Astronaut

Astronaut - Colored pencil, acrylic and gel transfer on wood panel, 45″ x 55″

Sometimes you make a thing - a painting, a song, or whatnot - and it goes nowhere. You may think it’s one of your better pieces, but it gathers no momentum. It doesn’t get shared or reposted. It doesn’t sell. This may leave you flummoxed because you’re pretty sure it’s actually quite good. But you have no way of knowing for certain, since you’re the one who made it.

In a recent review of Layers of Existence, Ray Rinaldi writes about a painting I did back in 2013 called Astronaut that was a last minute addition to the current show, chosen by the gallery. What’s funny is that Astronaut was one of those paintings that originally went nowhere. I figured the subject matter probably came off as a little dark, or confusing or just plain odd, and that this is not the kind of art most people want over their couch. I suspected this at the time I was painting it, which is partly why I painted a gaudy couch in the painting, as if to preemptively acknowledging the act of sabotage that a “difficult” painting might prove to be. But I also felt like there was something really human and honest about the painting, like I’d stumbled upon a sort of existential pathos that I would never have dared to approach directly as a subject. At the time, I had mostly been concerned with juxtaposing various cultural references. I was new to figurative realism, so I was intentionally taking it easy with emotional content, not wanting to get in over my head and end up doing something cliché or sentimental. But as is often the case, the restrained impulse expresses itself one way or another, and somewhere in its making the painting acquired a haunting aspect that felt pretty authentic. So when Astronaut went into storage after the show six years ago, I kind of felt like I must have missed the mark. Maybe the ideas I was exploring in it weren't actually that relatable. This is an ordinary disappointment that all creative people have to deal with when they least expect it, but it's part of the game.

I was surprised to learn the gallery added Astronaut to my latest group of paintings, but it made perfect sense, given that the theme of identity is what the exhibit is built around. I was again surprised that Rinaldi mentioned it in writing. He picked up on the Pieta reference, which I was happy about, since I’ve had to explain that one a lot - cultural literacy being what it is these days. He also picked up on the contradictions that are at the core of questions of identity. So for me this was a win. I’ve always thought Astronaut was a positive painting. The central figure is strong and confident and stares straight ahead at the viewer. The version of himself that he holds on his lap has his eyes wide open, lost in some sort of reverie or waking dream, not necessarily dead. That’s what I was thinking anyway. I was also aware that the Pieta reference could prompt an interpretation having to do with the death of ego, or something along those lines. Either way, I knew this image was "loaded," which is another way of saying hard to sell. But there it is. Sometimes a piece of art just wants to be made. Astronaut may have spent a good deal of its life in storage, but right now it’s having a little moment. And I still like it.

Making Friends

Animus Mixed media on panel, 144" x 90" Mark Penner-Howell ©2018

“We’re not here to make friends.”

That was one of those stupid catch phrases you might have heard in the corporate world a few years ago, when we were all beginning to “do more with less.” During the shakeout of the dot com bust, I was the Creative Director of a digital marketing team at a large ad agency in Chicago. It was a schizophrenic time -  planning for growth while managing loss - as the clients came and went. Layoffs were always around the corner, and we all tried to be brave. Tough talk from management was routine, but whenever I heard it, I could feel insecurity telegraphing through the words.

One day a blue-chip client dropped a bomb on us. An assignment we thought we had in the bag had instead gone to a competitor. The client kept us on in a support role to help manage some aspects of production, and explicitly asked us to “play nice” with the winning agency. This was surely a test. Agencies never play nice. Everyone knows that. If we simply stayed in our corners, we weren’t doing our best work. So in a subsequent brainstorm where we tried to figure a way to both overdeliver and upstage our competitor, the phrase, “We’re not here to make friends” was once again shouted into the room. This time by a middle manager I knew to be long on bravado and short on ideas. The guy grabbed a marker and went to the whiteboard. There is a rule of thumb in the corporate world: Be the one with the pen. If you’re the one with the pen, you can write all the ideas down as people fire them off, reiterating and commenting as you go, so that you look like you are leading. “Any other ideas?” the person with the pen might ask. That day I was not the one with the pen.

