….continued from the 59^th Spittle: From the Wings of the Butterfly

“The lone whippoorwill has bent the dusk to darkness
singing a song so frail and true
that it bleeds tears of tar, speckled with stars,
borrowed from the many universes so very far away
that words never reach there.’

“There!  Where your brush feels a peculiar tenderness
when dancing into colors and shapes
distant yet at arms length.’

“There! At the precise moment
you become the paint
the brush
and the sound of paint
pushed by the brush
across the texture of time.’

“This rhythm, you say to yourself,
is the anthem for this particular painting,
much like the sound of the mop
performed by the men of yesterday that left the space fresh and new
after that master piece be finished.’

“Yes words can be fucked with.’

“Why try to out say what’s said
when music, dance, and poetry want to be painted
when the sky wants blue,
and the strange vocabulary
of every passion endured, before the quietude of departure
spills itself out of each thought?’

“My small exactitude,
there is clarity about to spring forth in your studio.”

With that said, He turned, lifted His arms and began to sing using the voice of crickets and mice of small things and large things that inhabit the woods.  He smiled and I knew His reference was indeed clear.  His song filled the space with anticipation of the exhibit near at hand.

I enjoyed Him.

“The Yellow Tree” by Don Gahr
oil on wood, 22.5″x28″

It provided that private moment of peace early in the morning while I lay in bed smiling at my window, my mind darting from thought to thought, my life moving from mark to mark and then another mark.

That unfinished painting keeps starting then stopping while I change my mind about everything over and over.  As the paint dries it drips down all four sides of the canvas.  No the wood, the large slab of wood.  No, I mean a very large canvas and I should use oil not acrylic but watercolor can be interesting right from the tube onto the paper or canvas or large skinny slab of wood, but then again why not the very large canvas with blues mixing into the yellows to find the different greens before I add red to find all the browns that provide age to today and seem to feel timeless even though now is now and yesterday was so fucking long ago.

So beneath the tears, that still flit about the edge of each moment, I press the back of the small butterfly hard enough for the wings to shake and shiver before releasing His voice which sends itself into my ear a slim moment before my eyes posses Him before me.

He had that grin spread  about His face and I couldn’t help but be evicted from my own reality into something that the paint begs for; that spirit we have forgotten because of foolish fears that envelope our tedious complaints.

There was loud laughter and the next thing I knew His finger was pressing me into my chair before His words rattled themselves through my studio.

To be continued…….

I was thinking about all of this while watching a tiny bit of phalo blue tissue swirling and whirling inside the fragile ribcage of my studio.  Because I know Him to be clever I suspected the tissue to be His spectacular but quiet entrance as I continued to draw a portrait of Lao Tzo inside a hue of blue touched narcotically with green and before it could land I snatched it from the air then set it carefully onto this question; is there really just one painting?

I was reading all this when He pressed the tip of right index finger to my right temple and asked, “Is it true that the Andy Warhol show currently hanging in the Hirshhorn Museum has indeed dispensed any lingering belief we might have that good art must be difficult to make?”

I was writing this when I answered, “I have been angry for weeks because of my distaste for that shit art demonstrated by people like Damien Hirst who does circles for a living and because of his powerful dealer Gagosian shows his asinine circles in important galleries in important places.  I have been angry because I believe it to be another example of the “art world” screwing with or taking advantage of that sincere part of the collective that would like to have an honest and exciting relationship with what they are taught are the fine arts and with what they believe to be important.  I see it as a scam.  Am I wrong?”

There was a slight pause followed by enthusiasm spraying from His well formed lips, “You have a right to your grief, my small lost bug, but you are as always so very wrapped up in your narcissism that clarity is difficult if at all possible, after all you are fond of Pollack and that wasn’t hard was it, and you have gradually grown an important respect for Picasso and others like Matisse who for years have dreamt of an instant painting.  This isn’t something to be attacked, this concept and oh so serious attitude must be admired.  Don’t we want the power of simplicity to drape us like a plain winter coat through the winter of time?”

work in progress by Leon Hushcha, mixed media on wood, 21"x20"

“Stop!” I shouted.

“No, I don’t want a coat.  I want honesty, integrity and the comfort of quality which is a true result of good intention and plain hard work.  I want to believe that even the attempt itself of creating something from nothing is worthy of note.  That people in the arts are well meaning and searching for depth in our own species that shows merit and deserves our applause.”

When did grey turn to gray?

The night into day?

