THE SHORT STORY THANK YOU NOTE
CHAPTER ONE
THE GUY WHO KNEW WHERE MY PAINTING WAS
March, 2009
“Ok, so I know I’m about to sound like a complete flake, but I’m gonna tell you anyway: I am unbelievably grateful that you painted this one. This is wild.”
Though I don’t know him well, Tim and I have shared our philosophies of the tension between art making and art viewing when he bought a piece from me last fall at the ArtWalk. We spoke at length about how making art is such a personal thing, and then about how it’s transformed into something Universal once it’s shared; how it’s more courage than talent that gives a piece meaning. Especially the courage when you know it’s finished and good, to put it out there and share it and then to try not to worry about how it may be interpreted, reinterpreted, or even misinterpreted.
“You know where this is, don’t you?” he asks. It’s a pretty abstract piece. Some people see a creek, others a path in the woods.
So I ask him, “Well, what do you see in it? I didn’t use an inspiration piece with this one, so this time it really is whatever you see in it.”
After a long pause he speaks, “There was this girl. We used to hike together a lot and well, this was one of our favorite stopping spots.” He pauses. “It’s up north, in the upper peninsula of Michigan.” He looks closer at the right side of the painting. “Actually, if you go through that way and around the corner, there’s this bench, a kind of old but sturdy bench.” He pauses again. “It’s a great place to just sit you know. Just sit and take it all in.” Silence.
“I haven’t thought about her, or this place, for a long, long time.” We stand quietly looking at the painting, each deep in our own thoughts.
“It’s weird, I mean, you know we really are all connected. You come here one day and paint this. A couple months later, I’m viewing it and as I’m looking at the painting I remember. And I have this chance to heal some long ago hurt that I didn’t even know was still lingering. I get to recognize again that I don’t heal this kind of stuff on my own, that it’s a collaborative effort and we all kind of need each other: you know, that we really are all connected.”
As he’s leaving the studio he turns back to me and says, “You know, I’ve found some real peace tonight from this painting. Thanks again for painting it. It's helped me in ways I’m not sure I can explain.”
“Thanks Tim, that means a lot,” I offer, not knowing what else to say. But I’m sincere in my gratitude. Tim’s comments are reassuring. It’s good to be reminded that like everyone else, I am connected to some Universal Force. And I’m really grateful for Tim’s willingness to “sound like a flake” otherwise I might not have been reminded tonight about what my part of the Whole is. This strengthens my resolve to listen more closely for God.
Tim didn’t buy the piece, he didn’t need to. And in the end, the painting found it’s rightful owner in a retired couple who love to backpack. It hangs in their Cincinnati home because it reminds them of the peaceful creek that runs behind their cabin just outside of Allenspark, Colorado. A place where they go to be reminded that they are indeed connected to Something Greater, Something Much Larger than themselves.
CHAPTER TWO
A DEAL WITH THE UNIVERSE
February, 2006
“It was cool. You could tell that people really connected with this one,” says Deborah as she hands me the painting. She had been the show’s curator. She is filling me in since I was unable to attend. “I think it's probably just a little big, maybe a little crazy and funky for that crowd.”
Her comment doesn’t bother me in the least. I had figured as much. With its big, bright and kind of weird psychedelic flowery landscape and its strange Van Gogh-esque sky, this 2ft x 4ft wild flower painting’s home would have to be found elsewhere. Still, I had to show it since it's one of my new favorites.
And so I decide: this is the one. This is the piece I’ll give. I’ve been painting for about a year now and have been asked to give a painting for a local fundraiser. I’ve also been reading this book about the Law of Abundance and how everything you put into the Universe is what you get back -- you know, mirror image and all that.
It is in the spirit of testing this idea that I strike a deal with the Universe.
I agree to always give from my best work, whatever is my favorite at the time, when someone is doing a fundraiser or looking to raise money for a good cause. In exchange for that I get to keep painting. The deal is less about monetary issues and more about wanting to continue to be on the receiving end of an abundance of drive and ideas, a continued desire to keep painting.
====================================================================================
Chirp, chirp. Silence... The auctioneer’s voice booms across the room, “Come on people, the frame alone is worth a hundred bucks. Bid something. Hell, if you don’t like the painting you can always paint over it or put something else in the frame that you like better.”
Tell me again why I agreed to this. How did I get talked into being present at a live auction of my own painting?
====================================================================================
My negative fantasy is interrupted with, “Ok, so let’s start this one out at $400, will somebody give me,,, Yes ok, now how about $600,,, we’ve got $600. What about $800?” And so on it goes, passing well over the value price listed in the brochure.
