Sorceror Series: Last Look Back

One good thing about music, when it hits you

Feel no pain (repeat)

So hit me with music, hit me with music

Hit me with music, hit me with music now

-TrenchTown Rock

Bob Marley

Uh, one thing bout music, when it hit you feel no pain

White folks say it controls your brain

I know better than that, that's game and we ready for that

Two soldiers head of the pack, matter of fact who got the gat?

And where my army at? Rather attack and not react

Back the beats, it don't reflect on how many records get sold

On sex, drugs, and rock and roll, whether your projects put on hold

In the real world, these just people with ideas

They just like me and you when the smoke and camera disappear

Again the real world (world), its bigger than all these fake ass records

When poor folks got the millions and my woman's disrespected

If you check 1,2, my word of advice to you is just relax

Just do what you got to do, if that don't work then kick the facts

If you a fighter, rider, ? bouter? , flame ignitor, crowd exciter

Or you wanna just get high, then just say it

But then if you a liar-liar, pants on fire, wolf-cry agent with a wire

Im gonna know it when I play it

-Hip Hop

Dead Prez

Yeah, cmon

When the musics over

When the musics over, yeah, when the musics over

Turn out the lights, turn out the lights

Turn out the lights, yeah

When the musics over x3

Turn out the lights x3

For the music is your special friend

Dance on fire as it intends

Music is your only friend

Until the end x3

-When the Musics Over

The Doors

The people in this painting taught me something about art throught their music. Billie taught me the power in the depths of darkness and love found & lost. What can be drawn out of the deepest shadows. Stevie (70's) took me back to my childhood but also expanded my mind on love, spirituality, sadness, belief. The inimitable Charles Mingus taught me timing and the manipulation of time and emotion with silence and sound. Bob, well, he just put things in perspective. He lifts me up but keeps me grounded. Jimi taught me exploration experimentation and individuality. Cause if a six turned out to be a nine, I don't mind, I don't mind. All together these artists speak to me and have guided me through the lowest and highest points in my life so far. And when you listen its easier than learning from your own mistakes. But sometimes you don't hear it cause you're too busy living it. So the Sorceror, his bodhissatvas overhead, looks back one last time just to say goodbye. Cause he has places to go, things to do, and people to be.

Sorceror Series: A Long Walk/ Cross my Mind

Music. A song always reminds me of a moment or a person. The soundtrack of my life. Oddly this painting was inspired by Jill Scott's A long Walk. A beautiful song I fell in love with while in grad school. In the mornings I would open the gym(workstudy) and turn on the television in front of the cardio equipment. I would watch the morning videos from MTV, BET, and VH1 as I did my thirty minutes on the treadmill. This video and ultimately this song stayed in my mind. At first I thought it was a Erykah Badu Joint but nahh. Years later when I was contemplating the future and marriage I began this painting. My first attempt at a triptych. I would often watch her paint and it was one of the things that got me back to painting a lot. In the second panel I tried to meld our painting styles with a narrative of our courtship, and finally I entered the metaphor and the universal. The blue turtle watches the shining butterfly marveling at the strangeness of their union. Well Jill Scott narrates it better:

Jill Scott A Long Walk Lyrics
You're here, I'm pleased, I really dig your companyYour smile, your style, your peace mentality

Lord, have mercy on me, I was blind, now I can seeWhat a king supposed to be, Baby I'm feelin' free, come on and roll with me

Chorus: Let's take, a long walk, around the park, after dark, Find a spot for us to spark, conversation, verbal elation, stimulationShare our situations, temptations, education, relaxation, elevations, Or maybe we can talk about Surah 31:18

Your background, it ain't squeaky clean, shit sometimes we all gotta swim upstream

You ain't a saint, we all are sinners, but you put your good foot down and make your soul a winner

And I respect that, man you're so phat, and you're all that, plus supreme

Then you're humble, man I'm numb yo with feelin, I can feel everything that you bring.

