2) Portrait of A Painter

Seeing things clearly is not what an artist really does. He is not a camera. Rather, it is the adventure of yoking variables together that marks him apart, makes him unique, for each brush stroke, like others' fingerprints, becomes a rendition solely manufactured by him. Ugly word that, manufactured. It has the sound of repetition and multiplicity and even precision to it, all of which is necessary if one is making, say, a specific spark plug, but if one is making a painting? Oosh! Trouble is, some things in a painting just have to be right. A person to recognize, for instance. And even though right, or seemed right at the time, especially after having spent most of the day painting at such a face, the next day's light bring renewed insight, and so one goes at it all over again. As such, faces have been scrubbed out and redone, twice, thrice, if not five or even six times. Right? But life does not give a real person such chances. Real persons live from moment to moment and very seldom can one not throw the stone, once it has been cast, or retrieve the words, once they have been said, or undo that which has been done, once it has... Well, you get the picture. Only artists can do that. They wipe out the rock or place back an old owl, or do not bother to put in the tree, or like Deus ex Machina, redo a face over and over. And should no one have seen the first face, let alone the second or third, or fourth or... Well, should no one have seen them then the thing that was done is gone into the ether forever. No one knows. Well, unless you write about it. But even then the wrong face does not no never ever get seen. Unlike deeds. Or bad grammar. No. Never ever. Unlike what it is for real people. Commissions are like that. Real expectations. If you ask me to paint the waterfront and I leave out this or that building, or do not put in the flag, you may very well ask me to redo the picture more better. People tend to like what they see, want what they saw, and wish for what they want. But artists tend to recreate. Once my own choice of the cafe or waterfront is done, independent of anyone else's approbations, I display it and you like it, or not, and you buy it, or not, but the thing is done. My work. My passion. Time spent in the exploration of a subject until I feel finally done. But no, not so for a commission. The details of a commission can be very challenging. I am no photographer. I depict. I render. I give unto the Commissioner in gratitude; it provides! And when done I might be lauded for my interpretation, humored for my labors, or even perhaps ridiculed for my effrontery. The hours and time spent is up to me. The amount of times I redo and redo a given face, a robe, a frozen gesture, is up to me. And no one sees the progress (unless you happen to be my partner who leans toward the work and astutely, considerately, but firmly lets me know that it is not yet quite right.) How fortunate for me that I have such a second pair of eyes! Imagine if I accepted my own vision only, and gave up for wont of energy, or for want of surcease. Imagine if trusting only my own sight. Who'd take flight? We are all like that, real people and artists. We have the fortune of being around others to help us see ourselves, redirect our progress, comment on our product, edit our missives, and promulgate our success. We each are really artists in our own way, the painter and the real person, creating of life a canvas that is left behind in the minds of others, visually or otherwise. And when finally done, do we not then in turn go do more?