He smiled widely and with His fingers began to tap on my latest painting.  “This painting started as an attempt to paint a center that would speak to its border which had been painted independently and quite a while back.   You painted it shape by shape of aluminum on black not knowing where it was going or why.  Yet by the end of the first week it began to form itself and you thought of it as broken glass, colorless and meaningless, yet somehow interesting.  You had no clue where you were going and there was no necessity of an up or a down or a horizon line.  You were stunned when she said “Guernica” you knew it meant something, you knew it would mean something to someone; you knew if you let it, it would be.  You wanted it to paint itself and do it easily without restraint.’

“And to answer your question, when did grey turn to gray?”

"Balletto di Grigio" by Leon Hushcha, acrylic on wood, 26"x47.5"

]]> http://www.hushcha.com/spittle/?feed=rss2&p=509 0 http://www.hushcha.com/spittle/?p=495 http://www.hushcha.com/spittle/?p=495#comments Thu, 24 Nov 2011 02:01:35 +0000 Leon Hushcha http://www.hushcha.com/spittle/?p=495 It has been awhile.
Let me warp time a bit and clear my throat, chest and memory.

The sun was pouring into my room early that July morning forcing me to rise and step out unto the back porch, which sits on the second floor facing west.

It was all so very normal.  I was mid-thought and about to stop rubbing the sleep from my eyes when my attention was diverted by a large mass of black suddenly standing
up in front of me.

The Maestro burst out laughing as I stood petrified eye to eye, two feet away from a young Black Bear who was as surprised and as much in shock as myself.

I retreated quickly while shutting the glass door behind me as the Bear ran in a confused circle apparently trying to decide how best to get the hell out of there. I had time to grab my camera, a moment before he completely amazed and amused me by carefully getting off the porch backwards, probably using the same route he used to come up, only this time leaving deep claw marks in the wood as a reminder of his visit.

I was thinking about all this while watching a tiny tissue of turquoise swirling and whirling inside the ribcage of my studio.  Watching and knowing that after a long absence He was pushing His entrance from the spectacular to the subtle.  Because I know Him to be clever I anticipated with the flight of the tissue while drawing a portrait of Lao Tzu inside the hue of blue touched with green and before it could land I snatched it from the air and carefully set it on this question.

Is it really just one painting?

In a stuttering dance of tissue and time, “Yes and No,” came the reply and suddenly His Presence pushed me to orchestrate that choir to sing hello.  He was finally back and stood before me a clock in one hand and a large brush in the other.  He stood grinning and rotating these objects through empty space before stopping this peculiar calypso by opening His lip sticked lips and serving His answer wall to wall.

“Yes and No is always the answer.” He chortled gleefully.

“When people peck at the privacy of your world, my small one winged sparrow, when they demand answers to unravel their unfortunate complexity, simply reply, ‘It is all one painting and your painting is finished when the paint dries.’”

“That’s easy for you to say,” I interrupted, “they will only think I am avoiding the question.”

“Think?!  They will think!?” He responded before bellowing, “Thinking can only be helpful after you acquire the skill not to use it.  It is like Picasso rejecting his traditional skill, Pollack pursuing something he couldn’t comprehend or Christ speaking in riddles.” I could hear in the distance, Lao Tzu, Toa Cheng, Alan Watts and Master Hakuin all tap dancing through the thick wet paint I was cutting through with the back of my brush as I glanced at the clock in my left hand.

The studio smiled.

"Oasis" by Leon Hushcha, mixed media on board, 18x24"

"Birch Bark Heart" by Leon Hushcha, mixed media on wood, 22.25x16"

In one ear
lies the sounds of blue
in the otherthe saddest of sounds
being squeezed from an instrument
set carefully behind your ribs.

I spread the vast blue sky and sea
from one side of my canvas to the other
and allow my mind to wander across the beach
on the small, nicely tanned, back of a sand crab.

Without warning He appears
naked on the beach chair a few feet to my left
all covered with the tiniest of sand pipers all pecking
away at Him
to the exactitude of my second hand racing
in a circle inside my watch.

His lips move slowly as He begins,
“Emerald green, to cobalt, to phthalo, ending in a prussian blue
all with a pinch of titanium white appears to be the way the table is set for us today,”
He happily grinned,
while shaking the water out of His long curly hair
as would a large black retriever.
“It’s all a juicy tango of many elements,” He continued.
“It’s all the perfect balancing act, that if not respected,
will frown on humanity, and than reinvent itself without your permission.” He added.

Fortunately,
just before the world was to become much too serious for my tangled spirit to digest
a sharks fin appeared directly in front of us about five feet from shore,
which provided just the right dose of adrenalin that pulled us from our chairs and
quickly to the shoreline,where we ran alongside the fin for more than an hundred yards
while I shot my camera and He sang a magnificent aria
commenting on the sinfulness of shark fin soup,
which some people insist on
at the expense
of possibly eliminating another species
for no other reason than
stupidity
and
self indulgence,
traits that should no longer be bearable by anybody.

