Durer - Self Portrait with fur coat, 1500

For over a month now I have been obsessed with this portrait. I have it on my work table in the studio and I look at it many times each day. Despite the fact that the painting is over 500 years old, and Durer himself only dust, I feel that he could come through the door any moment. Where the door is, and who actually walks through it is another question. It is as if the distance between us is an illusion and that he is telling me the key, if only I will hear.

It is easy to say that his facial hair and some features are like my spouses. Or that his eyes look somewhat like my own. Easy to say that the picture is painted in an iconic Christ like manner. But that is too simple. Durer painted more into this portrait then an image.

Click on the image above and maybe you will see what I see.

A Woman's Heart

My heart is low
My heart is so low
As only a woman's heart can be

Knowing What We Are

It seems to me that the knowing of oneself is of the greatest importance. But the knowing must be relative to age, experience and introspection. At twenty I thought I knew myself, but I was only on the road. I was beginning to process options and with the beginning of each new viewpoint or project I felt like this is it, this is who I am. Then when I moved on to something else I thought, well that was not really me, but this is. I was painting some then, watercolor and ink mostly. I was reading everthing still, without much descrmination and with a solid preference for fiction. I went to church and over a number of years filled various roles in that context, I taught Sunday School, served on commitees, sang in the choir.

About 25 I stopped painting, I did not believe that I would ever attain enough technical skill to be anything but a Sunday painter. Over the next years I went to school, changed religious focus, started reading non-fiction in earnest. Then I entered the adult workforce in a serious sort of way and only read legal and religious material. Those were happy years that gave me a break from feeling like a failure. Then at about 33 I had mastered my work and needed more, again I shifted religious focus and added photography and design to my life.

At forty I started painting again. My religious focus changed again and I started reading fiction again in small doses. At forty five I was still painting, no longer feeling that I could not master technique, reading deeply still in design, and with a modified, though not totally changed religious focus.

Now, the modified religious focus is pretty solid, the painting is going very well, the reading is mostly art.

So at twenty I would have said "I am an artist, I am a liberal christian, I read".
At twenty five or so I would have said "I am a christian, I study, I read".
Then at twenty nine I wiould have said "I am a paralegal, I read for my work".
At thirty three I would say "I am a photographer, I am a pagan, I read"
At forty I would say "I paint, I study color and design, I am B'nai Noch"
At forty five I would say "I am a painter, I look at and study art, I am a religous person"

Now, I say simply "I am a painter"

So, I did know what I was at each stage, but I was still learning and trying things on. Even now, I cannot say with any faith that in ten years I will still say "I am a painter". I don't see it now, but maybe then I will say "I am a sculpter" or "I write graphic novels". At twenty I did not see where I would be now, but looking back I can see how everything that came before directly formed what I am now.

Not Sent For

My business partner has been poached by a competing firm. She is giving up her own space, a certain level of control and smoking indoors for a JOB. A regular salary, benefits etc. I am happy for her, but also not. I can keep up with the work load, and my income will increase, BUT... I will be up here in the tower by myself most of the time. I will miss her.

Change is in fact, sometimes evil. Despite this I am sure that it will work out well for both of us.

Changes

Until this week I would have argued to the end of my endurance that violence, war, environmental destruction, cruelty to animals and general ugliness were the result of individual error that could be corrected, in time, by individual love and individual example.

I believed that the choice of an individual to live an ethical, kind, creative life that did not place excess burden on others or the environment had a lasting, benefical effect that extended beyond that persons circle of influence. I actually believed that if enough people became ethical, kind, creative and tolerant that the mass of goodness would tip the overall scale to goodness and that it would become the norm worldwide.

I was wrong. No norm of goodness will stop a Saddam, a Bush, a Hitler. There is no personal error in their thinking. They simply want what they want, at any cost to other life. They are not acting to make a better world, but to make a world that is shaped to their image.

A better world is a place with low infant mortality, enough to eat, clean water and air, sovernity over our lives, equal access to reasonable health care and education for all. A better world is a place where the streets are safe and old people cherished. A better world is within reach, except for the wolves among us. They want power, and our "better world" is something they gladly forfiet to acquire it.

Still, an ethical, kind, creative life, allows us to achieve personal growth and to build families and communities that are peaceful and tolerant. But the sheep and goats among us must acknowledge that wolves do not belong in our midst, that no matter how tame we believe they are they will eat us to satisfy their hunger, and worse, they will kill us just because they want to.