1) Toward Innesfree

1) The Warp and Weave of Wonder Even the most carefully laid plans contain moments of magic. They appear in the interstices of the very weave of our tapestries, such that the light reveals sight and meaning afresh, each time we revisit our intentions. Such is the sense of excitement despite their disposition as we five knights each prepare, from our different vantages, to journey to the side of Sir Simon. Disease interjects. Death overtakes. It rears as unexpectedly into the warp and weave of our ordinary meanderings as to take us by surprise, and yet we each know it is an indicator of the end for each, as indeed for all. With the sad news of Sir Simon's imminent demise there began a mustering of the possibilities of attending his side. We were knights on quests of our own. We each are so involved in the daily grind of ordinary expectations that magic itself, sometimes, has to be of our own making. So it is with the warp and weave of anyone's tapestry. Without a sense of wonder coming from within there may soon seem no wonder to be found without. The moments pass us each by, and if years be the pictures by which we might recognize our passage of progress, and months be the paragraphs by which we might describe their progress, and weeks be the sentences by which we might build the images, then days become the very use and choice of colors that go eventually to thread the whole of one's life together. Magic, wonder, surprise, and even amazement attends the moments in-between. Hours and minutes are indeed of our own makings. The Kingdom of Oz lies far off across vast oceans. Even those great and goodly knights, Sir Anthony, Sir Mike, and Sir Rob, who live within its very boundaries are put upon to re-organize their schedules, rearrange their plans, and make ready their hospitality for the arrival of Sir Justin and me, Sir Who. Five days, five knights. Five men who are friends and brothers all to Sir Simon, who awaits our company. We shall arise and go now, soon, soon enough, and go to Innesfree, where sadly Sir Simon, like a poem, awaits the presence of men such as thee and me, momentary though it must be. It is a place in the Black Mountains. It is a place to be placed in memory. To be set free. It is not that the journey be secretive, nor concealed, nor clandestine that so dictates this somewhat esoteric missive, but that its sense of specialness be preserved. There are so very many contingencies attendant upon the journey that the complexity would become overwhelming were the numbers to increase. We men have known each other since boys. Well, if not known, then known about each other. We are all of the same age. We were all schooled together. We deeply identify with the culture and the history and the colloquialisms of a common country. Hamba Gashle is an understood wish. We go carefully with each other as we grow old, for we are alive to the sensibilities of what it is to have friends who reach back into our childhoods and see us for the men we've become, not so much despite the battles we've overcome, but because of them. We have nothing or little left to prove, except a commitment to our connection to each other, and with that a giving of ongoing care. It takes effort. It takes action. It takes constant communication. And it takes love. Or whatever else one may decide to call this feeling. Soon. Soon we each shall arise and go now, and go to Innesfree. 'Tis a story for thee.

More than Marmalade!

There are people in one's life who provide sterling examples of what life could be. They are not necessarily always older than oneself. Many a young student has given me clarity and insight into how I might rather have been when I was their age, and indeed how I might adjust at my own age. And sometimes such lessons are overt, direct, with intention, yet more often the lessons are by example, gleaned from observation, and realized through re-thinking one's thinking. But the true treasure of being with someone whose every moment is filled with a sense of contribution to life, however subliminally, lies in the invigoration that their presence gives one's soul. To see oneself as one might yet become, and to feel inspired and privileged for the lessons is one thing, but then to be directly known, loved, and cared for by such a person is a great privilege, indeed.

Our last house guest is 72 years old. But she might have been 40. Her energy certainly matched a woman far younger than she. And it was not so much her physical health that impressed us as her youthful spirit; a quality of "yes, let's do that!" on any venture, a sense of "why not?" Then too, there was her perpetual curiosity, the finding out of flower and tree names, the checking of maps, the reading of my Oceanography book and then her delightful explanation of the diurnal and semi diurnal tides that affect our Vancouver Island location. There was the viewing of the memory album of her last great trip, on which she'd treated her entire family to an Alaskan cruise, now artistically scrap-booked for their posterity. There was also our driving up Mount Douglas, and her hiking up the last rocky bit from the car park with my wife to the very top, where one can see for 360 degrees. On coming back down to me in the car they went over to the outlook over the harbor, realized that they would not see the sunset from there, and hiked back up the mountain a second time, just for the better view! Why not?    

Jessie Peters brought me her homemade marmalade. She came with love and greeting from her family. She brought her memories and our swapped stories of her beloved husband Vlc, and we reminisced a bit about the ravages of ALS, that awful atrophy of the muscles that claimed Vic, that claimed our friend Hank too, and that was the subject of the play I used to perform, 'Tuesdays with Morrie'. But surmounting this disease is the ongoing vitality of a friendship that is interested in the present, that is involved in our futures, and that invigorates our consciousness. She asked me questions about psycho-geometrics (my upcoming presentation on Dabrowski in Denver). Jessie wants to know.

We feel blessed and privileged to know her, to share time with her, and to be counted amongst her family as their friends too. The visits with her sisters and their kin, as well as her daughter and son, and their kin, have been treasures of themselves. One trusts that you too, reading this, gets to feel love and warmth for the people you know who are not biologically your family, but who have so connected with your sensibilities that there is a feeling of inclusion and acceptance and love for their very being in your life. Marmalade tends to make me feel that, every time I bite into it: marvelously grateful.

