Professionally, this has been a year of huge highs. This started early in the year when my life size bronze of Francis of Assisi was installed at the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas. What a momentous event for me; really, once in a lifetime. Visual artists rarely get a standing ovation as far as I know. And in my own inimitable way I made a fool of myself by an absurdly emotional response. But then that is part of who I am. It has infused my work always though I have quarreled with it time and again, usually losing.
The high point in the early fall was related to the Francis experience when my old pals Jimmy Dabakis and Steve Justesen got so excited that they decided to reward me in the most extraordinary way. They organized a cruise in the Caribbean for the two of them and my entire family, four kids, spouses and grandchildren. Bliss is the only word to describe the experience. From swimming, literally, with tame stingrays (I was very, very brave…oh, ok they were tame) to dinner each evening at a table for twelve where we could gaze at the sun setting over the wake of the huge ship, it really was blissful. And then there was the awesome sight of our ship berthed with two others as enormous…in fact awesome, a word used too casually, is absolutely the only one to describe that week. Regenerating love for friends and family in such a way is an experience to be treasured for life.
My daughter Marianna and I flew directly from Miami for a couple of weeks in Europe, mostly thanks to extraordinary kindness and patience (my health being top notch) of friends and collectors. Our week in London was glorious. Then it was up to Bedfordshire with pals dating back to college days; Sussex for others, and on and on. A twist came when friends, now resident in Denmark, noticed, via the internet system Facebook, that I was in Europe. They generously flew me over to Copenhagen for a blissful few days in that wondrous place. I also worked on a portrait drawing for them. Marianna meanwhile, carried on with our planned trip to Italy meeting a friend there for company. We reunited in magical Prague, before our long return home.
But it is not over yet!!! Once home, the work of a remarkable curator backed up by equally remarkable friends and collectors solidified plans for...
A MAJOR RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION
Utah Museum of Fine Art
November 2010 until February 2011
This is an incredible opportunity to bring together primary works that track the evolution of my career from Africa and England, through my Mormon years in Utah and ending with the work that reflects the changes in the latter couple of decades in California. It is incredibly exciting for me, and also strangely disquieting. I guess it only casually giving a nod to modernism in art, I have also revealed myself with uncomfortable if unintended frankness, from sentimentality to sexuality it becomes so vividly apparent as we start selecting the work for this show. Truth be known, it may be a little disquieting, but it is also what I perceive to be my greatest strength. Revelatory honesty is ok, though I thought it was much more subtle than it turns out to have been. I never really set out to do this, prepare a lifelong visual autobiography. I have been uncomfortable many times. I relished so much of what modern art has given us, but without deliberately doing so, seem to have reacted against it. Surely, there was a time when first at Brigham Young University when a group of young artists did indeed dedicate ourselves to serving our beliefs. But it must be remembered some of us were modernist serving with pure form, though most of us essentially illustrated ideas. Oh that dirty word! It is my reality that the “illustrators” of the past are my greatest influences. And I have relished the simplicity of pure for and abstracted images, though not ever absorbed by formal exploration. But it is when I probe ideas that I am most intrigued as they evolve beyond simple narrative and become layered and more potent for me.
So I celebrate this year with joy. From the gifts of my work from the simple exploration of light penetrating a bowl of eggs to the spiritual journeys of humans with each other and beyond. And I give thanks, to the gods, to my teachers, to my family and to my friends for being available to me as I experience the bliss of life as well as the sorrows. Shadows are the mystery of light, and as in art, they give depth to life. I celebrate all this good.
Trevor
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