“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. So medicine, law, business, engineering… these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love… these are what we stay alive for.”
“People have a hard time with this feeling of impermanence, of doing something that seems like it has no real purpose –
which really is all art on some level.”
“But I am fully bought into the idea that there’s a much bigger thing occurring and the art plays a much bigger role than humanity, or at least our society, gives it credit for.”
The story behind my painting “The Christmas Bridge”
A few years ago we had a unexpected snow storm on Christmas Eve.
Two weeks in the making, we had already sent invitations in advance to a host of our closest friends. “Join us for a very special Christmas dinner!” we promised.
The storm as it turned was insurmountable and dangerous and so it became impossible for our friends to reach us.
And so we sat, the two of us, with a king’s ransom of dinner, lights, music, desserts and unopened gifts – feeling, well a bit empty. Our special evening didn’t seem quite so, well, special.
We sat, eggnogs calming, candles burning, the blue twilight casting something magical across the little bridge out the front window.
The Christmas Bridge (a painting, PRINTS Here) – Douglas Moorezart, copyright 2016, all rights reserved
Nothing had changed really. The bridge into our house stood steadfast, waiting for our guests to arrive, not seeming concerned about the turn of events in the slightest. And it would, it promised, continue waiting each and every day. That was its purpose, its reason for being after all.
“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
― Eric Hoffer
That evening we agreed that this small unassuming bridge represented, to us, friendship. Friendship which remains true whatever challenges come along.
I wish for each and every one of you (who have so kindly blessed me with your comments and visits) successful arithmetic this season. That you can find blessings to count. Perhaps even some that at first don’t seem especially so.
I will be out of communication an unknown period of time. Due to tinderbox conditions and high winds throughout southern California all power in this part of the county has been turned off to help avoid more fires starting.
I will be taking a blogging break through the end of this year as the threat of fire is now an ever-present reality. All that is ours is under the danger of perishing with slim to no warning.
Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Xmas to those who kindly visit and share with me these last several years!
Douglas
The artist, busy and unsettled, can find a moment’s peace – and even whole-being rejuvenation – by quietly attuning to a red sky, a gray sky, a black sky, a blue sky.
“When you stop searching and you calm down and you put your books away, and you confront yourself and see what you are all about, that will bring about bliss faster than anything you can ever imagine or ever do.”
Robert Adams, photographer
Koi Pond 9, Watercolor, Pencil, Gouache, D. Moorezart, c 2018, all rights reserved
“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living… Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
Artists with serious aspirations need to be left alone to follow the course of their own imagination.
Robert Genn
Studio Couch, mixed media on paper, copyright 2018, D. Moorezart, all rights reserved.
In my studio the onlooking “studio couch” continually asks me to step back, take a break and see what’s happened so far. Not to fall down a rabbit hole and get distorted in purpose.
To reflect, to consider, to put on another pair of eyes for a while. Sit a spell.
Summer to Your Heart, c 2017, all rights reserved, Douglas Moorezart
I know I am but summer to your heart (Sonnet XXVII)
I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And I have loved you all too long and well
To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring.
Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.
Else will you seek, at some not distant time,
Even your summer in another clime.
“Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine.”
Alexander Smith, Dreamthorp: Essays written in the Country (1863).-
“The wisteria was especially lovely in my garden this year. As I painted just outside my front door I remembered this wonderful line from the Scottish poet Alexander Smith. It states perfectly how I feel as I meditate in this sun dappled spot.”
Douglas
Wisteria Arbor, Oil on Canvas, Douglas Moorezart, c 2018, all rights reserved
Quiet Moments – Douglas Moorezart, copyright 2016, all rights reserved
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“All of our great traditions, religious, contemplative and artistic, say that you must learn how to be alone – and have a relationship with silence. It is difficult, but it can start with just the tiniest quiet moment.”
Thomas Mann
A few years ago we had a unexpected snow storm on Christmas Eve.
M o o r e z a r t 