Jessie Peters came for a visit. A mere three days. We took her back to the airport and we felt immediately interested in when we might get to see her again. Jessie gave us the most precious gift of all, her caring, considerate, compassionate, and interested presence. So much more than marmalade!    

Greeting the Ghost

The instant he saw her he was completely taken. They were both teenagers. She was vibrant and vivacious and bigger than any life on the silver screen, and he was huddled into himself in the dark, his face illuminated by the light from yon window that into the soul of his youth did shine. Juliet was to pervade his every sense from that moment on, nearly forty years ago. She became the ghost betwixt himself and every current reality.

Olivia Hussey, metaphor to all his aspirations, was innocent of his allusions. She almost certainly could not collaborate with the spaces he carried for her in his heart. And she certainly could not be guilty of the barriers he placed between himself and all other loves of his life; as though he somehow would be betraying that initial great love he had conceived for such Juliet as had so stirred his soul. She became the glorious ghost attending his every venue.His grail. She was the genteel spirit pervading his every sensibility of romance, connection, longevity. As the years went by he wore her as constantly as an amulet; she was there whenever he reached for her, and she was there even if he became absorbed in something else. The effect of a ghost is like that, inescapable.

That other lovers along the way were aware of her was seldom overtly mentioned. They each perhaps knew that his essential insuperability was due to some other monogamy instilled in him before their time. Juliet was a pseudonym seldom used, though her presence was perhaps suspected; like the saying goes: one never forgets one's first love. And Juliet remained a ghost traveling in the chambers of his soul, haunted his being. Everything he saw, he wondered if she too had seen, been there, might see. If not in reality, their ephemeral connection was more real than any filial or consummate attachment than anything else he ever experienced. She taught him that love is about loving without ever expecting anything back. The paradox was that in that very lesson he never did reciprocate the love given to him by others, fully, completely. His love for his Juliet was paramount. She was the epitome of his projection of what such a feeling is, should be, ought to be, could be. And no other woman was going to supplant that.

Shame was his greatest downfall. Somewhere down deep he never felt good enough for her. In his betrayals of his love for her, in his imaginings of how he could reach her, let her know that he had constant thought of her, let her know that he was growing in his successes, in proving his worthiness, in accomplishing sufficient enough accolades and honors not even to be needing to pursue such anymore, he was becoming older and older in his wisdom, his understanding, and in his love. He reached a point at which he fully accepted that he might never actually get to see her, let alone to touch her hand, embrace her, kiss her lips. It was the understanding that his soul was connected to hers so entirely, whether she knew it or not, that he could give her utter acceptance for whatever her life was, her circumstances were, her being had become. He discovered that love wants not, desires naught, expects nothing, and simply lets be as is.

But the ghost of her, he doubted, he could ever let go. Still, he was prepared to concur, what a pity that it should rob anyone else of a potential liaison between a he and a thee, but then again, so it goes between being such as he, haunted by a ghost lovely as she. 

Contrition

Sometimes one does terrible things. And it's intriguing just how long it can take to find oneself out. The bad or selfish or egotistical or arrogant or self-righteous deed does not necessarily register at the time, at least not sufficiently. I realized I was overstepping a delicacy of social conduct, but the full possibility of its consequences did not strike me until today, two months later. While contemplating those passing below my balcony the quiet thread of my thoughts lead to a remembrance of the sad incident, and I felt deeply, seriously, remorseful. My contrition, I'm aware, might however be entirely speculative.