The fin disappeared just as my old friend concluded His song
and the silence was heavy and soft
as I watched Him dance across the water and into the hue.

work in progress by Leon Hushcha

Rumi and The Maestro were friends many long,
narrow,shadows ago
but had to reject themselves from each other for fear of duplication.

Now, I wait for that particular knock on the door,
or maybe one of His spectacular entrances,
day after day into now.

I remember thoughts He had painted
and
I use words He has spoken to navigate about the natural doubts
that come and go from day to day.

I shut my eyes
as the palette melts itself from clarity
to that curious abstract landscape some call metaphor.

I am aware of a derivative magical tune.
The very tip of my pen begins to pour fourth then
suddenly stops
which tells me He is close by
and I feel easier as I write.

I stumble back into a sun drenched studio.
The Maestro is standing directly behind a beautiful young girl who is slowly lifting her arms up
in appreciation of her fathers recent painting endeavorswhile quietly proclaiming to the Universe,
“This is my Church.”

I then fall into the mist for just a moment
before finding myself sitting by the seashore
pressing a perfect sea shell tightly to my ear and
hearing the truth as described by Master Rumi,
“Pain is the price that the heart has to pay.”

work in progress by Leon Hushcha

]]> http://www.hushcha.com/spittle/?feed=rss2&p=461 0 http://www.hushcha.com/spittle/?p=452 http://www.hushcha.com/spittle/?p=452#comments Thu, 16 Sep 2010 00:23:05 +0000 Leon Hushcha http://www.hushcha.com/spittle/?p=452 I stare into nothing until He pops up from the center of doubt and then I must comfort all those damn questions He colors me with like some young punk spray painting railroad cars from today’s sunshine to the torrent of rain.

It’s all endless

Yet fragile

I decide

Just before asking Him.

“Where is that Jackson Pollack sharing a gigantic canvas with Monet?  Why can’t Renoir pester and dabble on a Modigliani while Cezanne corrects a mediocre Matisse as he grins at the distorted Rembrandt oozing out of a second rate Franz Hals?  Why can’t I paint on an original Fabritius adding today to yesterday or is that what all of us always do?”

Before I could continue my rant, Spittle Person lifts both arms upward asking me to stop and then closing His eyes tightly allows His thoughts to drip off His cicadas lips, trickling down His white shirt before landing on my waiting ears.  “My small shallow pan of anxiety,” the words softly began, “forget your private bullshit for a moment and remember your trip to the east coast where you were fortunate enough to collect a memorable sight even though your shit ability to use your camera was foiled once again because of your disregard for technology.  Because you failed in your attempt to record a most beautiful moment I must now recite it back to you so you never forget.’

work in progress by Leon Hushcha

“They were sitting high on a cliff.  On a bench.  Facing the ocean and the sun, which was just about to sink itself into the glistening dark cold waves dancing across the horizon line.  They were beautiful, with large round eyes, dressed in the color orange with a little tan and scattered small fragments of green, red and a peculiar purple.  They appeared to be a grandmother, her daughter and her daughters, five of them facing the drooping light and singing so very loudly and happily that your very soul was grazed by their infectious spirit.  You had stopped between them and the gold lit water and were now transfixed by them completely.  I know you don’t understand Chinese but one could see you intuitively understood the ritual and let your eyes greet each of them adding a smile for comfort.  It was another spiritual moment fading quickly so you pointed your camera which caused them to smile more broadly and sing more loudly.  You pressed the record button thinking you were capturing God Himself in your small silver digital camera.  You happily nodded your appreciation five times before you turned and walked away into the darkness.”

“Remember this as a personal moment without need for video.
Remember this when you are looking at an empty canvas,”
He finished before darting into my brush.

Hamlets choir of angels hummed a quietude of timeless
thoughts
which ricocheted wall to wall piercing my mind until I was face to face with The Maestro.

“Did you know a thin rabbit sits right around the next bend,
his fur is stiff and undecided,
the wind wails its sorrow as he shivers and ever so slightly purses his lips?
Let’s just paint and enjoy what is left on the palette,” He said.

“Enough, sometimes the endlessness of possibility stretches itself around my mind like a tight Italian sock,”

He says to me and configures His fingers in such a waythat when put in front of the light
they create a powerful shadow of God’s Face onto the white studio wall.

“It has been too long,” I whispered
to that sweet attentive cicada clinging to His lipstick smeared once white collar.

