Three Loud Knocks...

above my side of the bed on the wall behind the head board struck at 4:30 AM, Thursday, early morning. 11/3/11.
I sat there in bed wondering, what the hell was that? It was unmistakable, even in my sleep state what I heard. Normally I would tune in and ask "what is that?" However, this was so precise and specific that my shock took over and I kind of retreated, not wanting to know or even connect that this was perhaps "real." I laid there for another hour before I fell back asleep. That evening going to bed I asked Peter if he heard the knocks, and he confirmed that he had indeed, but tried to ignore it also. "We watched too much American Horror Story," he said. Many times during that day I thought of my dear friend Byron, who lives in New York. Byron, who I have mentioned here before as he lives across the street from Patti Smith. I heard Byron talking in my head. "High-Society voices," he said. I laughed to myself. Little funny things he has said to me over the years, funny things just between us. Things I had not shared with anyone else and I thought to myself, "funny how this particular thing between us on one else knows about...and as funny as it is I have no one else to share it with."
I learned the next day, Friday, that my dear beloved friend Byron had passed the day before. No one seems to be sure when he died, although I have a pretty good idea.
My beloved friend Liza told me she was just reading about the number 3 in spiritual terms, connecting to the perfection of Birth, Life, Death. She felt that the three loud knocks resonated with this, and Byron passing.
When someone close to us passes through, they leave the door open and through them we can connect to the multidimentionality of All That Is, of who we are. I have experienced this many times in the last two days. Connecting with Byron, even when I am at work and trying to focus on the job Byron will pop through and I will be transported to another place and time. Suddenly backstage at the Winter Garden Theatre and Bryon is passing me in the dark carrying a wig. In the smoke lounge laughing as he flicks another cigarette out the window. "Did I tell you about the time I flicked a cigarette into the open window of a taxi driver and it accidentally landed right in his crotch?" Laughing until tears formed in the edges of my eyes.
"Tout a lour." I find myself saying to the performer I just apparently had a quick change with during the show Bring It On, which I am currently working on. "Tout a lour" was what Byron always said to me and what I said back to him whenever he left. I bounced out with Byron without thinking of it. Of course I am fairly susceptible to wandering, although Byron is helping. I think about Byron downloading his Life as he passes and wonder how that affects those of us who shared it with him. Does it cull from us those memories, those attachments, those shared experiences and work them through so he can pass easily? Do they hold him down, slow him down, keep him near for a bit longer because the pain of the belief of separation is too much to bear? I hope Byron flows easily into All That Is. I hope he is detached from these earthly experiences, and enjoys the expanse of the infinite that he is. I know these aspects of him that are so funny, so courageous, so connected to the beautiful mystery of Life, and so giving to those he encountered and worked with and shared with but I know that he is infinitely much more than this. He is complete. He is 3 and has experienced Birth, Life, Death, and upon leaving (or maybe it was upon arriving?) gave three loud knocks.
Thanks Byron.

Opium. Dreams. Poppies.

It's just a dream, right? All made up but a willing participant. The plot of the dream made up so long ago we have forgotten what we all agreed to, and now fumble around trying to get back. Like when you run in your sleep but don't move. Wild horses off in the distance of the Great Plains thundering towards you, or is it a summer storm? I haven't decided yet. Both are plausible. Both sound good but each bring something different. It hasn't arrived yet, still time to decide. Still plenty of time to change my mind.
Like what is contained inside the envelope folds of a Poppy. Beautiful silk paper wrapping, smoother to the touch than anything. The hands of God giving you something pretty from the Winter cold, first signs of Spring. The thorny leaves of the Poppy should give signal to what She hides in her heart. Cold icy freeze. Bringing dreams and despair depending...The Opium Angel who reaches out to hold your heart in her icy grip. Numbing, removing, detached. "Hurdle jumper," she said to me. Reached out and taught me what She has to offer from a distance. Understood. I was a Chinese man selling Opium in San Francisco She told me. Part of the dream, part of what I'm here to work through. What I didn't leave behind. The smell of it burning in the night, taking me back. The idea being that She's here to remind you of where you came from so you could jump the hurdle too. Stay on your path, remembering what you came to do. It's so easy to forget though. Then body breaks down trying to remind you of where you sidestepped, helping you to reboot and continue on.
"I fell off the wagon for you," Arden said to Myrna, and their Life began, living his dream. Doing what he came to do and then moving on. Marcia told me she dreamed of a man smoking a pipe and I knew Arden had passed, my best friends Father. Reminds me of when my own Father died nearly 19 years ago? Is that correct? Nineteen? Nineteen years ago I left the fashion industry behind, and decided to work on Broadway. Dressing the actors for their show...pointing the way for them to flow into the spotlight. The illusion of attention. The illusion of being left behind. The illusion of time standing still as they perform their magic for you to hide in too, while you watch. I'm done watching. I'm done pointing the way. Making pictures that no one wants but me. Well, that's okay. I still make them, still do what I can to bring them into the world. Who knows? With the internet so many more see my work than could have years ago, not having a white gallery wall today to hang them on. But I'm not complaining, just wondering when I will get my walls. Once I declared I wanted to work in the theatre. Well, now I'm done, and my work needs a gallery.
I want it to be Wild Horses. I have had a Summer Storm. I know what that is, what it brings. I want the Horses.
Poppies. I'm dreaming of Poppies. Poppies to take me there...remembering what I came to do.