I rolled that phrase over in my mind, and questioned the resolve it stood for, and the path it seemed to suggest. Ruthlessness, indifference, selfishness, isolationism. All very workable as business principles, but increasingly at odds with everything I thought I stood for. In my personal life, which I kept very separate from work, I was a part of a group of creative friends that had become quite close. We were mostly visual artists, writers and musicians - and even an actor or two - who had fallen in with each other in a loose sort of community. Some of us had day jobs, but all were dedicated to creative exploration, and we collaborated with each other in various combinations. If it had been the sixties and we were hippies, it would have made more sense. As it was, we were just random creative souls that became each other’s emotional and spiritual refuge. We were family. Still are.

I wish I could say that when my wife and I quit our corporate careers and moved across country that some sort of high-minded ideals were at work. Instead, we were simply burned out and needed something new. We found a gorgeous B&B for sale in a quaint historic town on the water in North Carolina that we could just barely afford, and we went all in. Mostly the B&B just needed a solid marketing plan, an updated brand, and for some of the corny pirate themed decor and frilly window treatments to find their way to a thrift store. We weren’t trying to reinvent ourselves - though we did spend a lot more time barefoot - we just wanted to live a little more authentically, and to try our hand at running our own business. Cliché, for sure.

In the story of my life, I often leave out the B&B part, because, like a wrong turn down a pretty road that dead-ends in a cul de sac, it doesn’t serve the main narrative. It was, however, a way to explore a business that was entirely about making friends. In fact, as an innkeeper, your success isn’t just a matter of acting friendly and providing a pleasant service. You are dead in the water without real friends, both among other local business owners, and with your customers. We weren’t consciously seeking the opposite to our experience in the corporate marketplace, but we stumbled into it nonetheless.

________________

There is a photo in my Facebook feed that I am not able to extract from my thoughts. My uncle Jack lies in a hospice bed, his frail arms folded across his chest. He seems to float among the white sheets. He is lingering. Around him are his wife, children, their spouses, and grandchildren. Some look gravely concerned, because it is that kind of photo. Some are happy and smiling, because it is also that kind of photo. All are touching one another in some manner. A hand on a shoulder. A hug. It is equal parts awkward, complex and charming. I could post this picture, but I want you to make it up for yourself.

Jack’s daughter, my cousin Sharon, had the good sense to ask Jack’s friends on Facebook to post pictures and stories about his life, while he is still with us, while he can see and hear and feel the things of this earth. Jack is a retired Presbyterian minister in the Bay Area. His church community is diverse and inclusive. The posts that flooded his Facebook page paint a picture of a man who is attentive, emotionally available, and caring. A true friend. The depth of love and support he enjoys is astonishing.

________________

Sometimes I wish I could I go back to that conference room, at the start of the brainstorm, and challenge that trope. But I have long since left the corporate world with its lexicon of small minded catch-phrases and self-justifying behavior, and though the art world has its own mean practices, friendship - real friendship - is an asset, a thing of great value, not to be ridiculed.

Last year, on my sixtieth birthday, a bunch of friends toasted me. Eulogized me, really. It was like being at my own wake - in a good way. This generous boost to my ego was immediately followed by an awareness that the most urgent thing I can do in this life is to give back to my friends and family, and to keep myself available to them. You could make an argument that plenty of other things are more important, but for me, being present and involved in the lives of my family/friends/and immediate community is foundational. Every other positive impulse is rooted there. It’s not always easy, but that’s the difference between having friends and being a friend. I’ve been thinking about this for twenty years. I suppose I could go on Linked In and seek out that guy from the meeting to thank him for the silly thing he said, the thing that made him feel strong, which he promptly forgot, but which I reacted to viscerally, taking apart in my mind, ruminating on for two decades. The idea that morphed from a simple notion - slowly - to being at the center of my self-identity. I could thank him for that, but it would be super awkward, to say the least. Yes, I am here to make friends. I am certain of it now. It is the only path that makes sense for me. I see where it goes, and I will stay on it.


For Uncle Jack Buckley