Pure Joy...When I Grow Up

One of my favorite lines, one that fits me personally is from a Michael Franks song: "In the Yellow House," the opening line: "No one knows the joy, when you create, by definition, something out of nothing..." What one does not comprehend, until you contemplate your life from another vantage point, is the unique shape and form of it. Aspects of your character, likes and dislikes, and the individual parts that fit and do not; they are all part of a whole.

I'm still growing. Each day is an opportunity to shape and reshape my life to be what I and God desire it to be. There are many expressions and points by which I connect with this world, but the longer I live, the more I realize I don't fit into the 'average American' mold. I labor at software testing, I'm a parent and husband, but there is a vital part of me that remains formless and nearly untapped.

"No one knows the joy, when you create, by definition, something out of nothing..." Another world exists in the moments I spend with a paintbrush in hand, in front of a canvas. When I sit with pencil poised above paper, I'm at my highest joy and it does not require chemical stimulation or have terrible 'after-effects.' When I grow up, I want this aspect of living to fill my days and the joy to be known to all. My Pure Joy...when I create...

A Moment...

A snippet from Portrait of the Artist Gaining insight

The following is an excerpt from a poem written a few years ago, called "A Moment..." For the most part, we live our best lives, in the moment. God's peace rest on you, this moment:

 

A pleasant dream

With a cozy ending

Followed by a gentle stirring

As you awake to a sunny day

You stretch

Smile

Full of energy from your mind’s movie

But as your feet touch the floor

The haunting of the same old grind

The car that won’t start

The….

And the….

Plus the…

Send that dream down the drain

Taking with it the joy you felt

A moment

Passes in a minute

Some are lost

‘Cause we are looking in the wrong place

Others

Get called up to remind us

Caution us

Warm our hearts

Or stop our tracks

And somehow

Someway

They are lost

Brushed away like pesky flies

When we choose to focus on

The here and now

The “never will be”

And the lost happenstance

His Words (Eddie Hudson): The Potency of...The Blank Page

His Words (Eddie Hudson): The Potency of...The Blank Page

The Potency of...The Blank Page

I sit,

Watching the blank page

And its vast starkness tell stories.

Images take shape

Men fight their way through battles,

Swords slashing and hacking

Women love deeply

And embrace

As though giving away breath from their lungs.

In this ‘emptiness’ there are words

Some spoken below a whisper

Yet their power is felt by the soul

Stories pour from a space that seems to contain nothing

Yet there is so much there

It can be misunderstood or misread as writer’s block, or Artist’s cramp.

Yet it is there,

Dancing,

Active,

Waiting for you to peel back the white and reveal the flesh beneath.

Take an adventure with me as we push past the mundanity of our lives,

Let’s go where children are purposely conceived and planned for,

A place where a walk through meadows green is a journey to discover secrets.

Let’s go to a place where one’s name is rarely told because words are powerful and revealing a name is akin to revealing one’s soul.

Leave the land where pages are for numbers and the reporting of what we know already.

Mount your imaginations and let’s go!

Mindfulness...or something else

Sometimes, most times...it simply flows. There is no concept or preconceived notion. Though it seems to begin with a line on paper or brush stroke on canvas, really the 'idea' begins in my head.

There is a flow of consciousness, from one piece to another. Though they may seem to separate, they are all a part of a whole, a life of sharing my vision.

Being Me...

"Soft" and "Firm"
Pillows behind my head
An elbow
Bicep
And
Forearm
Shape behind my head and shoulder
Practice
And Age
Determine my comfort
Comfort
And experience
My steps guide
Learning
An exercise
To my practiced wings
Flying further up
Where winds rule
Where the weak are tossed down
Didn't know this was my life
Covered over with dust and despair
But the King's heart beat
Beneath my cross section of bones
Beat a rhythm
"Live"
"Be"
So as cobwebs dust my head and face
I stretch my arms
Up where youth
And age
Play like brothers
growing
Gathering
Being...me

It's Where I am...Not Where I'm Going

Progress, as it is measured in relation to our hopes and plans, can come to a grinding halt. Paint sits on the palette, getting hard and useless. And in the process, the mental effect also gums up the process of completion. But it's not the end.

So often, despair seems to cry louder than the joy of the journey. It's Sunday morning, that quiet place between the end of one week and the beginning of another. That place where, like a pause in between notes, I consider where I am, where I've been and where I wish to go. Like a pen or paint brush poised for what seems like an eternity, I sit, writing, while dreams and hopes rush forward. And yet, even in rest, I'm moving forward; going on with my destination in mind...

Linen...progressing Expressively

This past week I turned 50. The big 5-0. And I'm glad to say it doesn't feel like I thought it would! At birthdays, the beginning of a new year, a new day, I make assessments, evaluate progress and determine what corrections and changes are needed. So it is with my latest work. Actually, this week, in evaluating my life through journaling, I realized a "flow" exists in all aspects of my life. I have come to acknowledge, at any given moment, I may feel joy, pain, sorrow, love and any number of opposing feelings. I have also discovered it is the EXPRESSION behind my expressions.

