CONTEMPORARY EXPLORER

  During your working years, purpose is all around you so you don’t think about it as much. When you retire though, finding purpose can haunt you like a ghost. It’s good to consider what purpose really means now, before you retire. There have been numerous articles recently on the subject of finding purpose in retirement and how important it is. Notable among them are the ones by George Jerjian.  The lack of purpose can make you lose your way and even identity. Jerjian and others talk about how you can find it again be reinterring the workforce or starting a business. Others site volunteering and teaching as other avenues.  Now a decade into retirement and having tried some of Jerjian’s suggestions, I have come to define finding purpose more simply. At the end of the day, real purpose may be just becoming a better person. A simple concept yes, but one that will make your life fuller and more rewarding. Some things you may want to add to your better person list might be: 1...

  You sense there is this other more creative you just beyond the horizon. Trying to reach it seems to only move the horizon farther away. Finally you escape beyond your inhibitions expressing your true self, your are free at last. The great ones find that place over and over again. Paintings are a good subject matter for all this. They have no real implications other than for you. They can be tossed or treasured depending on the outcome. The good ones taking on a life of their own. Painting seems to always start with the present you, a few lines on a canvas. Your inhibitions competing for attention. Then you begin adding color spreading and blending them over those simple lines. Stepping back to get a sense of what background should be there, adding the complimentary colors to make it.  Now the basics are all there. You might pause and stop here, your inhibitions applauding your effort. Yet, you might find courage to move on creating the world you truly envision. You reach fo...

  Perhaps there are not two more notable artists that made art look easy than Cy Twombly and Joan Miro.  Twombly produced large scale work using gestural painting that bordered on scribbles and calligraphy. Miro's paintings are often regarded as surrealistic in nature. The best ones though are simple drawings directing the unconscious, even childlike thoughts. To me they are both line drawing artist. Simple lines turned into paintings, color splashes here and there to draw you in. You keep thinking, I can do that, I can turn lines into fame, but you soon discover that you can't. Twombly and Miro were gifted in turning the simple into wonderful beautiful things to contemplate. Art indeed.... Paintings - "Following Dreams" and "Blocks of Time Passing" - young '23

  I have always loved to travel. So a couple of recent articles caught my attention. “The Case Against Travel” (New Yorker) and “Don’t Want to Travel?” (CNBC). Both noted the increased number of people who are reluctant or have vowed to never travel again. In Japan, that number reached 35%, in the US it is 14%. The articles cited various reasons for this, safety, cost, the sheer number of people traveling, etc. I started thinking about the recent stories from the travel world. The turmoil aboard airlines,  the wait for entry passes at DC attractions, ones that you used to be able to just walk into. Not to mention the 3 1/2 hour wait lines to check into Las Vegas properties, the $700 a night hotel rooms in cities. Little by little it takes the glitter off the joy of traveling. So what do you do. You can just lean into it and bear the rough edges of it all, or think about alternatives. A good place to start is figuring out why you travel in the first place. Once you figure out t...

  I turned South into the Low Country of SC, away from the City to the North. The two lane roads, quiet, and alone scenes resonated in my soul…

 

Small empty buildings linger along Tryon Street, awaiting the block by block mega developments underway. They are past their usefulness, but still have marks and images that attract the camera eye.  Tryon has always been a place of change. Originally a trading route between the Catawba Indians and the tribes to the north, then a route for settlers, and now the heart of charlotte commerce. It is sometimes in the change that good photography subjects can be found. Ones urging you to stop, take a shot and enjoy…

  Nothing pulls at the imagination like searching in a used bookstore. You can find that missing book to your collection, one you never heard of, some leading you in a new thought. All adventures in a world often of same next to same. I always look for the most worn cover edges. The turning of those pages often carry the most interest, especially the ones with margin notes and marks. You wonder about who left them and why, a student or someone moved by a passage. You ponder where they might be now, what the reading meant to their lives. For a moment the notes from the “Cages Skylark” or “Wild Swan” take you away, make you think, all while enjoying the small edges of life you found…