Lillian Bassman

Today they'd be called overprocessed - but this woman is a genius in the darkroom, creating paintings, not prints.

Stay the Night

I'd like this blog to lean comfortably toward the professional rather than anything too personal but I'm an artist, not an accountant; where in the sand is that line drawn?

A crowd of beautiful and hurtful passengers have cramped shoulder-to-shoulder to ride the tracks of my last few months, and it has been brightest and darkest in rapid succession. Through it - and perhaps despite its darker elements - I spent herculean efforts concentrating on the beauty. But the universe is made up of both; call it the 18 percent gray of existence, and the exclusion of focus is only denial - it doesn't make the darkness into light.

I returned from paradise to a new place in New York with just enough heat to require socks to bed and winter hats during breakfast. The subway cackle was crisper, and the air crystallized like the ice that formed on the back of my head. The industry had its collar up against a shrinking economy, weathering the gentle onslaught of cooling and taking great effort to keep the smallest of heat or the smallest of jobs. The landscape was sparse.

At first, it was an offense. There was no beauty here - nothing but desolation. But then turning my collar up against the cold and walking into it is recognizing it - knowing the universe is composed of hard and easy, light and dark.

As are we. As am I.

The middle road is to know both - to embrace both - and to appeal to the better in yourself ... even in the cold. The bitter. The hard. In this knowledge winter feels different on my skin - as welcome as the warmth of the equatorial sun. It's tempering.

I walk through the streets thinking of my images - of the real, and the contrived. I've concentrated on the beautiful, however real beauty lies in the eyes of the scarred - eyes that have seen the darkness and come through light because they have acknowledged rather than ignored - accepted rather than shunned. To know both in the world is to know them in yourself.

The middle road is not a road of ignorance; it's a road of knowledge.

Tony Duran

The color and tones are mellow and symphonic. The shadows like mousse - the highlights, radiance. Plus he directs well, gaining awkward and unbearably adorable poses. Only ... is it just me or are the whites of the eyes just too alien white?

Goodbye Maui ...

It's 20 degrees today in New York and feels like 4. I'm bracing myself against it, pounding my boots against NY sidewalks while the sea urchin spines embedded in my foot - my one and only souvenir - are a painful reminder of where I left my heart.

Meditation

For the raindrop, joy is in entering the river -
Unbearable pain becomes its own cure.
-Ghalib

Listen to this ...

Lhasa's de Sela's voice is tremendous. I first heard this driving up the PCH toward Malibu and we decided the owner of such a voice must be older, full in figure with perfect makeup over age-worn skin. She'd sweat and dance tango and smell acridly sweet ... and yet she'd have a sexuality about her that would make you do anything she asked. Man, were we wrong. She's only a few years older than I and sweetly, delicately beautiful.

Happy New Year

Taken at Max Azria's birthday party in LA, at which many friends and family extolled the virtues of a sweet, kind french man, and then his guests proceeded to drown out his speech by talking over him ...

It's 09 and I find myself sitting in an apartment just shoreward from the waves breaking an aloha to Maui, and watching a dozen or so sailboats swing at anchor from south to north as the dawn settles in and the prevailing breeze takes hold. I hope it's all indicative of what this year will bring.

I head back to New York on the 11th, but until then I'm out of town pretending this year might not be scary regarding the economy.

On the plane last night I spent some time reading Henry Miller, and came across a quote that spoke to me:

Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin o things. We are all part of the creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.

There's a beauty to its instruction. Before heading back to the hard grind of NYC next month, I'm spending a lot of time meditating with a journal and sorting out what needs to be sorted out. I'm taking a break from taking in a lot visually - no magazines or books, just prose - in an attempt to wipe the slate clean before I begin again later this month. And with that in mind, this blog post will be one of the few with no photos included. Just thoughts.

It's 10:30 here in Maui and down in the mooring field off my back deck one of the catamarans is already packed gunwale-to-gunwale with what must be the new years party that never ended. And surrounding it are sloops and ketches bobbing in the calm. I can't wait to get back to work, but before all that, I really just want to hitch a ride.