an underpainting is raw. an authentic beginning, an authentic step in heading to a “finished” product. often i am the one who asks david to stop…stop here. there is something that speaks to me from the canvas of underpaintings. something that says, “look. i am here. i am not perfect. i am not done. but i exist.”
maybe it’s the connection to real life, to humanness – the not-done-ness, the not-perfect-ness, the here-existence – that appeals to me.
it is a suggestion of completeness, but not yet really measurable or judgeable. it is a tendency toward finished, but not contrived or overly-intended. it is a step in the direction of a painting that an artist deems done, but a step, a ‘done’, we each see through our own eyes.
it is a parallel of life. a start. a blank canvas. raw color. authentic steps. imperfect. not done. but here.
no one else. there was literally no one else i knew who took organ lessons. eight years old and i was the only one. everyone else i knew took piano lessons. they went to the new local music store –munro music on larkfield road in east northport – and had lessons in itty studios downstairs and came back upstairs to pick out sheet music from a big wall featuring the latest hits and books of collected artists, written out for various levels of piano-playing ability. me? i went to mr. i-never-knew-if-he-even-had-a-first-name sexton’s house (now, think about the torture my peers had with that name) and took organ lessons in the addition adjacent to the garage. there was no wall of sheet music, were no cool guitars hanging up begging to be purchased, no amplifiers or drums. just that one organ. no windy or ode to billie joe or i’m a believer easy piano for me. it was beautiful dreamer and long, long ago. and hymns. lots of hymns. but i had been asking for lessons since i was five and the little chord organ that was my grandmother’s was moved aside and a ‘real’ organ with two manuals (keyboards) and real pedals and cha-cha button settings was added to the corner of the dining room that was next to the kitchen and the living room.
when i was ten i tearfully played the pipe organ for my brother’s wedding, the processional as my sweet sister-in-law walked down the aisle to my big brother. yesterday i was talking to john whelan, a master celtic accordionist the exact same age as me, and we talked about the first real gig we did. his was at 12 and he actually got paid. mine was this wedding and, for obvious reasons, payment was out of the question. i got to wear a really pretty peach-colored party dress and white shoulder stole and wept my way through the difficult piece.
after some time, i somehow convinced my parents that they needed both an organ and a piano and they signed me up for piano lessons. joan ostrander, the very chic music teacher, was my first piano teacher and i adored her. she pushed me and i adored that too. i spent long hours practicing on the piano bench with my dog missi sleeping underneath, my dad whistling in the background.
in years to come i studied with the teacher-of-all-teachers alan walker and was convinced that the piano and i were kindred. i taught more piano lessons on long island (and later florida and even wisconsin) than i can remember, back then driving from one house to another, delighting in each student’s joy playing the piano and progress no matter the pace, hoping to emulate the teaching style of this amazingly kind man. after lessons we talked life and ham radio and ate open-faced crunchy peanut butter sandwiches. music is not just about music, you know.
during my undergrad, i studied piano in college with one of the professors but kept bringing in pieces of original music and kept veering off course from assigned large scale pieces, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
as no real surprise, i majored in music composition, the first (?) step toward living as an artist, the first step in a road that leads to here and now. so much in-between. the gigging composer music timeline is filled with albums, concerts, performances, cd sales, radio and tv, qvc appearances, barnes & noble and borders, listening wall placement, phone calls, yamaha, traveling, shipping and more shipping, recording labels, carrying boxes, standing in the rain on flatbed trucks playing and singing, driving, driving, driving, press releases, graphic design, writing, recording, supportive family and friends and coworkers and a person named hope hughes.
but that organ. it has kept on re-appearing. somehow it is one of the threads that has woven its way through my life. there aren’t that many of us out here: people who play the organ, who can finesse a chosen timbre through the pipes and who can actually play lines of bass notes on the pedals. those lessons from the very beginning somehow set the stage for me to work for three decades already as a minister of music. conducting choirs and handbells and ukulele bands and worship bands, choosing music for services and performing groups, leading and shaping worship and, yep, playing the organ…it has been a constant. there are days that i will pull out all the stops and play as loud as the organ pipes will allow. its bellowing echoes through the sanctuary and i giggle as i think of my ten year old self, sitting on an organ bench in williston park on long island and crying.
what would i have thought if i had known that fifty years later i would still be sitting on an organ bench?
