One Sunday at Mass we had a guest speaker, a Sister was talking to us. One of the things she said was.... to pray and seek your gifts. Right as she said those words, "Seek your gifts", part of the church's stained glass window (which looks like the sun) caught my attention and part of the orange color moved. It looked like someone had touched it with a brush full of orange watercolor and the color had spread out the way it does when you paint on a wet surface.

It inspired this poem. Enjoy.

--- The Touching of The Son ---

Seek your gifts she said . . .

for my gifts I longed

and prayed,

the colors beyond

He who reigned,

a message

in the window stained

with beauty deep

and structured pane,

a message in the light . . .

A light from Heaven

calling me,

my hopes and dreams

to reach and be

more than I might

otherwise see,

inspiration . . .

pure and free,

The touching of The Son . . .

- The Light Within . . .

I don't know if anyone reads this anymore, but there is a change in the air.

The online gallery corbinchoate.com has been mothballed for a while, though I still own it. I've decided to end the current style of angels and evolve into digital paintings. It will take me at least a couple of months to have enough to show.

There is another blog - http://corbinchoate.blogspot.com - which will be more user friendly for showcasing images, so be sure to check both this summer.

- The Light Within . . .

I wrote this poem as a way to capture the deep, intense feelings I have about this particular time of year. The time between late November and the new year invites deep introspection and inner traveling. If you've ever wondered what type of music I turn to this time of year, go to Hearts of Space at www.hos.com and take a look at their playlists. The music there is eternal and allows me to access the universal expanse of my imagination.

Receding twilight
approaching cold
declining colors
earthward go,
I follow downward
the light of old,
the burning glow of time
is slowed . . .
beckoned –
by the season's hold
we descend . . .
through the light of old,
of dark November days . . .
to the spaces
of our inner lives . . .

- The Light Within . . .

This poem is a yearly ritual for me.

--- My November Guest - - -

MY Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

- Robert Frost

October... the first of the three most beautiful months of the year.

Welcome my friend. I'm grateful to God for allowing me to live to see you again.

A poem by Robert Frost...

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--
For the grapes' sake along the wall.

- The Light Within . . .

Autumn has arrived. It is a time of change, a time for reflection, and the most beautiful of all the seasons.

For me, it marks the passing of another year of my life. People come and go and children grow and change is all around. Have you ever come across an old family photograph that takes you back and floods your mind with memories so real you could touch them?

Maybe a picture of a beloved relative's house where you can see into the open window on a sunny day? Somehow you know that if you could just see around the corner they would be there. . .you could talk to them and share just one more day with them. I found a picture like that. It was a picture of my mom and me standing in front of my aunt and uncle's house on some past Autumn afternoon. Behind us is an open window
where the sunlight streams in to the living room and an open doorway. Part of me knows that there, in that time, is my uncle. . .living, talking and knowing that I am just outside. My aunt took the picture. I used to stay with them nearly every weekend. They are responsible for who I am, and I know that their being there for me saved my life from going in wrong directions. The values of their generation, the greatest generation, were passed on to me.

This poem was written in memory of them. I make it a point to re-read it on those golden Autumn afternoons that seem to never end.

--- Autumn Afternoon ---

When you sit and watch the shadows grow long across the room
at the end of a golden Autumn afternoon,
you face the souls who have passed through your life . . .
and come to terms with their absence . . .

The season's light is ever changing and reminds you
that all things must pass,
leaving their mark in ways unknown,
until they are gone . . .

As Autumn's memories fall softly one by one,
in colors too beautiful for words. . . felt only by the heart . . .
they take their place of rest in the shadows of your life.

As the seasons pass, you see never ending reflections of their time . . .
a ray of light, a color that burns intense with love and hope . . .
a promise to return anew in time, when the shadows grow long
at the end of an Autumn afternoon.

- The Light Within . . .

Joseph Christian Leyendecker, J.C. to his friends. J.C. Leyendecker was THE most successful, accomplished, famous artist of his day. He was beyond famous actually. When Norman Rockwell was a boy, he used to go to the train station in New Rochelle just to watch J.C. arrive from New York City, get off the train with his entourage and step into a waiting chauffeured limousin. Leyendecker was a celebrity on the level of the Beatles before they existed and his work defined American life by capturing the essence, the innocence which existed in the country in the years between 1900 and World War II. His work appeared as illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Magazine, The American Weekly, Success Magazine and others, as well as magazine ads for companies such as Kelloggs, Kuppenheimer's Clothiers and Arrow Collars (the character he created for Arrow Collars was based on one of the male models he frequently used. The Arrow Collar man became so famous and popular with the ladies that the company actually received fan mail wanting to know who he was, what was his name, where did he live . . . and he was even more famous than Rudolph Valentino) The covers of these magazines provided the perfect medium for reproducing his work in all its splendor. At the peak of his career he was the most famous Post artist they had ever had. He turned the Post covers into mini-posters, incorporating all of the elements of the cover into each piece.

Artistically speaking, Leyendecker was an incredible genius whose work is instantly recognizeable even today. He was the king of America's "Golden Age" of illustration and through his work he virtually invented the look of the modern magazine cover as a purely attention grabbing device. Leyendecker's work contains elements of both Art Nouveau and Art Deco, and it is dynamic, graceful, elegant and sophisticated. His unique style of painting captured the attention of the public as nothing before had, and only a handful since have.