Poppy (1)

Digital Photograph

Print Size Variable

2005

2AM: Full Moon

It's 2AM and the Full Moon wakes

Stirring your night and lighting your way

Uncovering in your mind the things you thought you'd hidden away

A giant bird sits outside my back window

In the hovering blue moonlight it looks like a white faced owl

Huge haunting eyes

It alights silently

We stared at each other for 10 minutes before it turned midair and flew into the blue night

It is so clear, blue hours after midnight and the things in your mind race toward an eternal unconclusion. So when confronted with this giant bird at my back window I wonder of the reality of it. Her. Head bobs and turns quickly. I wonder what She sees of me through the window. Does She get a silent moonlight reflection, obscuring my image in the night or for Her is it clear? Moonlight even as bright as it is this evening can be deceiving. The light hovers playing tricks, and again I wonder of the reality of this meeting. I crack the back door as silently as this house will allow and watch Her turn towards me. Sitting on a line that runs right above this door, perhaps ten feet from me She stares. We are locked for 10 minutes. Door ajar a couple of feet and I wonder if She will come in. Trying to fix my gaze to Hers I know my eyes don't contain what Hers do and I give up and let the door slowly open all the way. I step into the moonlight with Her and She alights, turning midair silently and flies off into the night.

Detail, Pellucid

Oil on Canvas

10' x 5'

2002

Moving On...

Sometimes you just need to sit with something. Let it be as Paul sang to us. I think of how far we travelled since walking down to Yasgur's Farm. Is this the Dawn they sang of? We hardly left the Dawning when suddenly soothsayers of all sorts chanted 2012 and the end based on the Mayan Calendar, and who knows what all else. It is entirely possible that the Mayans just thought "you know, perhaps 10,000 years is long enough. Can I just stop recording the future days at 10,000?" It doesn't end Kids, it just changes. Evolves. Evolution is Gods work anyway. You may be ready for it, you may not. You may need to sit by the side of the road and take a breather and let it settle before moving on, but you need to move on. Read books on Kindle now, because that's where it's at. Listen to music on computer, because that's where you can keep all your favorites. Skip commercials all you want to on your DVR because they will still find you when you google search. Anything you ever searched for, or bought online will suddenly pop up in the column to the right, you can't fast forward the shit. It will follow you, so keep up. Keep ahead. Try.
Yeah it's a long way down that dusty road where you first met a Child of God. Joined a rock n roll band. Road cross country on a bus to Altamont, and we all know how that ended. Prescient don't you think?
You can't have the good without the bad I guess. We haven't learned to just accept the good without manifesting a barometer of bad to prove to us that it was. We need to period the sentence with a tragedy? Why is that? What if we could let it be. Don't judge, watch, listen, allow. Detach. Be here. Don't be here. We are stardust, we are golden, we are the garden, and the Earth she turns, and turns, and keeps on turning...rolling along that great gravity wheel. Free ride. Moving on.

The Road and All That Is

Oil on Canvas, Tire, Rope

Dimensions variable based on hang length. 

2005

Simultaneously September, 2001.

I am obsessed with Time. The endless march of it. What it gives you and what it takes away. How it is controlled by the space it inhabits. How it stretches out endlessly corralling all it owns in the vast reaches of space. It is simultaneous. All the Masters tell us All That Is, is simultaneous. It exists, and not, always.

I will never be able to lose sight of the idea, the images, and the stories of those who left the Twin Towers high up in the air before they fell. In my mind they will be forever caught up. I believe they left before their bodies were thrust out of the buildings. I believe they were all caught up, those who stayed inside and those who leapt. I believe that God caught them up, protected them, brought them home. They flew out long before the shell of their bodies ever returned to Earth.

