THE END

Strange that I should think of my dear old mum being present and saying  “well there’s a bloody thing.” Of course she is long since gone. It was Sarah (taking time out from her 12 year battle with a brain tumor) in the room with her father, when the Doc gave me the news “I think you have two to three years.” I was surprised. This was a change of thought in a week from “I have good news for you. Bone and brain scans showed no activity”. Of course that is a very wide range of time and

I have heard of quite a number who defied the predictions. So I might be around some time yet to pester family and friends.

But now I really have deadlines. No more procrastination. Chop, chop, work to be done. Get the house in order. I am completely at peace except for washes of sadness when I think of the little ones and realize the sweet joy of the smiles I will not see. But of course that will change anyway as they move o to adolescence etc .  I have had a truly rich and full life, often joking that I know I should not complain but I also know I will if given half a chance.s But greed is ugly when there are so many young ones who must live in the space we elders leave. So on to the next chapter. Oblivion? Or, a big surprise for skeptics like me?

Why does death make us so uncomfortable? It is certainly not a unique experience. So often the response from people is born of discomfort and the brief  “Oh no. I don’t know what to say.’ How about my mother’s response, “well there’s a bloody thing” or, “well dammit! We are going to miss you old bean”. Certainly there is an element of sadness. And there is a huge sense of tragedy when death is untimely and robs a person of life when still young. But in my case, I am formally and officially antique.  So onward and upward, I hope.

BUT HOLD ON A MINUTE!

LATER

The Doctor called to tell me that numbers have taken a significant turn for the better in the last three months thanks to a new drug that had recently made such a significant impact on patients in a trial, that the trial had been suspended so that people like me might benefit. So…

Three months ago my PSA level was 119; it has dropped now to 13. I am not sure of the numbers since high math has been my torment all my life, but I do remember him saying that it was almost a 90 percent drop. Most excellent but this does not mean I should not continue to be spoiled. Thanks to everyone who has done that so generously. Friends and family, and the Mormon Church here, all amazing the kindness, and he church to a heathen household like ours.

Of course I have lost my actual numbers, and my little grey cells notorious for their deservedly bad reputation with high math, make this an almost wild guess, but it gives you an idea of the doctor’s and hence my enthusiasm. This may mean more of life to be one big pain in the patoot for others, but I would be tickled pink. So back to sorting and counting pills.

Demise

Now that I'm 72 I've become more curious about dying and being dead.  Keep an eye on my blog.  I'm about to give you some thoughts on the subject.  I'm sorry that it has taken me so long to update my blog.  My excuse is a new baby in the house, an eight year old trying to demolish it etc. etc.

Cheers for now.

Trevor

Overdue Update

Oh the hand wringing indecision! Are newsletters passé? Do I want to assume anyone is interested in the Southeys? Of course, silly man. We are inordinately fascinating. Ha ha. OK dear friends and family, trash or read as you prefer.

This time last year we were basking in the glow of the high point of my career, a large retrospective exhibition at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts received with hugely gratifying enthusiasm. Enormous thanks to a lot of people.

Then in March, Marianna and I flew to North Carolina to drive our Susannah and her baby to the Mayo Clinic in Florida where, in spite of many tests and interviews, her symptoms remain mysterious.

Meanwhile Sarah sobered us up seriously as her eleven year battle against brain cancer was enjoined again with three surgeries and six weeks of radiation. This was soon after the induced birth of her little boy so she got the treatment as soon as possible. Her brother and sister as usual leapt to our side with days of help including overnight stays. After three surgeries and the radiation we are in a wait and see pattern but Sarah is endlessly strong and positive. Needless to say little Robbie has his grandfather all gaga.

And a miracle occurred which was completely unexpected. Though we are a household of heathens and doubters, the mad marvelous Mormons heard of our situation and came with their huge kind hearts and powerful organization and contributed daily for six weeks, baby care, food and driving her for her radiation treatment about a two hour round trip. More hugely glowing hearts.

Marianna bought a rugged loft like condo down by the Port of Oakland, which she is now sharing with her boy friend Todd a remarkable musician and fine young man. And the California family completed its Oakland settling when Kevin and his Kirsten bought a condo close to the lovely Lake Merrit placing us all within about ten minutes of each other. But there is now murmuring about Utah!