This deal I have with the Universe now validates the incessant voice inside my head that continues to say, “Just keep painting... Just keep painting...”
CHAPTER THREE
MAGGIE’S LOST HER GROOVE
Spring, 2009
Why can’t I paint anymore? A bit of existential angst I suppose. What difference does it make whether I’m sitting in here painting or sitting in here doing nothing. No difference. My truth for today suggests that because I’m such a small part, it honestly doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Life keeps moving on. I don’t feel a part of it. And dammit I can’t seem to paint.
I think back to how I started painting. I think of Mark. What an amazing creative friend he always was, constantly encouraging and summoning my creative side. I still miss him so much sometimes. Ironically, I could really use him at a time like this. I began painting shortly after he died. I was two weeks shy of being one year sober. Out of sheer desperation, I surrendered to the idea of being a painter and began painting obsessively and emphatically, as though my life depended upon it.
But back to the problem at hand. It’s impossible to paint these days. I’m starting to get scared. I keep showing up but nothing’s coming out. I’m in the midst of this painful, crazy, frightening and difficult time and the one thing that I know that can save me seems to have abandoned me instead.
I show up and paint these backdrops, these horizons, these flat boring pieces with nothing in them. It all seems so senseless. It’s not that I don’t want to paint, I just can’t seem to do it. I’m cut off from the Source. Everything is muddied and unclear.
There are days when I come to the studio and just sit. Sit and stare. Sit and cry. Sit and paint backdrops; flat boring horizons. It’s horrible. Having a studio all to myself at a time like this is probably not the best idea.
A year goes by. A year and a half. I’m still not painting. I can’t. Nothing’s coming. I am sure that if I don’t paint soon I’ll die. Or drink. I’m dying. I’m scared. I pray. I show up. But only to paint more horizons.
I’m still opening up for shows but where I had once been finishing 4-5 pieces a week, I’m now only able to complete maybe a couple a month. And even these are wretchedly painful to do.
I’ve also noticed that I’m starting to get stingy, or at least more attached, to the paintings I have left. Especially because no more are coming. Somewhere in a back corner of my mind I know about the Law of Abundance, but I just can’t quite get to it.
Nothing is working. I still give paintings to fundraisers, but only if they come asking and even then I only give the paintings I don’t care much for, oftentimes these bland horizon pieces that I keep painting over and over again. I hold onto my other paintings as some kind of weird shrine, some sort of nod to “What Used To Work.”
CHAPTER FOUR
BAND PRACTICE
Winter, 2010
I’m at band practice. These guys are good songwriters, generous musicians and really cool guys in general, so I had jumped at the chance when they asked me to do backup vocals and fiddle for some of the recordings they're working on. I’ve been able to get some moments of relief, brief intervals of sanity during our sessions.
Tonight there is a discussion/debate about the direction of a song and an off-handed reference is made about Dr. Dog. Denny says, “No no no, not like that. It’s more like,” and then he plays a rhythm out on the table. "Here, let me put it on for you so you can hear what I'm talking about." The conversation isn’t about a song that I’m working on so I’m not really paying close attention.
And then I hear it.
I can’t tell you which song or what album it’s from, but when the sound comes from the stereo something changes for me. Something inside me shifts. I have a weird sense of hope or maybe it’s curiosity, I can’t really tell. I can’t explain it and I can’t specifically say what it is that draws me in, but I am aware as I leave there that night that something has been altered deep within me.
I get this vague idea that maybe, just maybe, I can paint to this. It’s the first spark I’ve had in a very long, drawn out time and at first I’m a little startled by how I feel. I’m worn out from the exhaustion of the drought though so instead of fighting it as crazy, I just buy into the idea. It feels good as I fully surrender to it.
I make a new playlist and title it: Big Canvas Paintings. And the only music I add to the Dr. Dog compilation is music that has had this same effect on me at other points in my life: Belle and Sebastian, Jeff Buckley, Neil Young, Five for Fighting, Johnny Cash.
I go to the studio with my new soundtrack and turn up the music as loud as it will go. I nail a canvas painter’s tarp to the wall and start painting.
Something has touched me deep in my soul. It’s sort of illusive and I can’t really describe it. It’s nothing specific, it’s just this general energy. I recognize it though. It’s that reminder that I am part of Something Larger. At last I am reconnected with what my part of the Whole is.
I’m painting again, and it’s coming out big and expressive and real and true. New assignments come forth from odds and ends of people with new and different opportunities. “Do you think you could try something like this?” “What about trying this, but larger,” “Maybe something with just white, black and red,” “I have this client who is looking for fill-in-the-blank.”