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of all his watercolors, i remember this one. maybe it’s universe-timing but the image of a person kneeling silently in reflection, in prayer, fading into the blue of eternal sky and the hinted suggestion of sun seems particularly synchronistic. the fluidity of line, the brushstroke revealing the image of humanity – in a transitory time here as part of the whole. a blurry-edged fleeting existence in all of time’s galaxy.
but the destruction, the disregard, the disrespect. people who disassociate with the truth of here and now, gone tomorrow. intent on pillaging the universe’s glee that each of us is here, each of us is exquisite, each of us can positively impact another. this place is a place of profound beauty, the sky and the sun sure day to day.
perhaps the lure of this painting is the inkblot-exercise. depending on what you focus on, the figure will be there, the figure will disappear.
perhaps the point is the earnest time on our knees, whether or not literal. the questions we ask, the things for which we give thanks, the time to focus, the imploring to help us notice it all.
last night we watched cnn’s broadcast movie about linda ronstadt “the sound of my voice”. a star in every facet. as we watched , we revisited times of our lives – times when the music we listened to was simpler, less engineered, less auto-tuned, less machinated, less acrobatic. it was music of melody and harmony, stylistically less thickened by tracks of extraneous stuff. it was indeed purer. linda ronstadt, now in her 80s and dealing with the effects of parkinson’s, particularly on her voice, was a powerhouse raised in music, surrounded by music and who, with generosity, graced us all with her music for decades. her voice goes on.
we are attracted to simpler. simpler melodies minus the gymnastic riffs and with simpler production, simpler paintings with great depth or color or message. we are analog; there’s no doubt about it. and as we watched a john denver christmas in aspen the other day i found myself yearning for that simplicity, john denver’s voice – both his writing voice and singing voice – effortlessly clear.
the common thread of less is more. it had impact on us, on our art forms.
when d was messing around in the studio recently he painted these very simple elements that often appear in his paintings: a star, a flower, petals. it’s not natural for him to paint without a figure. i imagine he was experimenting, paring down. i would liken that to me recording a song on the ukulele. it’s not natural for me to record without a piano. but experimenting is good and paring down is an exercise. especially in times of mostly-quiet easels and mostly-empty lyric sheets.
linda ronstadt’s story is one of unparalleled success and a great number of layers of experiment, a constant delve into another style of music, always paring it down to dedication to her absolute love of singing.
in the midst of all the layers, all the experimentation, all the paring down, all the silent canvases and hushed keys, we find our guide stars. and we go on.
i just read these words and stopped and re-read them. for no specific reason – just because, i had taken the sarah ban breathnach book simple abundance out of the old wooden north carolina cabinet on the other side of the bed. i flipped open to december 5, old cards and notes and newspaper clippings trying to slip out of the pages into which they were tucked.
the quote at the top of the page read, “most of the sighs we hear have been edited.” (stanislaw jerzy lec) and the meditation for this day was about sighing. in fact, one of my favorite sentences reads, “women sigh so that we won’t scream.” oh yes! sarah continues, in rare exacting form about screaming, “there are several occasions in the course of any woman’s day when, without question, screaming is the appropriate response.” sarah continues, in rare exacting form about sighs, and writes, “the act of sighing is a quiet vote of acceptance – of … moving on. …letting it out. letting it go….” resilience.
sarah’s quiet wisdom touches a nerve: “…sigh more… because … preferences, needs, wants, wills and demands to be dealt with, if there is to be a state of detente in the daily round. more bending in order not to break…” sisu.
i hadn’t thought about my sighing, but i know i do it. the intake of breath and the slow exhale. the thought i-have-no-idea-what-i-can-actually-do-about-this-anyway or the thought i-have-no-control-over-what-others-are-doing-or-thinking-or-feeling. my own feeling of being astounded by someone or something. the feeling of hurt. the feeling of exasperation. fragility. fortitude. both.
the sigh. a release. from my heart into the hands of the universe. isn’t that prayer too?
