Our Lives Pass Like a Falling Leaf ... Identification and Wholeness in the Woods

Sometimes I’ll be walking in the woods and the wind will dislodge a leaf from a tall tree. As it starts to fall, I notice it.

I watch it tumble end over end, or rotate, or spin, see the path it takes — maybe it hits a branch or two on the way down. But inevitably it reaches the ground, landing with an imperceptible BOOM among the millions of other leaves that have completed similar journies … and for a moment, I know something about that leaf.

There’s millions of leaves around me, but THIS leaf, I have a connection with. I watched it, I saw how it got where it is. For a moment, I am the leaf. That leaf.

But then the absurdity of it cracks open. I blink and the millions of leaves come flooding back. I lose sight of THE leaf, my leaf, and am engulfed by the totality of the forest.

Maybe this life of mine is the same. Tumbling and identification arise, fleetingly, from wholeness.

Your Life Flashes ... What if This is Our Second Time Around?

They say that just before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. What if that’s what this is?

It’s a thought experiement I’ve been considering: Suppose this experience of my life is actually a memory. In this moment I am dying, and this is my life flashing back. I cannot change anything, all I do is experience it a second time.

If that were true, and supposing one realized it, really KNEW it … it seems to me that life would be imbued with a sort of loving compassion. A fond wistfulness. More acceptance. Less resistance. And this way of experiencing it, again, would extend to all of it. Even events which were hard, I think the focus would shift and there might be gratitude—or at least, a little less suffering.

Remember, you can’t change anything. All you can do is experience. And this is IT, the last chance to see this movie. When the credits roll, you’re DONE.

What if that’s what this is?

Making Art & Sleeping in the Basement ... the Curious Patterns of Cats (and other beings)

Gonzo, my feline friend, is sleeping in the chair behind me right now. He snores gentle, delicate cat snores.

He has recently returned from a six-month stint of sleeping in the basement, and I have to say that I missed him while he was gone. I enjoy working with him in the studio. Painting and writing can be lonely work, and for a while we had a good rhythm: He snored, I worked, the deadlines got met.

And then one day, he started sleeping in the basement. … Was it something I said?

Of course not. Gonzo is a cat, and changes his patterns like the weather.

A cat changes its patterns, and I think nothing of it. What happens when MY patterns change? When I change?

Can I change, without resistance? Without trying to hold on to images and stories?

I haven’t shared a lot of art this year. Why not? Patterns change. … perhaps there is no reason. Perhaps more change is coming.

But there has been art-making and exploration, which is probably the more important part.

I experimented with trying to do less, and played with bits of nature — leaves, branches, flowers — to make monoprints and mixed media images focused on natural forms and the expression of what already exists.

Over the summer I hung some work at a local restaurant, including the new images and older work as well, and distributed a couple hundred more You Are Love prints, and about a thousand stickers.

And the perpetual exploration in and of consciousness, continues. How could it not? What else is there?

There is a cat. He is snoring in the chair behind me. For now.

Smooth Ray Says: Tidepools are a Conspiracy, and Architecture at the Edge of the Universe is Weird.

As you venture out towards the edge of the Universe, the architecture starts to get weird. Scaffolding becomes beautiful. No space is unfilled or full. Distant points occupy the same location.

Could you build a structure out of metaphors?

No souls are injured when Yesterday and Tomorrow collide.

You get used to it. Nothing happening amidst all the apparent chaos.

The Big Bang was on a Tuesday.

We need to talk about tidepools. You need to know the truth: They don’t exist.

Sure, an image search turns up hundreds of pictures, vibrant life, expressive, colorful. But in all your walks on the beach, have you ever found a tidepool teeming with life?

A conspiracy, no doubt. Probably the government.

“The body appears in your mind, your mind is the content of your consciousness; you are the motionless witness of the river of consciousness which changes eternally without changing you in any way. Your own changelessness is so obvious that you do not notice it. The universe is in you and cannot be without you. The world exists in memory, memory comes into consciousness; consciousness exists in awareness and awareness is the reflection of the light on the waters of existence.” —Sri Nisargadatta

A Wounded Dinosaur Emerges .... Experiments with Existence

Smooth Ray has been experimenting … There’s probably a real name for it, but thread or “string painting.” Take a thread, coat it in ink and drape across paper. Sandwich it between a second sheet of paper, hold the two together and pull the string out.

And what appeared was this wounded T-Rex.

40 Harry's ... Deadlines and the Creative Process in a World Without Time … SRO#308-347

If time is fake, then deadlines must be also. Right?

