This Little Light of Mine
"Our culture and art do not speak to America alone. Today, as always, art knows no national boundaries. Behind the storm of daily conflict and crisis, the poet, the artist, the musician, continues the quiet work of centuries, building bridges of experience between peoples, reminding man of the universality of his feelings and desires and despairs, and reminding him that the forces that unite are deeper than those that divide."
--John F. Kennedy
Find the full transcript online at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9033&st=national+cultural&st1=
But I've left out the personal part of my story.
It's the early 1960s, I'm in Catholic school, and there's a little Catholic girl in the Whitehouse. I can relate. My family is still intact, and my Mom and Dad can afford to rent a beach shack for spring vacation, right on the sand, where we find colored eggs on Easter morning. We paddle out on inflatable surf matts and pound over the falls to come in. We lie in the hot sand. On a cloudy day I write a letter to Caroline, illustrated in crayon. I have a big box, with all the colors. I feel fantastic about the world, it is bliss. I am nine. Maybe ten.
This little light of mine.
Check out how Catholic girls do these days - Mercy Hight School Statement of Support for Immigrants Refugees and Muslims at http://www.mercyhs.org/news/statement-of-support-for-immigrants-refugees-and-muslims. This is how I was raised.
Gramps
Alexander Yakutis. My dad's namesake, and mine. He fled Lithuania prior to the outbreak of WWI, then became a naturalized citizen after serving in the United States Navy. To me he was tall as a tree. Grandpa taught me to love nature. Oak trees, honey bees, salt. I venerate these because of him. Lithuania was the first to declare independence from the USSR. She is tiny, she is strategic, and she needs NATO to have her back. This Wikipedia article on the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania covers the basics. It's a short read and includes a reference to Moldavia, our first lady's country of origin, to my surprise.
Out of Nowhere
Untitled, 2009, acrylic with oil and oil base pencil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm
The untitled painting illustrated here was an outlier when I made it. I've been living with it for about seven years now, and it's still growing on me. It reminds me of a song. This song.
This recording.
Butterfly Queen
In one of the most sublime locations in all of California, heavily repaired asphalt leads to a remote fire station behind the gas and oil facility at Mariposa Reina.
Click or tap on image to enlarge
Gas and oil infrastructure, railroad infrastructure, offshore infrastructure. Neither north nor south. Tar occurs naturally on beaches. Monarch butterflies are attracted to eucalyptus groves.
Neutral Palette
Five panels, 40 x 50 cm, acrylic on plywood. Studies or paint samples suggesting weavings, oceans, or heavy atmospheres, veils, waterfalls, draped views of distant and uncertain subjects.
As in Cassini footage, for example:
Film by Chris Abbas https://vimeo.com/cabbas/cassini found on Astronomy Picture of the Day
saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/science/index.cfm
Track: 2 Ghosts I, Ghosts I – IV by Nine Inch Nails
(Used under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution Share Alike license.)
ghosts.nin.com/
Related reading:
Ad Reinhardt's Black Paintings: A Matter of Time, Arden Reed, The Brooklyn Rail, January 16th, 2014
Between Worlds
A studio view from 2015. Pencil drawing, 2014, acrylic on plastic plate, 2013, square panel, date unknown
Looking at nature, looking at pencil marks, looking at paint. Looking out, looking up, looking around. Looking into imaginary space.
I heard the word, wonderful thing, a children's song
Small panels float on a wall. A night sky or watered surface, an overlay of starlike geometries, faceted figures for focusing on the invisible. Having nothing to go on but continuing forward without knowing. Again! Again! To defeat despair, make something. Like a diamond in the sky.
Reference materials
Inspiration:
The Pursuit of Beauty, Yitang Zhang solves a pure-math mystery, Alec Wilkinson, The New Yorker, February 2, 2015.
Tomoda Kimpei
In life I never was
among the well-known flowers
and yet, in withering
I am most certainly
Tomoda Kimpei.
Aru toki wa
hana no kazu ni wa
taranu domo
chiru ni wa morenu
Tomoda Kimpei.
I am myself at the moment of my death, and also now.
Seated Buddha
My friend Sandy got this one. It lives in Santa Fe, NM now, in good company among Sandy's many gems. Her little condo is like a treasure chest, so I'm very flattered she made room for one more painting.
Studio View
Remembering Eva Stewart Trevelyan Yakutis today. Born September 30, 1919. Died November 19, 1977. Riverside, California
Mariposa Reina
Make of it a wish-fulfilling gem
Study for Mariposa Reina, 2015, acrylic on paper
5.70
Regard your body as a vessel,
A simple boat for going here and there,
Make of it a wish-fulfilling gem
To bring about the benefit of beings.
This is, without question, the main point
Text from No Time To Lose, A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva, available from the Pema Chödrön Foundation
RP 13-5
RP 13-5, 2014, charcoal and acrylic on canvas, 60 cm diameter (23 5/8 inches)
In Act I, Scene II of The Tempest, the "airy Spirit" Ariel is ordered by Prospero to lead the shipwrecked Ferdinand to him. She does this by invisibly singing to gain his attention and guide him by the sound of her voice. The second stanza is of particular relevance to Ferdinand since his father drowned. These are the lines that come to mind. Hark! I hear them --
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Mirrors, Moons, or Portals
Four round paintings, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 41 1/4 inches in diameter (105 cm)
LP 12-5
2012, acrylic on canvas, 150 x 242.5 cm (59 x 95 1/2 in)
Brooding warmth. Something hot within, but the effort can't repress it. The orderly structure strains, and begins to surrender to something more lively than itself. The old is overcome with the new feeling, the new earth, as much as it can be described. The new breaks away physically and in its ability to be totally understood.
SP 12-11
2012, acrylic on plywood, 29 x 44 cm (11 1/4 x 17 1/4 in)
The device becoming apparent. The paint itself becomes the organizing principle, circumscribing all elements. It defies efforts to conceal it, and ultimately becomes the statement. How it is supersedes what it is. The two are inseparable, and have a unique context for the understanding of one another.