Two months ago I met a previous student and his girlfriend at my local hangout. I'd not seen him in over a year. They met me outside by my car, as arranged, and they pushed me in my chair inside the restaurant. My usual table was free. My chair fits nicely away from the people traffic. I do not even need to look at the menu. I've taken many a friend there. Living on an island by the sea I bring friends from the States, from Australia, from Alberta, from the mainland, and from around to share my favorite place to be, to eat that is. I am a regular! And it has often been the same waitress who has served me. A woman perhaps 40 something. She's seen me with most of my friends. But she's never acknowledged my specific presence. Never quite seemed to see me. Yet I've left her reasonable tips. I've been pleasant and polite and handed up plates to her, a difficult thing for me to do in the circumstances. And on this day, with my students, when she came to the table something of the proud Mr.P in me felt like being acknowledged.

"It's time we knew each other," I said. Instantly there was awkwardness. I drove my point, albeit gently. "You don't seem to recognize me, yet I come here often. I am... " and while I was finishing my little self-aggrandizing introduction it was evident to us she was  embarrassed, but I could not withdraw the tenor of my missive. We ordered. Someone else brought us our meals. I did not see her again. I remember thinking that perhaps it was the end of her shift, perhaps she was caught up with other tables, and that was that. But I confess, it has kept niggling at me. I have not seen her again since then. But I  never did quite resolve that moment, did not admit culpability. Until today, too much later.

Another student I've not heard from in over a year just wrote. I finished my response, made my coffee, went to sit in my favorite arm-chair with the balcony viewpoint, and wondered why I'd not heard again from that other student and his girlfriend I'd taken to the restaurant. And then I recalled my aberrant behavior, thought of my needing the attention, of my embarrassing the waitress, of her perhaps resigning that day thanks to the final straw of a customer being rude, of her feeling awkward and 'less than' in front of my students young enough to be her children, of her uncertainty and being perhaps pained by my being in a wheelchair and virtually accusing her of not recognizing me. Of her possibly feeling hurt and sad because she'd perhaps lost someone handicapped. Of her being bereft and... Well, speculation is what it is, full of fanciful imaginings.

Point is, we do or say things out of ego, out of a need for something we do not get or did not have, caught up in the moment as we are. Or is that really: caught up in our own future or past? For myself, I am contrite for what I did then. Contrite. But does it suffice?

Bede's Bird for the Bard

Bede's Bird for the Bard

Dreams have a way of disturbing the psyche. What is the significance? What is the symbol? Why have that particular dream? Why have it as a recurring theme? What began the subliminal trigger? How possibly does the dream and me configure?

Back in history, before English was a known language, there was Bede. In about 700 a.d. he authored the Ecclesiastical History of England. In one of his famous passages there is a sparrow that flies out of a winter storm through an opened window into the great hall, is briefly warm and protected, but then in consternation at the goings-on flies out again. (Actually, it was a door, and the passage is about the conversion of King Edwin.) But that sparrow image, fleeting and disruptive, pervades my subconscious. I had to translate the Anglo Saxon as an exercise in my undergraduate years, and the concept has stayed with me. In fact, in my painting of Passing Through Too, the sparrow flies in through the open window of the train carriage, flustered and fragmented in its depiction, while all within are solidified images, surreal as is the work in its entirety.

And now there are my dreams. The sienna-colored sparrow flits about in a cavernous dark burnt-umber colored hall, like being trapped in an old Colonial School prep room, and it perches on the edge of a silver garbage can, or pecks about on the stone-paved floor after crumbs. Indistinct others are reposing about, caring little or not at all about its presence. In my dream I feel concern for its safety. I see it adapting. I see it free to roam about, but still trapped within the confines of the edifice. And the building, I am sure, is a university or school. My compatriots are young people, teenagers, but there is no sense of their sex or physicality, near as I can recall, other than that they pose a threat to the bird by their lack of compassion, their possibility for cruelty. At times I dream it to be on the floor of a corridor. At times it sits on a window sill. But the window pane is opaque, glazed in the pastel of pewter. And always, the bird needs someone to set it free. Me.