My favorite images of the Twin Towers are from when I would lay down at the base of one of them. Laying down on the pavement, my head up against the foot of the building and then looking skyward at the enormous length of it. The immensity of the Tower running out of the full scope of my vision closest to me and trailing away as if only an idea from my sightline into the sky. The distance incomprehensible even though it is easily measured. 110 stories.
When the Towers were built their future was designed into them. They existed before they were built and will exist forever after. Their creation and construction is a part of what they were to become even though no one knew the outcome of their story. They are simultaneously linked to what they are, what they contained, and what happened. They are a parable for all of our lives. We each contain the story of our outcome within us, even though we don't know what that is, it is also simultaneous. Our memory provides us with the long look back. Our future towers beyond us but is also here right now, corralled by Time and only lays out before us. Closest to our field of vision taking up all that space and then trailing away into the great distance out from us into the beyond. As if you could lay your head at the base of your Life and look up into your future. You know where you are, what you are made of, where you have been, where you are grounded. You know all that came before you in your Life because you experienced it, but what about that long trail that shimmers into the sky? That endless, beautiful ribbon? The part you might have notions of, and the part that is measurable at the end but at this moment is enormous and incomprehensible. The painful beauty of it astounds because our attachments and emotional lives are so intertwined with our experiences but when all is said and done will still come crashing down around us. A ribbon collapsed. A chain un-taut. The DNA of us, of our Life. All that made us up, who we are, were, became, did and died. Simultaneously existing beyond Time and her space, beyond her reach. Caught up by God, protected and held close. All That Is.

These ideas were at the time beyond my comprehension. I was so pained by those who leapt from the Towers, ejected by the force of the heat, the smoke, all of it. I still am. It is enormous and beyond my measure.  So I painted them and waited patiently for time to pass which would allow me to gauge them, and understand what they contained, were made of, and meant. We may never knew the entire story of the Twin Towers, 9/11, what they were and what was lost. We have them collected into our consciousness and Time will slowly reveal their story as she marches on, trailing like a ribbon all they contain for their full expression. What will never be revealed are the people in her story. They were caught up by God. Out of Time's reach. They left before their great collapse and went Home, but are simultaneously linked forever into our memory of what happened. As painful and difficult as that may be, but part of it, and expressed powerfully.

Caught Up

Oil on Canvas

24" x 40"

2003

Deus ex Machina

Oil on Canvas

8' x 6'

2003

Lambda

Oil on Canvas

7' x 5'

2003

Pi

Oil on Canvas

7' x 5'

2003

Ten Years Ago, August

I was living in New York City, on 47th Street. Hells Kitchen. That summer I started having vertigo off and on during the day, sometimes at night. I would move and suddenly the room would move with me. I would have to sit down and collect myself. I wasn't sick, didn't actually have vertigo, but I hate saying "dizzy spells" as it doesn't sound right. In the evenings I was having gentle out of body experiences, not full, but I could feel the expansion that comes with it as I lay down to go to sleep. I used to get these as a kid, started during adolescence if I remember correctly. Laying down in bed I would start to feel like I was growing at an alarming rate. I felt as if I was being gently rocked side to side and then moving at a sudden speed. It used to scare me, but I decided one day that it didn't have to be unpleasant, that I didn't have to fight it. Once I let go and stopped fighting I soon felt a more pleasurable, incredibly overpowering rushing feeling like I was taking off, or out, or somewhere, and then I would usually fall fast asleep. These stopped for years, and didn't return until much later when I was living in N.Y. The summer of 2001 they started up again, this time with a whoosh. These only happened when I was alone, never when next to another body which I always felt a bit curious about. They still don't for the most part. Some nights I try to make it happen, but can't. At any rate, this coupled with the feeling of vertigo during the day didn't sit well with me, and as I recently quit smoking decided that I was experiencing latent withdrawal symptoms. I try to be a big mind over matter kind of guy. When the vertigo would come on I would talk myself out of it and carefully continue navigating whatever task was at hand. At the time I was dressing Michelle Lee in Tale of the Allergist Wife. Frequently I would be backstage and feel this vertigo rush, and be in the middle of changing Ms. Lee, or any number of activities. Internally I felt something was up, something was coming, something was going to change. My dear friend Vita shared with me a Catholic tradition of August 15, the Assumption of the Holy Mother. I understand from her this is a Day of the Water. A day where you would take yourself to the water; lake, stream, ocean, any body of water apparently, and anoint yourself. The Holy Mother would heal you of any affliction. I found this to be such a beautiful idea. I thought of my dizziness, the rushing out of body experiences, the aural buzz I could hear throughout the day (that is another story for another time), which I eventually learned to tune in to but haven't quite grasped deeper information from. I thought of the weird time I felt we were all living in. It all felt like "It" wasn't enough. Like we wanted more, like we were all unsatisfied. I thought of this Holy Angel who would come and heal of us of whatever needed healing. I painted an image of the Angel. On her shoulders she carries a vessel of Healing Water, this gift. Around her waist hung the holy prayer beads. Mala. 108 of them. Our prayers make up the beads hung from her waist. Our prayers bring her to us. She anoints us, heals us. She wraps her long arms around us and holds us safe. She steps out of a holy light into our lives and soothes our pain, heals our heart. She enlightens us.
After I finished this painting I saw that it appears as if she is stepping out of a light bulb. A few weeks later I painted a lightbulb that was burned out, shattered, scattered, fragmented, ruined, destroyed, exploded. Its image a ghostly burn that can never be forgotten.
Later I would paint a combo of these two images, which has remained unfinished to this day. A painting that I began long after midnight but just a few hours before the morning of September 11. I was unable to fall asleep the evening of September 10. I felt sick to my stomach and tremendously anxious, so I got up to paint thinking it would help. Working through feelings when I can't sleep usually helps me relax. Sometimes it is just because I exhaust myself, then my emotions calm, my mind can rest, I can sleep. The painting I created then is of this same angel being held upside down. She is being lowered by others into the vessel of healing water she carried previously. Next to her are two burned out, exploded, shattered, ruined, destroyed lightbulbs. (This unfinished painting I have never photographed or catalogued. Its image won't be seen here).

