“Whenever I think of the past, it brings back so many memories.” - Steven Wright
It is said by my friends that I possess a better than average memory. Depending on how you look at it, this can be both a blessing and a curse, especially when the hobgoblins of less than pleasant scenes pop into your head at inopportune times. I suppose this has to do with resolution and coming to grips with fear, pain and trauma. We often mark our time here on earth by catastrophes, both small and large, don’t we? “Where were you when…Kennedy was shot? …9-11 happened? …the Beatles broke up? I think this is true on a more personal level as well. We hold onto things like when a windstorm took out the oak tree in the backyard, or when a stomachache laid you up on Christmas morning. On the other hand, the simple pleasant things like an amazing sunset, a moving song or a beautiful moment at a family party get tucked away into the back corners of our cranium . Why we are more easily able to recall the tough stuff is a puzzlement to me.
Lately, it’s been this way in the studio too. For a while now I’ve contemplated moving my painting into a more narrative path and have mined my past, sometimes inadvertently, for subject matter. Here’s one that just took place…
I was searching through some older painting panels and trying to decide which were ripe for re-use. I do this by sanding down the wood and laying down a layer of neutral color - new ground, so to speak. Cradled wood panels are not cheap, so reuse is a logical strategy. Anyway, one of the panels was a painting I did in 2023 around the time my wife passed away. It was a dark - very dark - view into a copse of trees, a bit of field peeking through beyond. Not very successful, and an emotional touchstone I was happy to be rid of. But, just as it was destined to be sanded away, a story from my past came over me that prompted me to move it from the workbench to the easel and see what popped up.
The story was a semi-traumatic event that happened to me when I was a pre-teen, maybe 10 or 12 years old. I was “sleeping out” in my backyard with a childhood friend. In the middle of the night, we daringly embarked on sneaking around the neighborhood, engaging in some harmless minor pranking like moving a flowerpot from a front stoop to a back stoop, or chalking a friend’s nickname in his driveway. The sort of stupid stuff a goofy kid did on a summer night in 1969. We were skulking along River St. when a car approached, and, following our usual MO, we ducked into the shadows and hid by the roadside. We had been doing this all night, and the few cars we dodged paid us no mind, if they even saw us at all. Well, this car stopped, reversed and a stumbling, drunken man got out and told us we were in trouble and we needed to go with him to the Police Station. As he made his way around the car toward us, I completely froze. Deer in the headlights, as they say. Thankfully, my friend was more aware of our possible danger and screamed at me to run, which we both did, back down River St. where we found a break in a stonewall lined by hickory trees, and we hid in the weeds before the guy had a chance to turn around and pursue us. He slowly trolled by, but our ruse was successful and he eventually gave up. We held our ground for a good while, scared out of our gourds, and then sprinted for home, abandoning our pup tent for the floor of my parent’s den.
Reliving this nocturnal adventure and realizing the painting depicted the very spot on River St. where we hid all those years ago, begged me to flesh it out, so I added some shadowy figures, built up the stonework, improved the light in the trees, and voila, a new narrative picture emerged. A story that perhaps was always there, just waiting for me to realize it.
A silly tale, yet it has spawned in my brain a new path to explore. Drawing from within rather than direct observation is new territory for me. It’s causing me to think more carefully the scenes that I’m drawn toward, following my intuition. Are there hidden stories in there somewhere? My previous attempts at “planned” narrative have not been so successful, but this one gave me a level of satisfaction. I think there’s something in the fact that it took a visual cue to coax the story out of me. It will be interesting to see where it leads me. More to come…maybe.
I’m delighted to let everyone know of Caleb Swann’s upcoming solo show this September. I’ve watched from the sidelines as a proud father and fellow artist as this thoughtful, expressive work has developed. I am so happy it has found its way into the public eye. It deserves to be seen.
The show is at Seesaw Gallery in Manchester, NH through September 28.
As part of my move to the Hudson Valley, I uncovered a treasure trove of smaller watercolor and gouache paintings that I’m offering for sale. Follow this link to the “Little Landscape Sale” and, if you see something that tickles your fancy, give me a shout at rannswann@gmail.com and I’ll send it on it’s way to you. Thanks for your support!
