The Essential Rudder
Thoughts about Art
“Dream Catcher” / oil on canvas/ 60” x 70”, 1989/ Foster White exhibition
Last night I had another one of my unusual dreams, intense, boundless, and timeless. I was attending an art exhibition in a gallery space that felt as large as the Lockheed plant I visited as a twelve-year-old. The dream space was an endless, vast corridor of shadows, most of the walls empty, until I finally came to an area of people and paintings. I found myself talking with Don Foster, the previous owner of Foster-White Gallery in Seattle.
In reality, Don and I had a close relationship from the gallery’s twenty-five years of representing my paintings from 1973 until I departed the US in 1998. In the dream’s narrative, we were about the same age as when we first met. I approached and asked when I might possibly have another exhibition. Before he could answer, the dream scene shifted; I was back walking through dark vaults with tall empty walls until I exited on the far side.
The dream collapsed without a sound as dreams usually do. The here and now of early morning and memories returned.
In 1998, while reading an article about elephants in a Smithsonian magazine, a thunderous epiphany came and clapped me into making a film about the plight of the Asian elephant. I sent a letter to Don letting him know that I would be leaving the gallery and the country. He wasn’t pleased. I understood.
As I explained in my memoir Sell the Monkey, this sudden decision was more complex than simply leaving to do a film, of which I had absolutely no experience whatsoever. Madness, I’m sure many friends must have murmured.
But the truth is, I was also disenchanted with what I felt to be the over-commercialization of the art world. I convinced myself that I had made enough paintings, that I, like Duchamp and his chessboard, could express myself in other ways, other mediums. I’ve never regretted making the decision to catapult myself into a new world, but, looking back on my reasoning, the words that most appropriately come to mind are ‘naïve’ and ‘stupid’; to believe I could quit painting, any more than I could quit breathing, was a complete misplacement of my essential rudder. In fact, as early as 1999, still transitioning between the US and Thailand, virtually homeless, while spending several months with my brother in Albany, Georgia, I set up a studio in his garage and completed an entire series of paintings, then mounted an independent exhibition of the works in Seattle.
“The Turning” oil on paper 24” x 34” 2000 / Independent exhibition/Seattle
Admittedly, in these last 25 years and counting, living in a small village in Northern Thailand, I’ve had fewer exhibitions. Yet art making has been who I am for as long as I can remember…for as long as I breathe; something coded, I think, some shared tethering of DNA that began when humans did.
There are times, of course, when the ‘why’ and ‘for whom’ creep in, as they always will, but wrestling with doubt is as essential as whatever tools we use to make physical artifacts from our imagination. We are always merely passing the torch. When we try to own it, we become less. As Kados wrote, “Art is the glue that binds us, one to another, reminding us that we have choices and purpose.
“Metamorphosis” oil on paper 2015
Next Week, from Collaborations: Anne Hirondelle
Blessings to All from kados and me and the River. Stay Strong.
Thanks, Jo. You're definitely right about the rudder. All is well in the beautiful rice fields. I pray all is well in your beautiful place on the planet!
Thank you, Cindi, and I send warm blessings to you and Rex!