“…there’s something to be said about keeping prayer simple. help, thanks, wow.” (anne lamott)
the quiet simplicity of this painting SOFTLY SHE PRAYS draws me in. it makes me yearn to close my eyes and be softly in this moment, there, here. its invitation is clear. its message is universal. the location is unimportant. on top of a mountain, next to a stream, in the woods, next to your bed, on the kitchen floor, under a starry sky, in the pouring rain. all worthy.
“…you might shout at the top of your lungs or whisper into your sleeve…” (anne lamott)
the words, the thoughts, the imploring, the confusion, the shouting, the gratitudes. all worthy.
when i asked d for a summary of this children’s book he wrote and illustrated called PLAY TO PLAY he told me that the gorilla teaches the little girl the value of playing simply to play, not to win.
my son played tennis. after growing up playing competitive baseball and soccer he decided, as people who are gifted athletically can, to “take up” competitive tennis. he didn’t just go hit the ball around. he dove in. he was persistent and worked hard. i drove him to lessons, individual and group, to high school team practices, to tournaments. when he was in college i drove to his matches, regardless of where they were.
not familiar with the psychology of tennis, i, too, dove in, in my own way. i read articles and books, asked questions of his various coaches. an individual sport, tennis is a mind game and i needed to understand a little bit of what was going on inside my zealous son out on that lonely court. indeed, sometimes it was hard to watch, hardly breathing in the stands. when wendy wrote to me the other day that she just wanted her son’s hardworking football team to win and that she was unduly stressed, i could totally relate. it’s your heart out on that court, out on that field, out on that diamond. so much pressure.
a couple years ago we had the opportunity to once again see the boy play softball. on a league in boston, that team, and another he played on, traveled all over the place to play, including paris. they were all adults, all working hard and playing hard. the thing i loved most about watching him now was watching him laugh. laugh. teasing and laughter were a part of this ball-playing. they were playing to play. winning was a bonus – and they actually did that often – but playing seemed to be the point. it did my heart good.
we often forget the point of play. we often forget TO play. in days of great stress, days of worry and sorrow, play seems so far away. it seems unlikely and unworthy of our time. but i suppose it would do us all well to remember how invaluable to our well-being playing is. how giggling or fun and games, teasing and laughter make us feel. and how they do our heart good.
the illustrations in this little book are dear and the lesson important: just play to play.
at this very moment, at this very time, with stacks and stacks of paintings and music, we both succumb to the realization that we are – indeed – under construction. the rests between the notes are there for a reason. space to breathe, to comprehend, to make the color and the music a part of your fiber.
the rests change you. they change how you see, how you hear. they give you pause. to re-appreciate what you have done and to wonder what will come. to be aware of the light.
it is the skill of an artist to learn how to sit in the rests without fidgeting. to just sit. it is an even higher level skill to create the rest. and then sit in it.
there was not room on island for an easel, canvases, this cart of paints and this beautiful wooden box of brushes. they waited at home for david’s return.
consumed by many tasks and layers of work since we arrived back home, we are surrounded by boxes and bins still unpacked. there is much to do. we have many other things tugging at us and these packed boxes, although frustratingly in the way, have sunk to a lower rung on the list of things-to-do.
d spent a bit of time rearranging his studio to accommodate some new items passed to him and some things to help store for 20. in those moments, the brushes and paint spoke to him. a bit of time, some available canvas, an easel lit by basement spots. it doesn’t take much for the juju to revive itself, for the muse to gently remind you that it’s there, waiting.
and so, there will be more time. there will be more paint, more sweeps of brush across canvas. the tools of his trade await.
the fresh simplicity of this painting makes it feel scandinavian to me, clean lines, blues, yellows. i recognize it. its warmth. its less-is-more-ness.
i also recognize the image. the moments we stop, head down, turning inside. pondering, wondering, musing. the palette of our hearts, our lives, a mixture of emotions, we try to wrangle a few minutes of quiet to sort it all out.
this painting – INNER LIFE – is a breath of fresh air for me. a reminder of what a few silent minutes can offer.