Any given morning, when I take a moment to look back at the bed, the sheets and comforter are twisted and strewn about as if a storm hit. But the best night's sleep is had in such a wake. My body and the sheets paint a picture of wrestling with spirit and a world beyond sight. This is my work, this is my life. A friend at my current contract assignment has me pegged as a "future employee." I repeatedly declare there's more to "Eddie" than meets the eye. I might seem compliant, agreeable and a "team player," but there is a side of me that will not allow me to simply "go with the flow." I am a mix of rebel and patriot, friend and antagonist. And though for the most part I seek peace for all, I am fully aware that peace sometimes comes as a result of speaking one's truth and that truth disturbs the quiet.

Linen, the work displayed is 'me.' It is a mix of colors and patterns. There are parts that don't fit and when you think you have pieces "compartmentalized" - code expression for "categorized" - it turns and twists off into a world you can't see. Linen is my expression of a complex of twists and turns that so very often I don't understand about me. While it is me, it is not all of me...there is always more to come and far more to know about me.

Linen...In progress

Sunday morning...preparation for Praising God. Unashamedly Christian, in love with a God whose love holds all things together and yet allows man to find him of his own choice. Awesome. Had to say it, record that thought before anything else is said.

Sunday morning. I'll keep this brief - I hope. Sometimes the flow starts and things are stated I didn't know were there. Like the painting currently on the easel. It began as an act to fill a huge canvas purchased about a year ago. Had another image in mind but knew I didn't research enough to bring it to canvas, yet. So I grabbed the canvas, setting aside a "self-portrait" (I might allow that one to get some "air time," one day), fresh paint remaining on the palette, I did what has become my habit: applied a stroke here, there, allowing an image to take shape. The colors to guide me. Subtle oranges, yellows and tainted white began to appear, like "Linen," folded, stretched and creased over a surface. Beautiful!

That was some months ago, before giving my best hours of the day to an employer. At short intervals, I sit with a few dabs of paint on the palette, apply a little here or there and observe its progress. More often than not, I look at the painting as I sit in my morning devotional time, contemplating its message and direction.

Anyone that follows my work knows I LOVE colors, and mixing them in ways both unexpected and strangely subtle. Texture is another vital part of my work, as I mirror what life is to me. Life is full of complexities, layers of people, thoughts, experiences, sounds, sights and LOVE. Like the journey of life, the experience of painting has become a long distance run. There are certainly times when I want the sojourn to be over, the Finish Line to be in the perceivable moment, but that isn't life, and for this painting, for the time being, that is not possible. I see so many more layers to go, so many subtle colors to apply and when it's all said and done, we will ALL see the end result.

It's a a surface with a linen texture and when it's all said and done, it will remain the same. Except it will have multiple layers of colors, strange textures and daily experiences where you find yourself wondering "how did I get to this point?" That life...that's Linen.

A Life?

Landscape

 

On Joshua Redman’s cd “Beyond,” he has a song by the above title: “A Life?” The song does not sound like a question so much as it is a statement: A Life. – please note the period.

From a pure emotional, intellectual and creative response, in my opinion, the CD is near unmatched and probably undiscovered by most people. He just happens to be one of my favorite musicians, so listening to Joshua every now and then, and this recording in particular, is a necessity. Couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to this cd alone, over and over again. Especially when brooding over art in process, having a life of its own. A Life? Again, not a question but a statement.

In any given moment, quiet reflection brings me to wonder about my life. A life, my life, The Life; whatever brings me to the point of reflection. Sometimes, it’s the sheer weight of the glut of activity at any given point in my life. The twists and turns and the way life seems to fold back on itself; at any given moment, it’s a roller coaster ride where I should be familiar but in that moment I’m totally baffled by the roll and twist.

A life. Like Joshua’s quiet beginning, life has moments of quiet reflection. Sitting in the waiting room while my father is in a lab having an angiogram – which, by the way has to be making him nervous – I reflect as if I were at the center of a whirlwind, the stuff of life swirling around me, so close, that at any second, I can literally snatch a thought out of the spinning chaos, examine it, and allow it to swirl away, only to be seen again…and again…and again.

A life…calm for a moment then climbing and collapsing, spinning and near intangible in its swirl. At any moment, life happens and it needs no encouragement or judgment. It happens while we’re asleep and whether we want it to continue or not. If I decide to “check out,” call it quits, I have not stopped my presence, my life. Even after I disappear from the headlines, another victim of the circumstances of life, my life, your life,  will be examined, picked apart and dissected. Someone at some time, will look at what they determine are the facts of our life, determined to know ‘why.’ But life has more mysteries and hidden agendas than all of put together could conjure up. It is, after all, LIFE. A LIFE. A Life? a life.