J.C.'s work was about the endless pursuit of perfection. He developed his own system of creating an image based on the working methods of the great masters. He began with a series of thumbnail sketches, and from there he would work up a series of larger rough paintings. These were used to determine how to best proceed with the actual finished painting. When he applied his colors, he would let areas of blank, raw canvas show through. These were often areas which would be included as part of a highlight or the white background. J.C. was very secretive about how he worked and very little was known about how he achieved such luminous finished surfaces until his brother, Frank, shared the paint recipe with Norman Rockwell after swearing him to absolute secrecy. The colors were composed of Turpentine, stand oil and linseed oil, mixed fresh each morning in specific proportion. The colors were very thin, "slippery" if you will. When these colors were applied to the canvas they showed no sign whatsoever of having been applied by a brush. This resulted in a finished painting composed of precisely arranged areas of light and color. Every stroke was applied perfectly . . .once. J.C.'s brush control and mastery of his talents are legendary still today.

Leyendecker's finished canvases were masterpieces of technique, color and magic. He influenced America at a time when we were just beginning to discover who we were as a nation. His work has influenced me to my very core and I am extremely grateful. I enjoy looking at his work over and over.

J.C. Leyendecker lived a quiet personal life that included a circle of very few friends. I wish I had been there. For all of his fame a fortune, for all of the love and admiration he received from his adoring public, he died alone in his home by the sea, in New Rochelle, New York. I feel him with me every day.

- The Light Within . . .

The poetry of Robert Frost has affected my life a great deal. Here is a poem of his which talks about angels, light and heaven. It deals with the choices you make before coming into this world . . .and what God says in the end. Frost's work has a wonderful transcendent quality. The deepest understanding comes from repeated readings. Enjoy.

--- The Trial By Existence ---

Even the bravest that are slain
Shall not dissemble their surprise
On waking to find valor reign,
Even as on earth, in paradise;
And where they sought without the sword
Wide fields of asphodel fore'er,
To find that the utmost reward
Of daring should be still to dare.

The light of heaven falls whole and white
And is not shattered into dyes,
The light forever is morning light;
The hills are verdured pasture-wise;
The angle hosts with freshness go,
And seek with laughter what to brave;--
And binding all is the hushed snow
Of the far-distant breaking wave.

And from a cliff-top is proclaimed
The gathering of the souls for birth,
The trial by existence named,
The obscuration upon earth.
And the slant spirits trooping by
In streams and cross- and counter-streams
Can but give ear to that sweet cry
For its suggestion of what dreams!

And the more loitering are turned
To view once more the sacrifice
Of those who for some good discerned
Will gladly give up paradise.
And a white shimmering concourse rolls
Toward the throne to witness there
The speeding of devoted souls
Which God makes his especial care.

And none are taken but who will,
Having first heard the life read out
That opens earthward, good and ill,
Beyond the shadow of a doubt;
And very beautifully God limns,
And tenderly, life's little dream,
But naught extenuates or dims,
Setting the thing that is supreme.

Nor is there wanting in the press
Some spirit to stand simply forth,
Heroic in it nakedness,
Against the uttermost of earth.
The tale of earth's unhonored things
Sounds nobler there than 'neath the sun;
And the mind whirls and the heart sings,
And a shout greets the daring one.

But always God speaks at the end:
'One thought in agony of strife
The bravest would have by for friend,
The memory that he chose the life;
But the pure fate to which you go
Admits no memory of choice,
Or the woe were not earthly woe
To which you give the assenting voice.'

And so the choice must be again,
But the last choice is still the same;
And the awe passes wonder then,
And a hush falls for all acclaim.
And God has taken a flower of gold
And broken it, and used therefrom
The mystic link to bind and hold
Spirit to matter till death come.

'Tis of the essence of life here,
Though we choose greatly, still to lack
The lasting memory at all clear,
That life has for us on the wrack
Nothing but what we somehow chose;
Thus are we wholly stipped of pride
In the pain that has but one close,
Bearing it crushed and mystified.

- The Light Within . . .

When I was a kid I used to have this recurring dream where I was always struggling to wake up, to become completely conscious. I couldn't wake up completely, at least not enough to do whatever it was I had to do in the dream. There would always be things happening right in front of me that I wanted or needed to do . . .join my friends, tie my shoes, get on the school bus. Then there was always the big one . . .answer the phone or remember phone numbers of friends or loved ones. I was always afraid that I was going to miss out on something really important. Eventually, as the creativity inside of me began to really evolve and take control of my life, the dream faded. Finally, when I began painting angels the dream went away completely.

Too many people in this world sleepwalk through their lives, going through the daily motions on autopilot completely unaware that their life is passing before their eyes and they are missing it. They don't know what their dreams are, or if they even have any. They fail to see the surrounding signs, the beauty of God's world and the universe he created for us. They never see the gifts all around them, the people they meet who drop little clues as to where to go next or what to do . . . people who come up to you out of the blue and share something with you. The people you don't expect are the angels and they have something meant just for you. There are no coincidences in this world.

As an artist, I am poignantly aware that time is passing before my eyes. It gets worse as you watch your child grow and become their own person. Time flies. I am constantly reminded of the struggle to follow my dreams . . . to live my life as consciously aware of everything in my human experience as possible. There are successes and triumphs, there are failures and setbacks, there is joy and sorrow and sometimes pain. But it's through living in this state of awareness that I'm able to see the big picture, to share and enjoy the gifts I've been given.

Wake up and realize that your life is passing before your eyes and make the most of it. Do something to make people's lives better . . . something to enrich their experience. Always be aware of where you are in your life and what you're doing.

Never be afraid to follow your dreams.

- The Light Within . . .