A morning's work in the mystical studio / Martin Luther King's Birthday 2012

Yesterday someone from Ashtabula, Ohio visited my blog without commenting. I knew that because their visit showed up on my ClustrMap. According to the Wikipedia site, Jack Kerouac passed through Ashtabula in a Greyhound Bus in his novel On the Road, Ashtabula is listed as a train stop in "The Pilgrim (film)" by Charlie Chaplin, and the name Ashtabula means "river of many fish" in the Iroquois language.

Immediately my mind starting playing Bob Dylan's song "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go."

"... I’ll look for you in old Honolulu
San Francisco, Ashtabula ... "

I found many many cover versions of that song on YouTube. Here are two I especially like:





For me, Bob Dylan's songs are mystical and wide open to interpretation. Bob Dylan loved how Jimi Hendrix took "All Along the Watchtower" and sang it his own way. Bob Dylan continues to reinterpret his own songs. He's done that as long as I can remember. At first the reinterpretations bothered me, but I got used to them years ago and began to appreciate the way a song has a life of its own and eventually had to accept that Bob Dylan could even choose to sing his songs in such a way that it is nearly impossible to know what he is singing.

"Old Man and Old Woman at the Ocean" is the gouache and watercolor painting at the top of today's post. Some years ago I had a clear vision of Richard and me as an old man and an old woman, reunited at the ocean. Maybe it was the ocean of compassion. Maybe it wasn't us at all. Maybe it was. Maybe "twas in another lifetime." Who knows? That must have been in the late 1990s when I was out of touch with Richard. The vision gave me hope. Someone else might see something different in this painting. Let me know if you do.

Mystical:

"Having a spiritual meaning or reality that is neither apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence."
(from Merriam-Webster)

From that definition, could it be said that Zen koans sail into the mystic?

Here are life-long friends, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan:












Here's an older version of "Into the Mystic."



In my searching, I discovered that Jakob Dylan does a cover of "Into the Mystic" that can be found on YouTube.

And today, on Martin Luther King's Birthday in 2012, I learned this about Ashtabula on the above link to the Wikipedia article on Ashtabula:

"Ashtabula was founded in 1803 and incorporated in 1891. The city contains several former stops on the Underground Railroad which was used to convey African-American slaves to freedom in Canada in the years before the American Civil War. Among the stops is Hubbard House, one of the handful of termination points. Ex-slaves would reside in a basement of the house adjacent to the lake and then leave on the next safe boat to Canada, gaining their freedom once they arrived in Ontario."



"... Yer gonna have to leave me now, I know
But I’ll see you in the sky above
In the tall grass, in the ones I love
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go."

Studio:

"The working place of a painter, sculptor, or photographer."
(from Merriam-Webster)

I've been working in the studio since 5 a.m. this morning. It's 10:30 now. Creating these blog posts gives me the same feeling I get when I paint or draw or weave or write a poem.

"Work is love made visible."
(Kahlil Gibran)

“No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
(Martin Luther King Jr.)

Born during the same 24 hours in 1949 / Coincidence?

Yesterday was my birthday, and today would have been my old friend Richard's 62nd birthday. I have one other photo of us together, but that one is in silhouette as we are walking hand in hand in the direction of the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean. If it weren't for Richard, I wouldn't have any photos of us at all. For both photos, he set up the camera and stepped into the picture.

Today when I was getting groceries, I ran into a man that Richard worked for as a carpenter in California a long long time ago. I don't see him around that often. What are the chances that some years ago, I would get out of my car to deliver some paintings to an art gallery and that a man would get out of the car next to me and offer to help and that it would turn out that Richard had worked for him? And that as he and his wife were in the grocery store parking lot today, he would recognize me and stop to talk on Richard's 62nd birthday?

Then, this morning, I was talking with Richard's sister, Dorothy, who had left a message yesterday for my birthday. She said she was driving on a back road in the coast hills on the San Francisco Peninsula and saw a solitary crow skipping along the road. She knows that whenever I see a crow skipping I think of Richard. I even wrote a poem featuring a skipping crow and innocence and forgiveness when Richard and I were both 50 years old.

TWO INNOCENTS WITH EXPERIENCE

All desire. No forgiveness.
Years later it was early spring
with Red-Winged Blackbird,
Goldfinch, faithful Canada Goose on the trail
and return of the Tree Swallows.

Then I remembered.
He was sitting close to me.
Mr. Solitary Crow skipped by us like a child.
We laughed until we were children again.
This was how I experienced love.
I was innocent of forgiveness.

If you have time, listen to something that spoke to Richard's heart and which speaks to mine.

Painting in America/Reconciliation Dream

There's a long puzzling story here, but the drift is that the day after I decided to give away one of my paintings, "Reconciliation Dream," to one of my cousins on my father's side, an old painting of mine titled "Painting in America," appeared next to my front door with a note from someone I have not seen in years, who wrote that she wasn't expecting to see me again but wanted to thank me for giving it to her in 1986, and that it was time for her to let it go and for it to come back to me.

If you would like, take a look at North and South America and another previous post about "Reconciliation Dream."

I've been drawing again in the last few weeks, inspired by the spirit of Suze Rotolo and by Bob Dylan's recent exhibits of drawings and paintings that are clearly a result of his relationship with Suze:

"Her constant sketching inspired him to take up drawing and painting, and some of the songs relating to their relationship were written during a months-long separation while she studied art in Italy."

















I've just been bringing my sketchbook with me when I go out, and I have been drawing what is in front of me when I sit down--a form of prayer and meditation. It feels very good to be drawing again just for the joy of it.

"... Oh, ev'ry thought that's strung a knot in my mind,
I might go insane if it couldn't be sprung.
But it's not to stand naked under unknowin' eyes,
It's for myself and my friends my stories are sung ...
(From "Restless Farewell," by Bob Dylan, 1964)

"It's for myself and my friends, these drawings are done."
(am)