And yet. Tell that to an editor.

Smooth Ray was on deadline the other day. Nothing taco-related, sadly. But as time appeared to whittle away, the studio beckoned.

Deadlines produce work, but not always the work we expect.

The studio’s call cannot be ignored, and the result was this small lino cut: 40 Harry’s. Or Harries. Harrys.

It is #afterMiro, with coloring in watercolor.

Eventually, the original (deadline) work was completed as well. The illusion of scarcity and urgency were satisfied. The lines were read, the part played.

Why is the figure named Harry? There is no reason.

A couple of these prints will go into the shop, including 1 for free.

Illustrating Pain ... a Sunday Gone Wrong ... Meditation and Vodka

Smooth Ray was having a normal Sunday recently, until it wasn’t.

Funny how time appears to pass like that — bifurcated into Before and After around a never-ending stream of events, most of which we don’t notice.

Some moments, however, are impossible to miss. I’d been shopping for groceries. It was taco night, naturally …

Outside in the parking lot, I put the groceries in the car, closed the door and the world shifted.

There was a moment. Before, it was a good day. After, different.

I’d closed the car door on my finger. How? Who can say. I’ve closed a car door thousands of times without injuring myself.

The universe shifted, the order of operations changed, the door closed and the finger remained.

At first, there was just space … The pain was barely noticed. No sound.

For a moment, as if watching a movie, I could still see the frame of a good day. The injury seemed so small.

In fact the injury was small — just the very end of my index finger. Yet the pain seemed to grow as the day progressed.

It was disorienting to feel so much pain around such a small wound.

I tried meditating. I listened to a wonderful talk on opening up to pain. Thirty seconds in: “Of course, if you slam your hand in a car door, the opportunity to be able to open around that and investigate is going to be very slight, if at all — unless you have worked some with your minor headaches.”

I laughed deliriously. Point taken.

Eventually, the pain seemed more like this ….

At times, the pain filled the entire frame.

Wish that I could say eventually Smooth Ray found his meditation groove and fell asleep with the pain hovering above like a blanket. However, it was meditation and vodka, truth be told. Eventually I fell asleep and woke up to …

An entirely different pain. Diffuse. Manageable. Present but not persistent.

The finger is healing, but the experience leaves a memory.

So much pain. Such a small wound.

How did it happen? And what can be learned?

There was a moment where I observed my body reacting to the pain while my attention focused elsewhere.

Maybe somewhere in there is the difference between pain and suffering.

A Smooth Ray Summer: Tacos, Paddleboarding and Home-Grown Cannabis

Eponymously named for Smooth Ray’s feline buddy, of course.

Hey folks! It’s been a while!

Smooth Ray didn’t spend too many days in the art studio over the summer. Most of the time was spent eating tacos, growing weed and paddleboarding on Cayuga Lake.

It was an excellent summer. And, as we transition into cooler weather the studio is calling again. What will bubble up? Only one way to find out!

But about that weed.

New York recently legalized cannabis, allowing people to grow their own and (eventually) setting the stage for recreational dispensaries. It will be fascinating to watch a legal market develop, and already prices seem to be coming down in the gray market.

So in the spirit of home brew/grow projects everywhere, Smooth Ray presents: Gonzo Bud. The tag line may be “It’s Hector’s finest,” but the truth is this is pretty wispy, average bud. And, there are definitely better growers out there in the Finger Lakes National Forest region. That said, Gonzo Bud is a hybrid strain called White Widow, which is easy to grow outdoors and with a nice uplifting effect.

To be clear: Gonzo Bud is not for sale. But if you live in the Ithaca/T’burg area and are interested in trades, hit me up! I’d love to connect with others also growing their own plant-based medicines.

Frustratingly, federal legalization is still some ways off, but progress is being made — in particular and vitally, to address the social justice issues to which criminalization of this lovely plant has contributed.

Gonzo is also a big fan of cannabis, though he mostly likes to eat the leaves.

SRO #266-307 ... Spring, Salad Tacos & the Trumansburg Farmers Market

SRO #300 is in the shop!

There are many wonderful things that arrive with spring and high on the list is fresh produce from the local farmers’ market.

Today is actually the second week of the Trumansburg Farmers’ Market season, but true to form the first week was gray and rainy and chilly.

So for this second — bright, warm, breezy, blue-skied — day at the market, Smooth Ray is rolling out a new set of You Are Love prints. And if you don’t find one at the market today then #300 is FREE IN THE SHOP.

With free worldwide delivery, that’s really not a bad deal.