Our warmest best wishes to everyone for peace, good health and love in a world full of all kinds of nonsense.

Cheers,

Trevor

           

Here we go again folks. Ego, ego, ego. I come from a culture of self efacement and this whole idea makes me rather uncomfortable not to mention the sheer overload of stuff. But when one makes art, it is somehow natural to what to share it. I guess I would hope that this is part of the human exploration, of delving into that mystery and stirring it up with a hope of greater understanding, and in my ideal, a greater humanity. I think of my homeland and ache at our history and stupidity and it never seems to change. But this exploration is a compulsion that cannot be ignored.

This time we are communicating in the form of a "blog" because we are hoping that will stimulate the conversations I love so much. So please zap me with thoughts, comments, observations and rude remarks. Please be merciful with the latter. Not really, a good argument would be stimulating. I had a most amazing experience in Palm Springs a couple of weeks ago as guest of a remarkable couple I now count as friends. Another new friend met there, sent me a great book of art critism by John Updike in which he writes "For me, regressively enough, something broadly called "beauty" must attach to art, along with an aspiration to permanence." Thanks again for your ongoing interest.

Tank Corp, World War II (in progress)




He seemed very excited about sitting for me but was also terribly shy. He kept bursting into chuckles. Of course I realize the risk of painting a "cute" old man smiling his missing tooth, but that is true to the experience and worth the risk. Makes me think of Frans Hals. It also accentuates the minutes during which my friend and translator Vova, told he that while they were fighting in Hungary, their tank had been hit. He told us of the horror of the tank bursting into flames and how his comander saved him but was unable to save his other comrades who burned to death. He wept. As my father was in the same war, and one of my uncles was shot down over Holland and killed, it brought me a sense of connection that compelled me to paint him. I wept a little with him.




Dimitri (45 x 45 inches, oil on linen)




There was a grace, even an elegance of manner to this young man that made the custom of inviting him to dinner with us especially pleasant. His father was also a military man so I had the impression that the restaurant was not that big a deal to him, but the company pleased him. He ordered his food after rather a long wait for service and then as the delivery took more and more time we noticed him looking at his watch anxiously. Eventually before the food came, with some embarrassment, he said he would have to leave as he was scheduled to meet his younger brother at the railway station where the twelve year old would change trains as he travelled the enormous distance from the summer spent with his grandparents in the Crimea, home to Mormonsk in the north. We were disappointed for him. As we concluded our meal, he suddenly returned and breathlessly told us the train was two hours late so he could join us after all. He ate voraciously as we all talked, his warm eyes glowing with pleasure at being able to return. Experiences of a personal nature like this, plus the time spent while I draw from life really do inform the final work. No conscious decision can be made to accomplish this. It is, as I am sure I have said elsewhere in these pages, a process as mysterious as life itself.




Husbandry (36 x 36 inches, oil on canvas, in progress)



I set out to simply paint a piece of fruit which is a kind of pilgrimage to the wonder of nature I find myself wanting to make every now and then. The pear, a fruit I find endlessly interesting to paint, (Freudian?) was followed by the plum. But I found myself strangely uncertain about the painting until a shovel in the garden provoked me to include it in the work. As the loose abstract ingredients of t he form at the end of the blade coincidentally implied dripping water I remembered the experience of husbandry decades ago in Alpine, Utah, as my wife and I would irrigate our small orhard, pasture, flower gardens and lawn at all hours. The time was dictated by the shared rotation of the whole town, tiresome in the wee hours of the morning perhaps, but delightful in the heat of mid-summer's day, when sloshing through the chill of the mountaintop water was so refreshing as the work was intense and physical.

Suddenly the summer is gone. And my report becomes that of Christmas instead.

During this time I have been coming down the home stretch with the Warriors kicking and screaming all the way because I am inclined to let it grow and evolve forever. But I am forbidden and anyway there is so much else stored up in my mind demanding action.

