Robin's Egg (+ Lax and Pax)

Robin's Egg (present moment), oil on linen on panel, 7x6", 2017
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"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.)

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Best,

Oncoming Storm, Fish Bladder Island, Lake Champlain, VT (+ Lax on Cezanne & artists)

This is the same Lake Champlain view that I posted the other day.

If you're interested, I wanted to share another passage from Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax (as I continue working on my the light, the shade project for my Johnston Fellowship):

"One year when I was in graduate school, I visited Lax on spring break and recorded a long interview with him, not because I expected to write a book about him but because I'd long wanted to record his thoughts and even his voice, and the assignment in one of my classes was to profile an artist. At the start of the interview, sitting in his small main room on a cold March day, he began talking about Cezanne. “Cezanne was only trying to paint woods as objectively as he could,” he said. “As he saw them. But in his paintings they appeared unique because Cezanne saw them only as Cezanne. This is why a writer should try to get things down exactly as he perceives them. What results will not be some non-personal 'objective' piece but a piece imbued with all that he is—how he truly perceives the world. When we see a Cezanne, we see what he saw in the landscape, and that opens up the possibility of his sensitivity to the world being awakened in us."

Source: McGregor, Michael N. "On the Road with the Cristianis." Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax. Fordham UP, 2015. 146.

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Best,

Meyer Lemons (the light, the shade)

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Today's painting is part of my ongoing series "the light, the shade" that I began in December 2012. Recently I mentioned the new biography on Bob Lax (here: Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax by Michael N. McGregor), and I highly recommend it if you're interested. I'm still reading it, but it is excellent so far.

I wrote about how my favorite poet, Bob Lax, was the inspiration for my "the light, the shade" series here.

Ending soon - auction ends at 6:30 PM EST today

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(reflection detail view on auction page)

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Best,

Pink Pearl Apple (the light, the shade) (+ 100 years old)

Today's painting is part of my ongoing series "the light, the shade" that I began in December 2012. I wrote about how my favorite poet, Bob Lax, was the inspiration for this series here.

Bob Lax would have turned 100 this past Monday, November 30th. In honor, I thought I'd share an excerpt from a recent article about Lax. I especially like the line, "The joy in Lax’s poetry embodies his own interior joy and his discovery of it, almost everywhere, in the exterior world" because it describes, in a way, what my paintings embody for me.

"Just as he was an extraordinary man, Robert Lax was an extraordinary poet. There is nothing conventional or predictable about his poems. Their subjects are by turns visionary and ordinary, celebrating the apocalypse of the everyday. The later poems are spare and strange; their stripped down simplicity engages sound and sense and sight, inviting the reader to see and hear the world anew and to revel in the wonder of the word. The joy in Lax’s poetry embodies his own interior joy and his discovery of it, almost everywhere, in the exterior world." [source]

I just started reading it myself, but I've heard the new Lax biography is wonderful: Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax by Michael N. McGregor.

To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Best,