Wyatt and Vincent

They lived oceans apart in the later days of the 19th century, Earp the gunslinger, Van Gogh the psychedelic sower.

From a distance, they could be brothers. At the moment I'm feeling a bit too boringly sane to editorialize further, but we can track their smokey trails in these two eloquent documents.

Notes from American Experience - Wyatt Earp on PBS:

Wyatt is accused of stealing a horse in Van Buren, Arkansas. He evades punishment by fleeing... spends the next several years in saloons, gambling houses, and brothels of the frontier. He has multiple relationships with prostitutes, as well as several arrests for his involvement with them.

Wyatt Earp never lost the quiet charisma that had inspired loyalty and hatred in Tombstone.

He did not look old, a friend recalled. Somehow like a mountain or desert, he reduced you to size.

He died at home unsure of his legacy without ever making sense of the forces that had shaped his life.

Notes from The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence:

Vincent - as usual connecting everything in his mental world - added Wagner to Monticelli, Delecroix, the Dutch painter Jongkind and himself in a list of crazy drunks and heavy smokers. These had all hit the bottle or lit their pipes, Vincent presumed, because of the mental exhaustion of devising complex harmonies of notes or colors.

That was no doubt what Vincent hoped to achieve with his painting: to find in art a force stronger than his neurotic temperament.

“Old Gauguin and I understand each other basically, and if we are a bit mad, what of it?” [said Vincent.] They would be vindicated - he thought, entirely correctly - by their pictures.

Vincent wasn’t only an inspired, mad artist; he was a great painter desperately trying to remain sane.

Photo credits Dodge City Peace Commission, Wyatt Earp and unknown, Vincent Van Gogh

The sower

‘The sower broadcasting his seed was an image that had been with him almost since he had become an artist. It stood for a painter - or an evangelist - sowing the seed of beauty and truth.’
Matin Gayford, The Yellow House: Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles

If I were a sower who saw her art as evangelism, her seeds indispensable to the good earth’s survival, my priorities would change.

Perusing my to-do list, which, out of curiosity, I’ve segmented into beneficiaries, fully two thirds of planned tasks benefit others and/or me. Family, friends and my teaching cohorts fall within this category. Earth, by which I mean the planet in toto, is assigned the remainder. This category holds my art and, largely because the other list is both large and short-term rewarding, is given short shrift.

Vincent Van Gogh, sometimes businessman and arts-community organizer, nevertheless prioritized his painting. Even his persistent melancholy failed to distract him from his call. Look at one of his sunflowers and know he chose wisely.

When I leave this earth, some imprint of my time here will stay.  Intuitively, I feel posterity’s rush when I compose, practice, record or perform music. Oddly perhaps, it’s also evident as I muse on art and culture here with you. It may be impossible to measure the scale or quality of my contribution to earth’s longevity.

For now, it makes sense to remember the sunflower seeds of a man named Vincent.

Painting by Vincent Van Gogh, The Sower