For six months I listen to my Big Canvas Paintings playlist and continue to paint. On track, the Universe continues to give me challenges and the needed parameters within which my work can flourish. I’m no longer marooned on this free floating world of long horizons and craziness.
CHAPTER FIVE
KEEPING HER DEAL WITH THE UNIVERSE
January, 2012
I see a post to the fans of Dr. Dog that Scott’s nephew, Charlie, is waiting for a heart transplant. I follow a link to the Children’s Organ Transplant Association. I send an email inquiring about any upcoming fundraisers.
I’d like to give back to the Universe a little bit of what it has given to me though Dr. Dog’s music. Sending a painting seems like an appropriate response. I ask fellow artists who are also fans, would they would be interested in giving too? Absolutely. This is how it works.
“I wish I could tell him, you know? I wish there were some short, succinct way that I could let him know how much the music has helped me. I don’t know how to do that though, not without coming off like a complete lunatic.”
“Just tell him,” she offers, after a few minutes of painting. “Remember that one guy who told you about your creek painting and how he knew just where it was? Think about how much it meant to you knowing that some something you had done separately had helped him in some sort of Universal Way.”
“I think you should tell him.” Silence. “That’s my two cents anyway.” More silence. “It’s kind of your responsibility, really.”
I say nothing. She's right though. I should tell him.
EPILOGUE
SO AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING LIKE A FLAKE
February, 2012
OK, so here it is Scott, at the risk of sounding like a flake, here’s a whole lotta thank you’s:
Thank you for being vulnerable and open with your gift. You’re a strong and courageous songwriter and your bravery is infectious. Thank you for continuing to work so hard at your part.
Thank you for the reminder that we can inspire each other to continue with our work and to continue to seek that part in ourselves which is connected to the Whole. Thank you for the reminder that we are all connected.
Also, I guess I just wanted to let you know that last year in a small studio just outside of Cincinnati, a painter reconnected with her Source because she recognized some sort of Universal Truth in your music: the reminder that what we do matters. The idea that we can help each other heal even when all we are trying to do is heal our own heart. And that it is indeed, a collaborative effort.
CHAPTER ONE
THE GUY WHO KNEW WHERE MY PAINTING WAS
March, 2009
“Ok, so I know I’m about to sound like a complete flake, but I’m gonna tell you anyway: I am unbelievably grateful that you painted this one. This is wild.”
Though I don’t know him well, Tim and I have shared our philosophies of the tension between art making and art viewing when he bought a piece from me last fall at the ArtWalk. We spoke at length about how making art is such a personal thing, and then about how it’s transformed into something Universal once it’s shared; how it’s more courage than talent that gives a piece meaning. Especially the courage when you know it’s finished and good, to put it out there and share it and then to try not to worry about how it may be interpreted, reinterpreted, or even misinterpreted.
“You know where this is, don’t you?” he asks. It’s a pretty abstract piece. Some people see a creek, others a path in the woods.
So I ask him, “Well, what do you see in it? I didn’t use an inspiration piece with this one, so this time it really is whatever you see in it.”
After a long pause he speaks, “There was this girl. We used to hike together a lot and well, this was one of our favorite stopping spots.” He pauses. “It’s up north, in the upper peninsula of Michigan.” He looks closer at the right side of the painting. “Actually, if you go through that way and around the corner, there’s this bench, a kind of old but sturdy bench.” He pauses again. “It’s a great place to just sit you know. Just sit and take it all in.” Silence.
“I haven’t thought about her, or this place, for a long, long time.” We stand quietly looking at the painting, each deep in our own thoughts.
“It’s weird, I mean, you know we really are all connected. You come here one day and paint this. A couple months later, I’m viewing it and as I’m looking at the painting I remember. And I have this chance to heal some long ago hurt that I didn’t even know was still lingering. I get to recognize again that I don’t heal this kind of stuff on my own, that it’s a collaborative effort and we all kind of need each other: you know, that we really are all connected.”
As he’s leaving the studio he turns back to me and says, “You know, I’ve found some real peace tonight from this painting. Thanks again for painting it. It's helped me in ways I’m not sure I can explain.”
“Thanks Tim, that means a lot,” I offer, not knowing what else to say. But I’m sincere in my gratitude. Tim’s comments are reassuring. It’s good to be reminded that like everyone else, I am connected to some Universal Force. And I’m really grateful for Tim’s willingness to “sound like a flake” otherwise I might not have been reminded tonight about what my part of the Whole is. This strengthens my resolve to listen more closely for God.
