Illuminated Passages

A child's experiences and interests become the work of a lifetime.

The elements of life and work may be many and varied.

Isolation, deep distances and echoes, ghost stories, shadows, fires, Reformation, Reconstruction, myth, legend, baptism, poetry and mysticism, good and evil.  Debussy.  War.  Art school. Literature. Folk, bluegrass, rock, jazz, fusion, avant-garde.  Love and Reason.  Performance. Studio. Production, arrangement, experiment. The Academy.  Digital.  America, Europe, The South, Bohemia, the Western Lands.

Expansion and decline, form and the formless, ten thousand things.  Elevation.

Nothing is possible without everything.

Appearances II

Limited expectations and cultural conditioning reinforce each other.

Collective approval permits acceptance of the previously rejected.  What was formerly strange and unknown gains admittance, then common currency, often as the result of celebrity promotion or  commercial advertising campaigns. 

Those who think for themselves are not burdened by this sort of timidity, seeing and hearing what others do not, and being unconcerned with the vicissitudes of public tastes.  This is by no means a small and elite group, and often has greater influence on cultural attitudes than those with a vested interest in manipulating "consumer" perceptions.

The appeal of art is nowhere lost, regardless, but only obscured for a time. 

Music and Sensibility

To consider the extent to which media is fused and blended with consciousness gives one pause.

Certain connections suggest themselves:  meaning may be clarified or confused.  Choices may be consciously made, or be no more than the result of having come to no alternative, emotion having superseded the faculty of reason-- the latter neither understood, developed, or experienced. 

Unselfconsciousness is no substitute for self- awareness.

Vicarious experience of reality does not suffice to replace human knowledge, any more than political ideology is a substitute for wisdom.  Distinctions are either made between the general and the specific, or they are not; the differences between a vine and a poisonous vine, as between actions taken according to intent or impulse, are significant. 

Love for the object of one's desire is not equal to love for another human being.

Music to enhance a contemplative atmosphere and state of mind can, beyond evoking aesthetic beauty and pleasure, contribute to creative and intuitive reasoning, lucidity of perception, and more. 

This is the raison d'etre of my work.

Media and Psyche

What is generally assumed to be “the media” is a combination of arts and industry associated with printed matter, radio, television, cinema, and most recently, the internet. 

For some, there is no other culture, and thus no original point of view, no past, no sense of curiosity, and ultimately no imagination.  Out of the burden of this shallow, passive and superficial perspective a host of problems arises.

According to the degree that it afflicts a person's relationship with the world at large, such problems may result in anything from minor misunderstandings in communication to heinous acts intentionally wrought by individuals and groups.

This is not "the media", but a construct of what might be called self-sustaining social and cultural errors.  Media is, in and of itself, neutral.  It is no more and no less than a tool, and it can no longer be dominated by one group or agenda. 

The results of this scenario remain unsettled, but bode well for the idea that mediocrity need not be the cultural and social norm it has been, more often than not, within living memory.

Balance and Emphasis

Our reactions to things are for the most part unconscious; our responses to events and information are more often thoughtful, well-considered, reasoned.  Both are subjective, both authentic.

Works of art are of a different nature than such things as provide what is commonly called instant gratification.  The enjoyment of an art work, even one appreciated fully upon first encounter, increases with repeated experience of it; it cannot all be absorbed at once like an ice cream cone or an intense sporting event.  Knowledge and experience gained between one viewing or listening and another may allow one's appreciation to increase beyond what was previously possible.

Art engages the intellect and the emotions when it elicits a response with time rather than an immediate reaction and nothing more. 

Passion Flowers

Our perceptions lose all subtlety, our apprehension and understanding of reality is numbed, degraded, stultified, and our days are made up of such relentless distraction and nuisance we see nothing.  Or nothing beyond our responsibilities or diversions.  Reason disintegrates in bedlam, and most are acclimated to nothing more substantial than transient and untrustworthy emotions.

The supremacy of emotion is everywhere visible.  It trumps a critical regard for facts; it trumps analytical assessment of our character, of our thoughts and actions.  The word "passion" is used far too often, as though it confers a kind of nobility to our pursuits, which may have nothing more than selfish and self-serving motivations.

Neuroscientists assert virtually all political belief is inextricably bound to parts of the brain associated solely with emotion.

And the brain is not the mind.

Abstract, Concrete

Certainly the things of the spirit are of greater value than those of the merely material.  Why?

The spiritual things are permanent.  Honor, love, wisdom, reason, justice, and so forth-- these things which are good.  They are not limited by material nature.  They may be inspired and made manifest by their representations through the arts, yet their existence is beyond containment and measure.