I've never shown these two paintings. I understand now where they came from, what they represent, and what I was going through physically, emotionally, and spiritually. What I believe we all were going through at the time, and what we were about to experience. I accept all of it and still marvel at the wonder of the unconscious which whispers to us all. All the time. The unconscious which is connected to our Higher Self, and All That Is. That understands all and yearns to communicate with us through any means possible.
Life is precious. Nothing is promised. Love all.

August 15

Watercolor Stick, Wax on Canvas

44" x 61"

2001

Untitled

Graphite, Wax on Watercolor Paper

40" x 60"

2001

Writing, Sandra Bernhard, Fink, and Les Miserables.

So I started writing a book. This was in part brought about as a result of this blog here, and the reason why I haven't blogged in a while. I think I have a lot of stories, but more than that I want to share. That is my job after all, to leave something behind. Writing every night backstage in my office while the 25th Anniversary tour of Les Miserables has its run here. Surrounded by my sketch of Sandra Bernhard, Stevie Knicks, Natalie Maines, and Pink. They are my spiritual angels. Part of a dream I have that I am trying to manifest, and part of my team of muses. Also it is just a great drawing, so I keep them near. Sandra has always been a dynamic inspiration for me, and a beautiful friend. This sketch sits above a Life magazine cover of Gwen Verdon from 1959. Gwen was a friend and dance partner of sorts to my dear friend and dance teacher Eddie Gasper. Eddie was in Sweet Charity with Gwen. Eddie was, among so many more accomplishments, Bob Fosse's assistant for many productions spanning several years.  In this same picture with Gwen is Harvey Evans. I dressed Harvey in Scarlet Pimpernel on Broadway. We were reunited when he was in the cast of Leap of Faith here at the Ahmanson Theatre. He walked into my office and saw the Life magazine cover and told me that the guy on Gwen's right was him.  He told me how the picture was taken at around 2 am after a show. He said the photographer popped open a bottle of champagne before the shoot started, and they had a blast. Harvey has worked on Broadway all his life, and performed with Eddie in the original West Side Story.
The point? It all comes around. The recognition of the connection that is spun in a life lived as consciously as possible. Beautiful, meant, and perfect. These people are like landmarks that remind me I am in the right place. They would be the ones handing me a paper cup of water in the marathon of Life as I ran by. Supporting and encouraging along the way. I like looking at this road, this path I have been on and all the people along the way. Those who were on the bus for just a bit, and those that are here for the ride. The bus driver and all the stops, fits, and starts. I paint about the road, I think about the road, I love the road. I am writing a book about this road of mine because I think it is interesting. After all I have been the backstage privileged eyes and ears to many many moments, events, and people. All worth sharing. All of the stories say more about me really and just like a self portrait, it makes most sense to the viewer. Reader in this instance.
I always need to have some musical gasoline as I paint. I find in writing this book that it is the same as painting. I need specific music to match what it is I am creating. I have listened exclusively to Fink. His latest is Perfect Darkness, and it is perfectly lighting the way for me for some (as of yet unknown) reason. As I write I'm learning things about myself I had not yet discovered, and the enlightenment is revealing in ways I would not have imagined.
Adelaide Laurino was my first employer on Broadway. She was the production wardrobe supervisor for Les Miserables, among countless other shows. She was back supervising Les Miz on Broadway when I last saw her in 2002. I went to see her, to thank her for the opportunities she gave me and all I learned from her. I wanted to say goodbye to her before my move to Los Angeles. I knew then I wouldn't see her again. She passed a year later, but is still with me. I am reminded of her nightly as I work in my office. She is encouraging me along the way also, as the beginnings of this book is about her in so many ways. Another reminder of being in the right place...as One Day More sings in the background.

Sandra Bernhard and friends sketch, study for a woven, and outline painting: 

Michael Gardner

...hanging on wall next to my desk in my office at work