Tim didn’t buy the piece, he didn’t need to. And in the end, the painting found it’s rightful owner in a retired couple who love to backpack. It hangs in their Cincinnati home because it reminds them of the peaceful creek that runs behind their cabin just outside of Allenspark, Colorado. A place where they go to be reminded that they are indeed connected to Something Greater, Something Much Larger than themselves.
CHAPTER TWO
A DEAL WITH THE UNIVERSE
February, 2006
“It was cool. You could tell that people really connected with this one,” says Deborah as she hands me the painting. She had been the show’s curator. She is filling me in since I was unable to attend. “I think it's probably just a little big, maybe a little crazy and funky for that crowd.”
Her comment doesn’t bother me in the least. I had figured as much. With its big, bright and kind of weird psychedelic flowery landscape and its strange Van Gogh-esque sky, this 2ft x 4ft wild flower painting’s home would have to be found elsewhere. Still, I had to show it since it's one of my new favorites.
And so I decide: this is the one. This is the piece I’ll give. I’ve been painting for about a year now and have been asked to give a painting for a local fundraiser. I’ve also been reading this book about the Law of Abundance and how everything you put into the Universe is what you get back -- you know, mirror image and all that.
It is in the spirit of testing this idea that I strike a deal with the Universe.
I agree to always give from my best work, whatever is my favorite at the time, when someone is doing a fundraiser or looking to raise money for a good cause. In exchange for that I get to keep painting. The deal is less about monetary issues and more about wanting to continue to be on the receiving end of an abundance of drive and ideas, a continued desire to keep painting.
====================================================================================
Chirp, chirp. Silence... The auctioneer’s voice booms across the room, “Come on people, the frame alone is worth a hundred bucks. Bid something. Hell, if you don’t like the painting you can always paint over it or put something else in the frame that you like better.”
Tell me again why I agreed to this. How did I get talked into being present at a live auction of my own painting?
====================================================================================
My negative fantasy is interrupted with, “Ok, so let’s start this one out at $400, will somebody give me,,, Yes ok, now how about $600,,, we’ve got $600. What about $800?” And so on it goes, passing well over the value price listed in the brochure.
This deal I have with the Universe now validates the incessant voice inside my head that continues to say, “Just keep painting... Just keep painting...”
CHAPTER THREE
MAGGIE’S LOST HER GROOVE
Spring, 2009
Why can’t I paint anymore? A bit of existential angst I suppose. What difference does it make whether I’m sitting in here painting or sitting in here doing nothing. No difference. My truth for today suggests that because I’m such a small part, it honestly doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Life keeps moving on. I don’t feel a part of it. And dammit I can’t seem to paint.
I think back to how I started painting. I think of Mark. What an amazing creative friend he always was, constantly encouraging and summoning my creative side. I still miss him so much sometimes. Ironically, I could really use him at a time like this. I began painting shortly after he died. I was two weeks shy of being one year sober. Out of sheer desperation, I surrendered to the idea of being a painter and began painting obsessively and emphatically, as though my life depended upon it.
But back to the problem at hand. It’s impossible to paint these days. I’m starting to get scared. I keep showing up but nothing’s coming out. I’m in the midst of this painful, crazy, frightening and difficult time and the one thing that I know that can save me seems to have abandoned me instead.
I show up and paint these backdrops, these horizons, these flat boring pieces with nothing in them. It all seems so senseless. It’s not that I don’t want to paint, I just can’t seem to do it. I’m cut off from the Source. Everything is muddied and unclear.
There are days when I come to the studio and just sit. Sit and stare. Sit and cry. Sit and paint backdrops; flat boring horizons. It’s horrible. Having a studio all to myself at a time like this is probably not the best idea.
A year goes by. A year and a half. I’m still not painting. I can’t. Nothing’s coming. I am sure that if I don’t paint soon I’ll die. Or drink. I’m dying. I’m scared. I pray. I show up. But only to paint more horizons.
I’m still opening up for shows but where I had once been finishing 4-5 pieces a week, I’m now only able to complete maybe a couple a month. And even these are wretchedly painful to do.
I’ve also noticed that I’m starting to get stingy, or at least more attached, to the paintings I have left. Especially because no more are coming. Somewhere in a back corner of my mind I know about the Law of Abundance, but I just can’t quite get to it.
Nothing is working. I still give paintings to fundraisers, but only if they come asking and even then I only give the paintings I don’t care much for, oftentimes these bland horizon pieces that I keep painting over and over again. I hold onto my other paintings as some kind of weird shrine, some sort of nod to “What Used To Work.”
