Happy New Year, 2023

peace, love, and joy to you in 2023.

The detail of my Bell painting above is from November 2007.

Stay up to date with my work: 

sign up for free email updates.

Mandarin Orange with Leaf

Robert Lax's The Peacemaker's Handbook was first published by Pendo Verlag, Zurich, Switzerland in 2001. If you're interested, the text reproduced at this site is a digital copy of the original typescript/printout submitted for that publication. It differs from the published version in regards to the arrangement of some portions of the text, but you get a sense of what Lax's poetry looks like on a page.

Here is an excerpt from part III: Contemplation:

con
tem
pla
tion

is

watch
ing

---

what

hap
pens

if

you

watch

?

you

be
gin

to

see


---
(Incidentally, this excerpt was also quoted by Beth Cioffoletti almost exactly 9 years ago on her blog.)

If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see a bunch of my paintings of citrus or my other posts about peace.

To get my painting in your inbox, sign up here.

Pohnpeian Cowry Shell and Pear

Click to view auction

"For it isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

When I was in my 20s, I spent time doing volunteer work (teaching, scuba diving, and illustrating) in Pohnpei, Micronesia (near the equator in the North Pacific). If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see my other paintings of Pohnpeian cowry shells.

To get my painting in your inbox, sign up here.
To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Thanks in advance,

Three Plums

Click to view auction

"We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt, that peace and abundance may manifest for all."
- Dorothy Day

If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see my other paintings of plums.

To get my painting in your inbox, sign up here.
To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Thanks in advance,

Robin's Egg (+ Lax and Pax)

Robin's Egg (present moment), oil on linen on panel, 7x6", 2017
Email abbeyryan@gmail.com for purchase information

"I may be wrong about Pax, but keep feeling that through good poems and pictures, peace can travel." -Robert Lax to Thomas Merton, 1953 

"Lax's politics, like Thomas Merton's, were the politics of peace, this person wrote. And he was right. Pursuing peace through whatever means, even a fragile newsprint broadsheet that few people read, is a political act." -Michael McGregor, 2016

In thinking about some of my series paintings (the light the shade, Separation of Powers, literally vs. seriously, Two Left, yin/yang, present moment), below is an excerpt from author Michael McGregor's newsletter about poet Robert Lax (read about my fellowship work on Lax here). Everyone can join the newsletter at robertlax.com.

"The Politics of Art and Peace" by Michael McGregor
The Robert Lax Newsletter -- December 2016

"I may be wrong about Pax, but keep feeling that through good poems and pictures, peace can travel."
-Robert Lax to Thomas Merton, 1953

The image to the right is from the third issue of Robert Lax's broadsheet Pax, which he published sporadically between 1956 and 1962, adding three new issues in 1985. I've been thinking about Pax in the wake of the American election because Lax's idea in publishing it was to spread peace by sharing the work of writers and artists. The work didn't have to be about peace per se; the simple act of making art, Lax thought, is a peaceful -- and therefore peacemaking -- activity.

I don't know any more than anyone else what the coming months and years will bring, but I've seen the agitation and rancor the election has fostered already. I've seen people say on Facebook and elsewhere that everyone should take to the streets or get involved in politics. A former writing student of mine said over tea the other day that she was unsure about writing in these times, worried that writing an essay about something other than current issues might be trivial. I'm pretty sure I know what Lax would have told her: that we need people thinking deeply and imaginatively about life right now; that we need those people to put their observations and intuitions into words and images; that we need books with those words and images in our hands and on our shelves and in our beds at night when we're prone to worrying about where our world is heading.

When I was on my reading tour for Pure Act, an audience member asked me if Lax was political at all. I said no. But two or three days later, someone who had been at the reading suggested (gently) that I was wrong. Lax's politics, like Thomas Merton's, were the politics of peace, this person wrote. And he was right. Pursuing peace through whatever means, even a fragile newsprint broadsheet that few people read, is a political act.

“To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of our times.” -Thomas Merton

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” -Thomas Merton

(You'll find information on all Pax issues, including a list of the poets and poems in each one, here.)

To get my painting in your inbox, sign up here. To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Best,

For direct access to my paintings, sign up here (it's FREE):

View Current Painting Auctions
View All Available Paintings