“January 19, 2008, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, 74° F, Round Bay”

Detail, “January 19, 2008, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, 74° F, Round Bay”

“January 26 2008, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, 78° F, Haulover Bay”

“January 30, 2008, afternoon, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, 73° F, Haulover Bay”

Detail, “January 30, 2008, afternoon, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, 73° F, Haulover Bay”

“February 6, 2008, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, 79°, Haulover Bay”

“February 19, 2008, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, 81° F, John’s Folly”

Detail, “February 19, 2008, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, 81° F, John’s Folly”

“February 20, 2008, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, 80°, John’s Folly”

Detail, “February 20, 2008, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, 80°, John’s Folly”

“February 21, 2008, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, 75° F, John’s Folly”

Detail, “February 21, 2008, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, 75° F, John’s Folly”

“February 22, 2008, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, 78°, John’s Folly”.

This seemed like a good a moment to take a break and enjoy the day.

I decided to take a walk up Ram Head, the southern most tip of the island of St. John. To some this rocky mound that stretches on a long neck from the body of the island looks like the broad brow and curling horns of a ram. I don’t really see the ram, but I do see this thrusting spit of dome and cliff to be as bold as one.

The trail begins near a salt pond that the trade wind works to a lather.

From the salt pond I walked along a crunchy, coral-rubble path that skirts a pretty curve of bay. Soon the trail rose over a dry, sunny ridge…

that is home to barrel cactus and wild orchids.

At the crest of the ridge, Ram Head came into view. Without warning, a slab of cloud slid under the sun.

And in minutes the brilliant colors of the evening where extinguished and replaced with pewter. It was an afternoon for abrupt events.

As I proceeded up the trail, squalls swept in from the North, but each skirted Ram Head, which sat in its own patch of light.

On the crown of Ram Head, I saw the distant rain travel across the sea like a wet sable brush passing over fresh paper.

The tip of Ram Head…

makes a hasty drop to the sea, where the surf breaks over the rocks and swells the pools only to make a sloshing retreat.

Looking up and out to the west where I had hoped to celebrate the end of my visit to the island with a glitzy, sunset spectacle, there was only a cloudy sky and a sober stretch of silvery sea. I was disappointed.

But I soon noticed that the subtlety of the scene was just as beautiful as a dazzling sunset, and considering the suddenness of the other afternoon events, pleasantly uneventful.

It didn’t take long for the sun to show itself on Drunk Bay. The first ray hit the beach at 6:45 AM to light a field of figures made from coral, drift wood and flotsam.

Due east at the same moment the sun hit its noon peak over the desert that lies between Timbuktu, Mali and the Darfur region of Sudan. That morning the Sudan Tribune had reported the following story:

Crammed into school buildings in the centre of Suleia, just 200 out of the West Darfur town’s original 25,000 population were left after an attack by militia and the Sudanese army.

Thursday was the first time anyone from outside had been able to reach the town and the people remaining were mostly elderly women, those with babies or old men.They were not able to run as far as others to escape the bombing and the militia who looted and burned and killed.

Suleia was targeted as part of an army offensive on three towns to retake them from the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) almost a week earlier.

Among the survivors, Hawa Suleiman had no breast milk to feed her five-month-old baby after she spent a week under a tree with no food following the attack.”The Janjaweed came and took everything, our food, our furniture,” said the 35-year-old mother, who did not know where any of her other six children or her husband was.Her face, cut with traditional tribal markings, was worn with worry as she struggled to quieten her crying, hungry child. She said she came back on Thursday because she heard aid workers had brought food.

A joint U.N.-humanitarian convoy brought food to the area for the first time since mid-December. Some 160,000 people had been cut off from aid since then, said U.N. official Amy Martin.

“We have not bathed for a week,” said 75-year-old Mohamed Eissa Abdallah, bent over double with age and leaning on a wooden staff. His face and clothes were caked with dust and mud.”I buried my brother with my own hands,” he said.
Many of the survivors said at least one member of their family had been killed.

A Sudanese staff of the International Committee for the Red Cross was killed in the attack on Suleia.

Washington calls the Darfur violence genocide, a term Khartoum rejects, blaming Western media for exaggerating the conflict.

The offensive was the largest in many months and aid agencies say it affected 50,000-60,000 people, less than initial rebel estimates of up to 200,000. Up to 12,000 refugees fled into neighboring eastern Chad, the U.N. refugee agency said.