CHAPTER FOUR
BAND PRACTICE
Winter, 2010
I’m at band practice. These guys are good songwriters, generous musicians and really cool guys in general, so I had jumped at the chance when they asked me to do backup vocals and fiddle for some of the recordings they're working on. I’ve been able to get some moments of relief, brief intervals of sanity during our sessions.
Tonight there is a discussion/debate about the direction of a song and an off-handed reference is made about Dr. Dog. Denny says, “No no no, not like that. It’s more like,” and then he plays a rhythm out on the table. "Here, let me put it on for you so you can hear what I'm talking about." The conversation isn’t about a song that I’m working on so I’m not really paying close attention.
And then I hear it.
I can’t tell you which song or what album it’s from, but when the sound comes from the stereo something changes for me. Something inside me shifts. I have a weird sense of hope or maybe it’s curiosity, I can’t really tell. I can’t explain it and I can’t specifically say what it is that draws me in, but I am aware as I leave there that night that something has been altered deep within me.
I get this vague idea that maybe, just maybe, I can paint to this. It’s the first spark I’ve had in a very long, drawn out time and at first I’m a little startled by how I feel. I’m worn out from the exhaustion of the drought though so instead of fighting it as crazy, I just buy into the idea. It feels good as I fully surrender to it.
I make a new playlist and title it: Big Canvas Paintings. And the only music I add to the Dr. Dog compilation is music that has had this same effect on me at other points in my life: Belle and Sebastian, Jeff Buckley, Neil Young, Five for Fighting, Johnny Cash.
I go to the studio with my new soundtrack and turn up the music as loud as it will go. I nail a canvas painter’s tarp to the wall and start painting.
Something has touched me deep in my soul. It’s sort of illusive and I can’t really describe it. It’s nothing specific, it’s just this general energy. I recognize it though. It’s that reminder that I am part of Something Larger. At last I am reconnected with what my part of the Whole is.
I’m painting again, and it’s coming out big and expressive and real and true. New assignments come forth from odds and ends of people with new and different opportunities. “Do you think you could try something like this?” “What about trying this, but larger,” “Maybe something with just white, black and red,” “I have this client who is looking for fill-in-the-blank.”
For six months I listen to my Big Canvas Paintings playlist and continue to paint. On track, the Universe continues to give me challenges and the needed parameters within which my work can flourish. I’m no longer marooned on this free floating world of long horizons and craziness.
CHAPTER FIVE
KEEPING HER DEAL WITH THE UNIVERSE
January, 2012
I see a post to the fans of Dr. Dog that Scott’s nephew, Charlie, is waiting for a heart transplant. I follow a link to the Children’s Organ Transplant Association. I send an email inquiring about any upcoming fundraisers.
I’d like to give back to the Universe a little bit of what it has given to me though Dr. Dog’s music. Sending a painting seems like an appropriate response. I ask fellow artists who are also fans, would they would be interested in giving too? Absolutely. This is how it works.
“I wish I could tell him, you know? I wish there were some short, succinct way that I could let him know how much the music has helped me. I don’t know how to do that though, not without coming off like a complete lunatic.”
“Just tell him,” she offers, after a few minutes of painting. “Remember that one guy who told you about your creek painting and how he knew just where it was? Think about how much it meant to you knowing that some something you had done separately had helped him in some sort of Universal Way.”
“I think you should tell him.” Silence. “That’s my two cents anyway.” More silence. “It’s kind of your responsibility, really.”
I say nothing. She's right though. I should tell him.
EPILOGUE
SO AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING LIKE A FLAKE
February, 2012
OK, so here it is Scott, at the risk of sounding like a flake, here’s a whole lotta thank you’s:
Thank you for being vulnerable and open with your gift. You’re a strong and courageous songwriter and your bravery is infectious. Thank you for continuing to work so hard at your part.
Thank you for the reminder that we can inspire each other to continue with our work and to continue to seek that part in ourselves which is connected to the Whole. Thank you for the reminder that we are all connected.
Also, I guess I just wanted to let you know that last year in a small studio just outside of Cincinnati, a painter reconnected with her Source because she recognized some sort of Universal Truth in your music: the reminder that what we do matters. The idea that we can help each other heal even when all we are trying to do is heal our own heart. And that it is indeed, a collaborative effort.
Maggie Barnes, Scott McMicken and Diane Rubin
Dropping off artwork at the Dr Dog show, 20th Century in Cincinnati, Ohio. February, 2012. Great show!
A huge thank you to all of the members of Dr. Dog for helping me to reconnect with my Source.
Dropping off artwork at the Dr Dog show, 20th Century in Cincinnati, Ohio. February, 2012. Great show!
A huge thank you to all of the members of Dr. Dog for helping me to reconnect with my Source.