We travel from one known into an unknown. We may become warmer, more easily fed, protected from the rain, but we are uncertain, fearful of the indistinct, suspicious of the movements around us. Vulnerability accompanies our journey, our breakdown from the paradigm we know. Whether it is a trip away from our home, our country, our familiar, or the simple intrusion of a stranger, our delicate sensibilities can be so disturbed that an overexcite-ability of apprehension can threaten to overwhelm, perhaps subconsciously if not overtly. Perhaps our fears take the bird-like form of the flitter-flutter, found in a place unusual, possibly life-taking. Cloistering. And like Bede's venerable bird, we seek escape, even if it means yet once again out into the very winter of our initial discontent.

It is adaptability that most indicates intelligence. The facility to take on a sea of troubles, and by not so much opposing them as integrating them, end them, is the ability to fly above the perch of being caged in one place overlong. That one may take flight is not necessarily so much a sign of cowardice as of a desire for mobility. Perhaps it is the soul yearning to be free of the cage of one's very bones, particularly if they burn and burn unendingly. A bird for Bede, and a bird for the bard. Ha! What poetic license may one not take on one's flights of fancy? To dream of a bonded bird again, or to fly free?

For full painting please see: WWW.RichardMichellePentelbury.com

The Code of Silence                                                       

Pecoste Trugg taught me a valuable thing or two. His real name was Neil Anderson. Back in 1970, he shared my Solomon House prefect study at Pretoria Boy's High. Neil liked that exotic name, Pecoste. Perhaps his avowal one day to adopt it is why I never found him again, or why at our Boys' High 40 year Reunion, October 2010, he could not be contacted. In many ways, I owe him a thing or two.

Neil taught me the value of words. "That's a powerful word," he would say, and I would immediately weigh in, and revise my options. He taught me the value of body language and the value of the smile; he advocated Dale Carnegie. He taught me the value of accepting an other's and others' values. He was casual to my formality, precise to my carelessness, and laconic to my intensity. And Neil showed me the value of hard work, for he was almost always at his desk, intending to study to become a brain surgeon. He taught me chords on the guitar, Dylan's 'Lay lady lay, lay across my big brass bed,' and Cohen's 'Bird on the wire'. Though I still do not feel comfortable with the former, I cannot help but think of my long-lost friend whenever I play and sing the latter. But of all the lessons Pecoste taught me, the most valuable would be: The Code of Silence.

No, it was not that rather debilitating boyhood code of don't fess up or squeal on another; it was that experientially empowering practice of seeing to it that 'what the right hand does, the left should not necessarily know'. It involved doing works of good, of leading from behind, of living in the grace of an inner power thanks to the self silently knowing it'd rescued the fallen bird, given to charity, helped out another, or instigated a productive project without overt or known reward for the self. In fact, without either of us able then to articulate it, Pecoste was advocating the highest of mans' virtues in each of the very many epistemological models: the selflessness of action on behalf of others without the need to be acclaimed.

Well, there have been times in my life when I've been the recipient of such actions by others. The essential lesson of leading from behind was affirmed for me during my undergraduate studies in the late 70's in Canada, by Dr. Mary Richardson, who pulled me aside and first introduced me to the concept of gifted education. "True giftedness," she intoned, "is in the art of giving of the self to others; it is at the top of every hierarchical model. Begin with Kohlberg." 


Well, Kohlberg began in me the acquisition of an upwards spiral of evolutionary paradigms, such as Maslow, Johari, Gregoric, Dillinger, Dabrowski, Clare Graves, and Wilbur's Integral Holonics. Each concept empowered me with yet more articulation, yet paradoxically, in the very esoteric mention of their models, perhaps they now leave you feeling lost in my wordiness, disassociated by my ramble. "Knowledge is just a tool," I can hear Pecoste Trugg remonstrate, "never presume someone without knowledge doesn't have the potential." 


"But even more important than having a specific knowledge," Professor Mary Richardson would remind us, "would be to inculcate a sense of enduring interest in and generosity toward others."

Well, as the continuing recipient of such generosity, I am humbled, grateful, and indebted. I owe a thing or two, indeed.


The code of silence? Pay it forward.

What Judas would not say, Amen!