Further east on the 18th parallel, the day was windless and dry in Sana, Yemen and very humid but dry and calm in Da Nang, Vietnam.

I don’t know who made the figures which lie on the shore of Drunk Bay. Probably one person got it started and then others added to the display.

The light was pink on the coral figures and the temperature was a pleasant 72 ° F. In Mumbai, India it was late in the afternoon, and a steamy 88° and the Times of India reported that Pakistani police had arrested another “important suspect” allegedly involved in the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto, taking the total number of people apprehended in the case to five.

It was 8 PM in Manila and earlier that day the Manila Times reported that Security officials said they had uncovered a plot by Islamic militants linked to the al-Qaeda network to assassinate President Gloria Arroyo and ‘other targets.’”

It was 70° and still dark in Acapulco, Mexico, but in nearby Port-au-Prince, Haiti the sky was just beginning to lighten.

When the sun was high enough to shorten the shadows and flatten the forms of the figures on Drunk Bay, I left.

The life of a failed painting begins like any other. In the case of this small catastrophe, a pristine panel was placed before beautiful Haulover Bay in St. John. A few tender blues and greens were picked from the morning waves, before the sun was high enough to fully penetrate to the white sand below and send back to the surface the intensely saturated aquamarine for which the Caribbean Sea is famous. The pale colors were applied with a small brush in concave strokes to make interconnecting, stretchy pentagons, which is a motif that describes the undulation of small waves. This cool color area was surrounded then with the yellow of an old sea grape leaf and tempered with small patches of white from the sun-bleached coral rubble. In the upper left a smudge of grey-green was added to represent the distant island of Tortola. The painting session was finished when a large, stretchy pentagon appeared on top of everything else as if to describe a large bubble rising from the floor of the ocean.

Back at the house, I returned to the picture. The bubble of space was the most engaging thing, so I set to work to litter the floor below the boil with interesting detritus like fragments of brain and fire coral. Next, I decided on an orientation for the image and placed a vignette of sky and shore in the upper third. And then the picture was put away.

After a few days of looking at the painting, I picked it up again. Although I still liked the bubble of space, the vignettes beneath were pedestrian and isolated from one another. Painting a discrete object is relatively easy, but painting the strong and weak forces that glue a diverse universe together is hard. To get deeper into the world of this picture, I re-entered with a disruptive attitude, intent on destroying the status quo. Large strokes of blue and red, saturated like the colors of the American flag, replaced the shoreline and set off an exciting collision of color. I turned the picture upside down and forced this new orientation into dominance by weighting the new bottom with large forms and intense pigments. By now the nuanced tints copied during the initial session at the beach were lost and replaced with coarser colors, which was a result of working from memory and impulse rather than direct observation. But there was still hope for a successful resolution, since a new visual drama appeared which seemed to benefit from the rawness of color. With the addition of fins, eyes, shiny skin, and slithery shape, three large brush strokes became a barracuda and two fat, fleeing fish. Satisfied with the visual invention that arose through insurrection, I put the picture away and went for a swim.

As more time passed the new spatial disruptions began to bother me, so I put the picture on the easel and once again turned it upside down, back to its original orientation. The crudeness of the scene would have been a virtue if balanced with a little finesse, so I worked with care to soften extraneous detail and strengthen the focus on the fish and the bubble of space. Several times the picture neared balance, but each time something was off and each time the correction led to new problems. The barracuda, disgusted with the lack decisiveness, left the picture. After so many corrections, the surface became overworked. So, in a last-ditch attempt to bestow grace, I rebelled once again by downing a rum and coke early in the day. Predictably, the alcohol improved my confidence but not my judgment and the picture failed.

All that was left was a fish, alone in a muddy sea of compound mistakes.

It’s time, now, is to get rid of everything. The shapes and colors and textures must be destroyed. History must be eradicated. Get the stripper and scrape the surface new. It’s time to annihilate this little failed world. There is a point when an environment can not sustain the mistakes of its inhabitants.

“January 8, 2008. 75° F, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, Haulover Bay”

“January 13, 2008. 73° F, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, Leduck Island”

“January 14, 2008. 75° F, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, Haulover Bay”

“January 15, 2008. 72° F, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, Haulover Bay, Morning”

“January 15, 2008. 78° F, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, Haulover Bay, noon”

“January 15, 2008. 78° F, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, Haulover Bay, noon”, DETAIL

“January 18, 2008. 72° F, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, Round Bay”

“January 18, 2008, 72° F, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, Round Bay”, DETAIL

“January 23, 2008. 72° F, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, Haulover Bay, Morning”

“January 23, 2008. 83° F, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, Haulover Bay, Afternoon”

“January 23, 2008. 83° F, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, Haulover Bay, Afternoon”, DETAIL

“January 30, 2008. 72° F, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, Haulover Bay”

Just beneath the surface of the water, skeins of light are crocheted across the backs of sea fans and fish and turtles.