I completed another companion piece for the Warrior collection, Babushka, a fantastic old lady who endured the siege of then Leningrad as a nurse, thus her claim to participation as a veteran. Of course almost every able-bodied person of that era in Russia served against the invasion. She was delighted to be posing and told my interpreter that she “could almost fall in love with him” (me) and later that I had “golden hands.” Language does not preclude human-to-human communion. I relish those memories of that truly great Russian people as I work. I have also almost completed two etchings for the project, one of which I have been working on during my visits to Mexico. “Almost complete” seem to be two of my favorite (pain in the neck) words as I struggle to let works go.


















Central to my personal life has been the births of two more grandchildren, Jack whom I hear squealing with joy at this moment as he awakens to life, and Lily who is way too far away for my taste, in Utah with her big sister Maya. Of course I miss her parents too. How good the old days were when family was less defined by geography, though some would argue, things are just fine with great distances, thank you very much.Jack lives with his mother Sarah downstairs in a separate apartment so we make up a really happy family these days, in the modern way of things. I am impressed by the way the extended family can be so crucial to the overall welfare of the new generation. Sarah has been incredibly lucky with the enthusiastic involvement of her two siblings here as well as the ongoing support of her sister and family in Utah, not to mention her mother.

There is part of me that feels I should refrain from such personal comment. But as an artist it is the day-to-day nature of life and love within the context of the mystery of every aspect of these things, that so naturally insinuates itself into my work. Anything cerebral is almost accidental. I have accepted that, even welcomed it. I am of course always aware of the risks of sentimentality and the distance that places my work from the art establishment and many others who are uncomfortable with the heart on the sleeve nature of such work. But three recent experiences so clearly defined for me what I love my work to do. These events followed quickly on the heels of each other. Dealing with them was daunting especially when coupled with the big family events. An added section to the website gives more detail of one of these, the crucifixion. A reference to this can found in the update 06-19-03.

Toward the end of the last year I received a phone call from a remarkable woman in Yorba Linda in Southern California asking me about the possibility of doing a life-size crucifixion for their church, St. Martin de Porres. It was as if the long hungered for experience that spurred the production of the half life sized version last year, was in anticipation of this phone call. Since then I have been to Yorba Linda three times. The most recent was to present my thoughts and a power-point (slide) presentation of my work to a part of the congregation and to finalize the details for the creation of the large figure. Although, I dwell in a place remote from traditional religion, I felt so embraced by these Catholic people and was deeply moved by the blessing said over me there. It added to my sense of preparation for the deep and profound experience I am having as I work on it now. I have rarely anticipated a work with more excitement and at the risk of seeming obvious, humility. And now the figure looms large in my studio/living space, removing (perhaps appropriately) our diminished Christmas tree from its usual place of center stage. The clay is shrouded each night in wetted old towels and plastic and unveiled each day as I work. The huge embrace of the powerfully empathetic figure, almost moreso from the back as the front, gives me a hint of what this mysteriously gripping icon does for those of deep devotion.

I flew directly from there to Salt Lake City where I had another infusion of compelling affirmation. My pals and patrons Jim Dabakis and Steve Justesen had organized with a political group called Equality Utah, to make an exhibition of my work part of a huge campaign for justice and equal rights in that State, so beloved to me. They had secured an excellent space in a fine old, recently renovated, building in the heart of downtown and prepared every detail with such finesse, that all we had to do was to hang the show and relish the terrific response of so many extraordinary people. I am prone to hyperbole so forgive me, but…

And the last chapter of this trio of experiences is currently taking place with a small but potent grouping of my work at the LGBT Center here in San Francisco. This was the brain child of two more energetic and devoted men, James Morris and his partner Aaron Vlinck. They arranged the annual Affirmation Conference (gay and lesbian Mormons) and invited me to have this exhibition and speak about the work during the conference. Talk of affirmation. What a terrific group of people, so warm and responsive and kind, making again a kind of homecoming for me.

The last rays of the sun glow on the dense vegetation of my garden making a blaze of the yellow leaves of the apple tree. I think of the momentous election several weeks ago. Never have I felt a more important moment in recent history. How will this vote impact on us all? I am a political animal blessed to have lived on three continents in my life, so my view of the world is very broad. Whatever happens, I hope we can get into the hearts and minds of others and understand their view of things. But the barbarity of those driven by perhaps legitimate causes, when inspired by twisted forms of religion, will haunt us for generations. Our challenge is to remain above the sick fray and never assume our ways are superior to those of others. I think of my grandchildren and wonder what is in store for them. Only exquisite nuanced vision and clear and honest firmness combined, can give them hope.