Chorus: Let's take, a long walk, around the park, Find a spot for us to spark conversation, verbal elation, stimulationShare our situations, temptation, education, relaxation, elevation, or maybe we can talk about Revelations 3:17

Special: Or maybe we can see a movie, or maybe we can see a play on Saturday, or maybe we can roll a tree, or feel the breeze and listen to a symphony, or chill and just be, or maybe

Maybe we can take a cruise and listen to the Roots, or maybe eat some passion fruit, or maybe cry to the blues, or maybe we can just be silent. Come on, come on

ChorusSpecialChorus

Or maybe we can save the nation Come on

So after things fell apart and I threw away the things that I could stand to throw away that reminded me of her. This painting was too powerful to let go, but too painful to keep hanging. Until, while recovering I heard a another Jill Scott song that came like grace. It reinforced the biographical nature of the piece but also how recovery works:

Jill Scott Lyrics Cross my Mind(last verse)

You just running cross my mind*3

I was just thinking about you, wondering what you doing,

I mean what you've been up to. I know its wrong feeling this strong

let me take a second minute. I will think this thing through

I was just thinking about you, wondering what you doing I mean what you've been up to

I know its wrong feeling this strong let me take a second minute I will think this thing through Remember all the moments for two, how we used to

Oooh yeah

But the reality honestly you where never good for me and I was never good for you. I just remember what we used to do.

To quote Team America, "Maybe feelings are called feelings because we have no control over them." But you can put them into context. She called me last week out the blue and it was nice, but it didn't hurt and I wasn't angry, I just enjoyed the conversation and looked at the painting hanging in my hallway/ gallery and just remebered what we used to do.

Montgomery Meditations: The Starbuck Papers

4.29.06

I am so out of the moment with women. Like the two broads that walked in tonight. Sinewy sister with a reddish little afro. Small hip glasses, green wife-beater with her black bra straps showing. Flared and distressed jeans. She walks by looking down her shoulder at me as she passes, gauging my interest. Caught up in observing the moment I reflexively show none. She disappears past my periphery vision on her way to the restroom. Then appears her companion from around the service counter. She is Asian with a long shape. She plays and plies elegant and near hip length black hair. She wears a white collared three button shirt that softly grabs around her round breast. She decides to sit at the table in front of mine and I look away. For a long moment we are there together and I and she do nothing. Her friend joins her at the table and then she to goes to the bathroom. While the butterscotch waif sits and waits , I appreciate the curve of her neck. But I remain silent. Soon her friends returns and they depart... Reluctantly in my perception. And I don't appreciate the lost moment until now. Right Now

5.01.6

See I'm working on this new swagger. Something to let them know what I'm doing and what I'm capable of. I'm changing up my form to let them know I'm versatile and able. In this suit there is no exterior blame, all fault falls on ground zero. And I can handle that because pulling tight what needs to be taut(taught). I'm learning my lessons and applying my knowledge. Trying to discover and exemplify wisdom. See I got this new swagger now.

A Call for Our Anthem

Show the helpless dreams of the world,
o Lord --
the true ones from deep,
and not too waxed in sadness.

I have seen some and know them;
they are facets of Yours.
I would bend myself
until we have them all real.

Take back the armors
of resignation defended
which You allowed us to build.
The hope of each heart
becomes a wide chorus --
so similar, they are
a roof-raising chord
when blended and pure.

I believe where it leads will be good.
I believe when we all hear it truly, we will be capable.

I believe, even against dear friends, that the day arrives.

Untitled

He is a Kaiser
in his green t-shirt and shorts,
round wire glasses
instead of pince-nez;
he is fat,
not indolent, but full of earth.
His arms wrap a huge box,
he huffs in transport, but not to excess.
I smile as he passes, and he deflects it.
"Hi," he replies,
cold into my eyes,
a crease of suspicion
in his low bugle.

I believe that a key of loving
absent all else
is to see the hopes of another.
He has none in his eyes;
I percieve his heart's regimen:
stark bread
promised by the Book
(a version wrought with hammers),
brisk duty,
and no trouble.

He is fine to himself,
knowing he wrongs no one through action.

He turns at the dumpster,
having decided to reconsider me.
But I simply do not fit.

I am but halfway.
Today I am a sinner
unforgiven and only partly repentant,
having once leapt
from the regulated, proud camp of primers,
austere recipes,
for a suggested shore
of riches --

to be natural;
to be free from the Devil,
for having forgotten him in me.
Tender enough
for shaping by whispers --
and not exclusively for myself at all.

But I am not yet arrived;
not quite wholesome
nor cleaned,
nor even quite standing.
And in moments,
eyes bearing conditional righteousness,
and good reason that I be abandoned,
are all that is needed
to wall off the Promised Land
until I can strain and brighten
the juices in me,

cleansing a fathomless anatomy,
which I only begin to know,
until my eye responds,
vanishing the stones:
the ones that separate without,
and the horrifying thing
that sometimes my heart becomes.

He goes up the stairs unfazed.
I, not yet my own, nor clearly God's
am relieved to owe him nothing.