Unusual chromatic chords of ochre, crimson, celadon and lilac spread across the coral structures, whose organic forms are both ancient and futuristic.
But there is more to the thrill of snorkeling than seeing novel form and color, and I’m wondering what it is, and I am reminded of a favorite work of art.

In 1968 the American artist Bruce Nauman made “John Coltrane Piece”, “a 36-inch-square, 3-inch-thick, 400-pound aluminum plate laid on the floor, with the word ‘dark’ written on its unsee-able, mirror-finish bottom surface”. (Saunders, Wade, Not Lost, Not Found: Bill Bollinger, Art in America, March, 2000) Nauman provides little explanation for the reference to Coltrane, other than the fact that he likes his music and that Coltrane had a habit of turning his back to the audience. ( Auping, Michael, “Sound thinking: Michael Auping on Bruce Nauman at the Turbine Hall.”) It is understated to say that this sculpture is laconic. The one bit of excitement, the mirrored surface, in which one would at least expect to see an imitation if not an explanation of life, has been pressed to the floor, all the light squeezed out. In the tradition of the other minimal art works of the time, the obduracy of the “John Coltrane Piece” may be a purposeful denial of the usual delight that is to be had in indulging one’s fantasy in front of an art object. But the mirror is a chestnut in the repertory of symbolism and the act of denying light to it is just too provocative to go without more explication.

Snorkeling is an occasion when simple technological enhancement of the body opens the door to a different world. Like the electron microscope and the space shuttle, flippers and a mask extend the body into new space. With each kick of the flipper, something new comes into view, and this is the reason that snorkeling is so thrilling. It’s not just the discovery of something new, it’s the realization that there will always be something new. Anticipation of making a discovery is thrilling, deeply thrilling, like falling into the well of hope. Discovery may be satisfying, but it is the anticipation of discovery that is motivating, particularly for creative people like scientists and mathematicians, who log countless hours developing the tools to extend knowledge in hopes of making discoveries. And it’s here, where bodies wait for augmentation to explore unknown worlds that the John Coltrane Piece lives. The mirror facing the blackness is forever a threshold beyond which there is something we do no yet know. Thinking about The John Coltrane Piece is like wading into the reflective surface of Round Bay on a moonless night, putting on the flippers and mask and setting off for the center.

Now, painting in Saint John, I’ve been thinking about Leon’s comment. He was talking about the connection between making an object and living a life. Over time, he suggested, the elements of an examined life — the values, the psychic habits, the social relations — find expression in the process of making art. One would expect the subject of an art work to reveal the motives of the maker, but Leon was noting that the process of making the thing was just as illuminating.

Currently, I’m working on windy, Haulover beach under a canopy of sea grapes, making pictures from shadows cast by the sun as it rises. It’s an exciting process, since the sun and the wind have become active collaborators.

The beach fringes the north shore of a narrow, flat isthmus, which divides the open water of Sir Francis Drake Channel from the shelter of Coral Bay. Slaves once hauled the boats of the Danish plantation owners across this narrow strip to save the masters the trouble of sailing around the east end of the island to get to open water. Hence, the name, Haulover Bay.

I arrive at 7:30 AM, more than an hour before the sun rises over the mountain that shades the bay from the east. Sea Grapes line the shore and at one spot they have grown so tall and thick that they make a shelter. Someone has dragged an old timber that floated ashore into the cover to make a convenient bench. After setting up the easel in this fresh air studio, I take a look around to see what’s new, which is usually a lot of plastic crap that has washed in from the boats. But in a few minutes it’s possible to pick up the worst of it and get back to searching for colors and forms.

First, I mix up little pools of paint to match the color of the water, which changes from minute to minute in response to the sun and passing clouds.

The shades of turquoise are intense, so I balance the palette by adding the neutral colors of beach stones.

And to this cool collection of colors, the copper of a fallen leaf is included for warmth.

Once the palette is set, I look for interesting forms to paint. The shapes of light on the water made by the wind are often inspiring. The sun will soon be rising over the hill, so I have to work quickly to make an interesting ground.

