#O124-6: Nothing Else

This painting started with a blue sky, which was on my mind. The rest followed from there. It went through several shapes before this one stepped out. I am quite fond of this particular color arrangement.

Not all paintings see the spotlight. The two below were made on some small scrap panels standing around in my studio, using leftovers from the last session. For completeness of my painting log I am including them here. I feel there is room for improvement but maybe these would look worthy in jet black frames. I had great fun doing them.

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The days are rolling forward. Outside there is cloud and sunlight. What a miracle this awakened awareness is! – looking through these eyes at the world around me. I feel optimistic and ambivalent about 2017 at the same time.

I have no idea how to approach the issues facing my little world. I trust in the silence at the edge of reason; clarity is there among the reeds. It steps out if you wait patiently. I have to believe this.

When I read almost anything of Rilke I immediately want to share it with anyone who has the time to stop and contemplate poetry. I am talking about those persons who can quietly close their eyes, certain that there is vision after vision inside, simply waiting until nighttime…Is there anyone out there?

Already the ripening barberries are red,
and the old asters hardly breathe in their beds.
The man who is not rich now as summer goes
will wait and wait and never be himself.

The man who cannot quietly close his eyes,
certain that there is vision after vision
inside, simply waiting until nighttime
to rise all around him in the darkness - 
it's all over for him, he's like an old man.

Nothing else will come; no more days will open,
and everything that does happen will cheat him.
Even you, my God. And you are like a stone
that draws him daily deeper into the depths.

R.M. Rilke, translated by Robert Bly in
Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke

 

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