Two days ago I returned from a trip to England and the lowlands, Belgium and Holland. In London I was painting a portrait of myself for one of my favorite collectors that was designed for a specific antique frame. This is the third self-portrait I have done. The other two were reproduced in my book. This one was the brainchild of the collector who has a major body of my work that he has put together over many years. He is also a sculptor in his own right and enormously patient. He personally restored the beautiful Victorian frame he had chosen for this painting. The work took the usual agonizing turns but came to a happy conclusion on my last day there. I often wonder about the justification of self-portraits. Is it simply an ego trip? No, I don't think so. It is very much an exploration and revelation of character, my own and thus that of others close to me. It was really fascinating to watch the various aspects of my character reveal themselves as I worked, the layers, building as they essentially do with one's genetic origion and then years of the additions of experience. There is some discomfort at seeing oneself in this kind of light but it enlightens too, much like my journals of 45 years do.

My son Kevin joined me for a one of those rare things, a holiday, which seemed all too brief because it was almost perfect. The trip around Yorkshire and Wales organized by our beloved old friend Jill who abandoned her good husband to drive us about in racing car style. So may Brits I know seem to love cars in this way. We saw other old friends along the way. Indeed our selected stops were largely dictated by the importance for me of staying in touch with friends over the years. In Wales we visited with Michael, Jill's cousin, who was in Africa during World War II when we were both about five. Another old pal, Margaret, I met on a ship returning to Rhodesia in 1960.

The trip to the Netherlands was largely to track down yet another errant gallery. This one has disappeared with about $85,000 worth of art including several unique pieces! Our detective work did bear a little fruit and we made a formal complaint to the police to see if this time we can recover at least some of the work. Sad way to have to see the world, but we fell in love with Holland. I would very much like to spend a few weeks working there in the future in the shadow of one of my favorite masters, Rembrandt whose house we visited in Amsterdam with a sense of awe as we drifted into his time and mind as much as possible.

Now home and settling in for the last leg of completing the work for the Russian “Warrior” collection. One of the most recent pieces, an old soldier, is reproduced here. It was stirring to work with this man in Russia and now here on the other side of the world, thinking of him fighting in Hungary at the same time that my own father was fighting in Italy.

11.15 P.M. I am alone finally acknowledging my age while the rest of the gang is off to the Internet café again. The new cadet Vova pitched up for dinner and is eager to have me email him, no doubt to practice his English. My Vova takes very much a big brother role in this. He is the main reason I am sad to be leaving. Though I must say, I surely wish I had used this city more carefully as my visit to the Hermitage today showed me what I have been missing. Stunning building, stunning collection. Showed around by others which rather robbed me of my usual pleasure but it was still incredible. They brought their roommate. He has the most amazing animal presence, almost to the point of being a mutant of some kind as each time I saw him at the museum, he seemed more like a prowling exotic creature, rather than a young Russian.We transferred all the work I have done here onto a disc and I am furious with myself once again for carelessness. TRIPOD, freak! Tripod. A simple albeit somewhat cumbersome object to transfer and voila, all my effort would be three times the quality. Make myself so mad. Forget so much. And this really will be it I think as far as the project is concerned though I would not mind a series of fanciful landscapes. Tomorrow Steve and I leave. This note about the city makes me sad because I have not had enough of it. But then knowing people this intimately gives one much more of a sense of place than anything. And I have been able to drink in the streets, the rivers and canals as we wondered about. And again I think place is better felt this way than museums though they are such a sound foundation in history. This made itself even more apparent when we briefly visited museums of war and the 999 day blockade of World War II. I walked these beloved streets with a more sober almost sacred step as I thought of the blood shed on them and the horror of history. We poor pathetic humans. But then we make art, music and literature and look within… Does this compensate for the horror we perpetrate on each other? No, but at least we ask questions and perhaps the children of my grandchildren will live with less blind hope and respond to threats less wildly.