On this particular morning I choose to start with the sky, which is pale and dotted with peach-hued clouds, which I paint upside down as an inconsequential poke at convention. To this up-ended skyscape a few blobs of sea and chlorophyll green are added as well as the ochre of a coral that I observed while snorkeling the day before. Abruptly, the sun rises above the mountain and the strengthening light intensifies the action of the wind and the water so that everything seems to expand and contract, as if caught in an elastic net. On the panel ovals and bars of light shoot across the picture plane and undulate to the rhythm of the wind in the sea grapes. I trace the edges of the waving shadows and let my hand move to the rhythm. Sometimes I use a knife and scrape out ovals of light. There is no lag between the provocations of the sun and the wind and the response of the brush and the knife. Stimulus and response become one thing and the experience is transcendent, like a moment of shared belief.

When the sun first rises, the shapes are slashing diagonals. But as the morning progresses and the sun circles behind the sea grapes, the shapes become rounder.

To check on progress, the panel is turned away from the light and rotated. If one looks at a picture sideways, it’s easier to ignore the subject and study the scaffolding of lines and the repetition of motifs that make a well-built composition.

The picture is complete, when it asks for nothing more.

I love and admire Leon Golub for his life and work and over the years I have felt myself respond to his accomplishments. His mercenaries-in-action are good representations of violence, but they are great paintings because they are convincing demonstrations of violence. His pictures embody the human capacity for destruction because of his actions, which are to use a mighty size, to overwhelm with big gesture and to flay the surface as if it were alive. In life Leon was far from being a violent or destructive man, but in his art he could conjure brutality and show it nakedly. Like Leon I’m interested in human potential, but I’m working on the flip side of the same coin. Playing with the light and wind and water on Haulover Beach is an attempt to demonstrate the human capacity to embrace.

Christian is on vacation with his parents and three younger brothers. He lets his finger go around and around until the sensation in his finger is so big that his ears stop working. Mom is bubbling with nonsense, much like her sleep machine which covers clamor with the sound of jungle birds. She would be pretty if her fists would relax, but she is worried that Dad will blow. Dad would be handsome with his shirt on. He loves them all and he is proud of what he has made, but the intimacy of vacation is too much for him. Boo, the youngest, will be the trigger and target of Dad’s discontent. Boo is tired from the hour long trek from the SUV, but he is too young to notice, so he wanders around the pool tempting the edge to make him slip. Dad says, “Stay away from the water, son”. But Dad thinks “Don’t make work for me”. Warned, Boo scoots back from the edge and wanders innocently, waiting to test the edge again when no one’s looking.

Christian lies there, deaf, with everything in his fingertip, when suddenly he passes through his fingertip and he is on the other side touching his own fingertip as in a mirror. Now he is the carver, one of the Taino who were the pre-Columbian inhabitants of St. John. Or maybe he is the one of the first people from Africa to stand here and draw images from the Ashanti culture from which he came. He slips naked into the pool, and hears the tap-tap of his labor, and he sweats and feels his sweat, and he is strong and independent carving something important, and he draws a breath over a 1000 years. His body and his carving reflect in the pool, both existing as matter and as light.

Of course Boo slips. He needs to know when slime and angle overcome mass and friction. But Dad can’t appreciate the brilliance of this physics lesson. He’s pissed. “I told you not to get so close to the water. See what you’ve done, your feet are all wet and you won’t like walking back to the car. You won’t like it. You don’t listen. It’s a long walk and it’ll be real uncomfortable, and you won’t like it one bit and I won’t carry you either. No, you are on your own. It’s a long walk, and don’t complain and don’t expect me to carry you”. Dad’s point about the consequence of action is a good one, but the point is lost in the harangue and Dad’s anger traumatizes Boo, altering his brain chemistry just a little and irreversibly.

Christian takes his finger out of the groove, and his hearing returns, and he also changes just a little and irreversibly. Fantasy sheltered him from the present unpleasantness, but it also opened, unexpectedly, into human history. He hasn’t listened to Dad, but he knows his youngest brother just got it. He is happy it wasn’t him who got it, but he is resolved to stick it to Dad soon. He stands, a little older, in this own time.

Anxious to cover up the little bit of shit that just dropped on everyone, Mom uses Christian’s rising as the cue to end the scene. “Christian, does that sign next to you have information about the petroglyphs? What’s it say? Will you read it to us?”

Wish you were here!