Suddenly, He hangs His hat on the crow which sits on my flat file
then lies down onto the couch
like some twisted spirit of your private longing.
I decided to ride on top of the black cape as it moves about and continues speaking to me.

“If you can draw something out of empty space, you’re a magician,” He warbles, smiles then continues,
“there is nothing and originally that’s what was, an empty hole inside another empty hole for all eternity until there was a mark.’

“Mark after mark after mark and then another mark leading away and then to the tears
before ones laughter along this narrow road where the beach disappears into colors.
Each mark is as important as the other and stars smile when wind dries your eyes.”
With that said, I nodded and danced making more marks as I flew.

“Don’t fall on your brush,” shouts The Maestro.

“There should be a law against you!” I shout back.

Meanwhile, somewhere far into the woods an old man carves birds
from trees,
smiles and talks to himself about the animals in the wood, not the woods.

His fingers are stiff and his body aches.
His memory is not what it should be he thinks
but Grace is silent and timeless.

He knows this.

She smiles for the last time at his bony and battered body
with the innocence of hope
as the brush continues its quiet journey through space and time.

She holds out her hand but cannot reach him
and the distance changes
texture
and
color
as the music slows to a crawl
but clearly offers the
rhythm of their hearts.

Somewhere he had lost everything but sits very still pushing and pulling images that come and go through his old hands.
He knows, he accepts and he smiles.  “Damit,” he whispers to the tip of his brush.

The butterfly was huge.
Big with its wings open,
its yellow wings
with Pollack like black splatters that seemed to mirror themselves wing to wing
and red dots of various sizes
danced around the splatters as if drunk.

“You are beautiful!” I shouted at it repeatedly
until she slowly closed her wings, hiding her face and thin body.
It was then He slowly laid the brush down to its rest.
It was then He took me by the hand.

There was in instant inner peace as we walked, talked and watched
the huge herd of wild horse swimming, snorting and enjoying themselves next to us.

“Why do you beat yourself up?”
He asked as He threw large cubes of sugar at the rare
combination of colors, muscle and ecstatic frenzy
that completed the entire shoreline inside the gold and orange blissful light
that darted to the top of the roof.

“You are fortunate,”

He continued as He let go of my hand and effortlessly
glided above the glorious herd before
dripping down the side of the canvas onto the most beautiful of horses
in full gallop.

Without a word we waved goodbye to one another.

"Starry Night" I, by Leon Hushcha, 4x4', mixed media on canvas

I missed The Maestro into pain
and a heavy knot right dead center of my stomach.
There wasn’t that sunshine spraying across my studio floor
creating shadows and conflicts between the learned and that old black magic of intuition.
There wasn’t the flow of brilliant words
flowing off His bottom lip into my fragile ear
always intent on making wrong right
and providing a bit of light…to smear the darkness with.

I missed the world as it was and wished it into my painting reality then fixed my intensity into carefully chosen colors before smearing them across the white innocence of emptiness.  Maybe it’s that grace we dwell on as the sweetness of each moment is cloaked in mystery and speed with which each stuttering humming bird shows off its agility before drowning in those wine filled cups of dazzling flowers.  There is no pause between the paintings being rolled onto billboards cross country meaning to satisfy that heavy knot dead center of my stomach as there is no pause between you and my gesture of moments wonder
while
the pen sails across your horizon of deep blue waters.

"Starry Night" II, by Leon Hushcha, 4x4' mixed media on canvas

"Birch" by Leon Hushcha, approx. 8x10"

The Maestro didn’t bother with an entrance, nor did He think before He spoke.? He just spoke into my ear with the force of your used bath water swirling down and away from your present reality.

Here is what the words formed.

Somewhere far into the woods an old man carves birds from trees, smiles, and talks to himself about the animals in the wood not the woods and devotes his time to the sounds vibrating quietly and sadly from ear to ear while the sun spreads itself from one universe to the next as his fingers stiffen and his body aches.

Deep inside the frigid moon Cain & Abel are wrestling endlessly and carelessly above young lovers who roll from bale of hay to bale of hay grunting and laughing at the people who love them.? There is an instant in time that changed her into her which on second screening is playing in Technicolor across the beaches of southern France and into homes of the disinterested.

I am not confused when I tell you that words from all those fabulous books can create a burden of thought, when separate opinions begin to debate and keep you so very far away from the truth.? I am gone before I step inside your hello and finished before your first criticism can squeeze itself out of the comfort of solitude.? Let the darkness be what it desires and welcome the light as you would your best friend, if you have one, if not make one up and have a sip of the ill wind on me.