11/24/06

Thoughts \ Developed Thoughts \ Rants \ Raves \ Writing

10/09/2004 11:16 -0500 GMT

Montana

The beauty of art is that it delivers a message that is widely interpretable. What I mean by that is that you can hear a song, and it can reach you on a very personal level. Another person can hear that same song, with the same melody and words, and relate to it on a completely different, personal level. With or Without You, by U2, provides an excellent example. I interpret it one way, and you interpret it another way. In this manner number one hits on the Billboard charts are made. Done and done.

My buddy, named Noel Leonard, has a music CD out called Piecemeal Starts and Frequent Stops. It's a really nice amalgamation of sounds, almost entirely original stuff, with blues sounds, rock and folk flavors, and a southern twang that rounds it out in a very listenable way. You probably won't find it on the internet; it was Noel's first CD. Noel is an interesting cat.

Noel is driven by his own wind. There was a time, early on when I first met him, when he ran for mayor of Birmingham. He invented his own game, called Aussy Wander. He's finishing up law school as a 36 year old husband and parent of two. He's got an interest in intellectual property rights law. He would prefer to ride his Harley, weather permitting. At this point, were he listening, he might add a contradictory remark, saying that the weather had nothing to do with his decision-making matrix, and he would surprise you with his reasoning. You know how lawyers are.

I thought of Noel and his album today after a random string of thoughts. It struck me, first of all, as often happens, that we all possess a very individual spirit. Noel exemplifies that spirit.

Another good friend, Susan Murdoch (Montana) is another who provides an extraordinary example of what an individual human being can be. Each of us carves out our own niche in life, and makes a distinguished, non-urinary mark in this world. (I'm making sure you're paying attention.)

Susan Murdoch. I can't say enough about this woman. She was my counterpart in San Francisco. That is, she was the administrator of the University of California and San Francisco (UCSF) Center for AIDS Research. The USCF CFAR hosted a national meeting in 1999. A number of us went to the meeting, and to dinner after the meetings of the day were over. I remember the awkward silences - the piecemeal starts and frequent stops - that so often characterize a dinner among acquaintances, but among those who haven't figured it if they really like one another yet. Eric Hunter, my former boss, broke the ice in a smooth way that he has a knack for, and the conversation turned to Susan's future plans. She had announced her resignation from her position at UCSF.

I was surprised that Susan was leaving this high-powered job in one of the premier AIDS research centers on the planet, for a life of art. Art. I smiled, and I might have shrugged, and then as I listened to Susan talk, it made perfect sense. Her passion for exploring several of life's themes through art was made so perfectly clear in the way she spoke that I saw her in a new light. That light was made more clear when she talked about the impact that Latin American culture had on her work.

She talked about a holiday in Mexico wherein people honor the dead. It is done in a way that is very different than the way we do in America.

"Dia de los Muertos," I interrupted, anxious to enter the conversation, and she corrected me.

"Dias de los muertos," she said.

That's right. It's plural, I thought, and I instantly knew that this was a woman that I would like and respect to an unusual depth. I imagined my superficial understanding of the holiday that falls during this month of October - marked for me by Oingo Boingo's Dead Man's Party. My mind brought up images of human and animal skeletons, festive colors with piñatas and sombreros, and I thought of the Latin beats that provided the backbone of Oingo Boingo's midterm music.

(For those who don't know Oingo Boingo, see this site. You may also be familiar, unwittingly, with Danny Elfman, who was the lead vocalist and songwriter for Oingo Boingo. Danny is a modern-day composer of rich classical music scores these days, for Batman films, Spiderman, the upcoming Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Big Fish, which was filmed in Alabama, and many more. My buddy John LaGourgue and I met him during a backstage post-concert show in Irvine, California on Hallowe'en, 1990.)

My reverie was broken as Susan described her work and her longing to refine her art. It was clear that she had a passion for this, and that her life would not be complete if she did not pursue her art's urge.

Flash forward to the middle of this year, 2004. It was a beautiful day in San Francisco, and I had the opportunity to be there for a scientific meeting on retroviruses and opportunistic infections resulting from retrovirus infections in humans. I called Susan up, and we had lunch and I viewed her art. It was a real privilege to walk around her makeshift studio and see her art, and hear her narrate her art firsthand. She has talent and drive and material that could last at least three lifetimes. Her art is fearless, bold, and vulnerable while also being simultaneously original and clearly drawn from prior artists. Susan Montana has a truly unique gift.  You can have a look for yourself at http://www.susanmurdoch.com/.

Again, as I walked through the rooms where Susan had her work displayed, I felt a sense of understanding and belonging that is very unique. In a way that I can not articulate, I felt a sense of the meaning behind being human, and that Susan was a pilot for that feeling. Through her work, I was able to take a mental journey through aspects of my own being, and these brief journeys satisfied a part of me - a deep part of me - and I was whole again, refreshed and whole. I think that was what Art is all about.

One painting stood out to me. It struck home. It was painted all in black, with a very spare use of colour. It was best viewed from an oblique angle, where the textures could be seen. It was a reflection of a devastating fire that Susan witnessed in Montana. I saw a similar fire in Laguna Beach, California. Over 300 homes were burned to the ground in the Laguna fire. I still have the newspaper published the day after that fire, one one home standing spared, surrounded by blackened foundations on hillsides that I grew up knowing well. As I drove through the hillsides of Newport Coast Drive, while it was still new in its development, it was charred, black, still smoking in areas, and so still. It was utterly dead - a black moonscape. And as I passed through a swath of the charred remains of homes...the beautiful blue Pacific on my right, and the blackened remains of lives and homes and memories on my left, in a remarkable ironic instant of life, the song "My Hometown" by Bruce Springsteen was played on the radio. I wondered what the chances were that that song would play at that time as I was driving through after the fire.

Susan captured that, using just one color on a canvas.

Susan captures other themes with which I can relate. Catholic themes are something I relate to, having been raised Catholic. Mexican themes are something I relate to having grown up a scant 70 miles from the US-Mexico border. Abuse is another theme, more deeply nested in the Susan's work. Seeking an understanding of one's mother is another theme I understand, being adopted and having been immensely fortunate in finding my biological mother (and father) ten years ago.

I think you can see why I am a fan of Susan's. I hope you haven't reached a natural but inaccurate conclusion that Susan and I have a romantic relationship. That area is reserved for Maggie only. One of the unusual aspects of the relationship that Susan and I have developed is that despite the fact that we happen to be of opposite sex, I think that the respect we have for each other and each other's work supersedes any romantic notions. I respect Susan Montana's Art, and that is that.

Art feeds the soul. No matter your primary interest, a nice piece of art can make you feel better about the life you're leading. A bit of art can reach into your depths, whether it be when you're driving and hear a song that strikes a chord, or whether you happen upon a piece on a wall that stops you and makes you think. Susan Murdoch's work gave me that gift today, and as with any great art, it is a gift that I will continue to appreciate for the remainder of my days.

Once again I encourage you to check out Montana's art and artistic statements on http://www.susanmurdoch.com/. It a really nicely designed site. The pictures are large enough that you can see the details, and the text is well-matched to the art.