward.
I pulled into my driveway today just as a song came on the radio that held me so that I just sat and listened. It was Pink Floyd’s composition called High Hopes. It begins with the chiming of bells, which reminded me of Venice, Italy. The first stanza goes,
Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young

In a world of magnets and miracles

Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary

The ringing of the division bell had begun
It made me think. Children in their innocence see the world as if dreaming. The universe to them is whole and fluid, with moments effortlessly flowing one into the other. Imagination imbues everything with possibility. Then, the bells of rationality and discriminate thinking sound, and so the perception of the world changes. Slowly, children become less magical and more grounded in opinion. The ego develops and so do feelings of separation. People develop alliances and choose labels for themselves and others, such as; nationality, color, status, profession, sexuality, and many others.
To me, THE DREAM is the same place we lived when we were children, in a world of magnets and miracles, . . . without boundary. To stay there, is to not listen to the division bells that cut and dice the world into separate and unequal parts and makes us prisoners. It is to be, as Bob Dylan says in his song of the same name, "forever young."

May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.