Spring is here. Summer, soon. Eat your veggies—preferably in a taco.

Salad tacos (not the be confused with taco salads) are most definitely a thing, and may show up on the menu when Smooth Ray’s seaside taco shack in the Finger Lakes finally opens.

SRO #236-265 ... Whatever You See, That's What It Is … on Tacos & Inertia

Rincon, Puerto Rico.

Hello, Beautiful World.

It’s been a minute since the last Smooth Ray post. I spent some time on the west coast of Puerto Rico, holed up with in a seaside hotel with a Muse. We drank cheap Medalla beers and ate tacos, stared at the water and pondered the mysteries.

Call it product research. One day, Trumansburg will have the only seaside taco shack in New York’s Finger Lakes.

Back home though, it was tough to get back into the studio. Habit and inertia are powerful things — much like ocean rip tides, which are particularly strong around storms. People basically work the same. You get used to the blank page, you learn not to be afraid. But if you fall out of the habit, old fears come back.

Yesterday I painted for the first time in a couple of weeks. It felt familiar.

So, to announce his return to the artistic ring, Smooth Ray is releasing a new print!

Title: Whatever You See, That’s What It Is
#236-265
Size: 3x4” print on canvas of varying size
Date: 2022
Medium: Relief printing, water-based ink, watercolors on 140-pound cold pressed paper.

The print’s spiritual origin is in an Alexander Calder sculpture, which I roughly copied in watercolors and then carved into linoleum. The end result is … whatever you see.

These will be going out next week to Little Free Art Galleries and individuals who have signed up for the Smooth Ray mailing list, and will be left around town in T’burg for discovery.

There are a few in the shop, also—and one is free, as always! Ordering it should not require you to put in any payment information. We all need some free art, once in a while.

Free Little Art Galleries ... and Other Grand Things in the World (like tacos)

Free Little Art Galleries (FLAG) are popping up everywhere, and Smooth Ray LOVES them. They are a recognition of the joy in art, and a call to make it more accessible and ubiquitous. These galleries, often in front yards and on residential streets, invite passerby to pause, to consider, and possibly to take some art with them.

You know how Smooth Ray feels about free art: There’s almost always something free in the shop. And last week, Smooth Ray Originals started popping up in FLAGs around the country! It’s a rewarding way to share work and connect with other artists.

And so to help artists connect with these galleries, Smooth Ray is publishing a directory of Free Little Art Galleries that accept mailed submissions.

Gallery owners! If you would like to have your gallery included, please send in your information using the contact form. Include your address, instagram account if you have one, and any gallery guidelines.

Artists! Please share the list, and encourage FLAG’s to be included.

SRO #234-235 ... Ebay inspiration ... #AfterMiro ... Free Art

Because blockchain has yet to solve the Taco Delivery Problem, when Smooth Ray is in need of a little retail therapy he often turns to Art.

(PSA: If YOU need a little art therapy, check out the Smooth Ray shop because whenever new work goes up some of it is always completely free — including free shipping! Sometimes, you just need some free art).

Free art … which brings us to ebay. Smooth Ray was browsing one evening and came across this interesting looking print by Joan Miro …

Smooth Ray most definitely can not afford this …

However, with a starting bid around $9,700 … definitely not free. And Smooth Ray does not have stacks of cash lying around. … But there is all this paint, and hence a pair of new Smooth Ray Originals were manifested!

Both of these will be n the Smooth Ray shop for the low, low price of $0. Not sure how that translates into euros or pesos, but it can’t be that bad with free shipping.

One month until Spring.
Be gentle with yourselves.
These late winter days,
can be tricky.

SRO#198-209 ... Be Still And The Universe Will Unfold

Love the smear of magenta in some of these.

In the shop!

It’s been a week of prints and ponderings, multiples and musings … inquiry and etchings?

Alliteration aside, Smooth Ray is very grateful to those who took the time to read, comment, share, consider, and support the work. All of these phrases are related to the study of non-dualism and a growing understanding of our world as far more interconnected than it may appear.

“Far more interconnected” is simple, but misses the point: There is no separation, no multiple things or people to connect or be connected. All of life is one wholeness.

However, fundamental truths of an infinite universe interact with the limited world in strange ways. “Truth Has No Meaning” is absolutely true, though it wont help you on a math test. “This moment is perfect” is absolutely true, even as it includes illness and pain and sadness.

What to make of all this?

Nothing, really.

Can you hold these truths close, and still get lost in the grocery store? Go about your daily life of routine interactions, remaining aware that in fact your very existence is one of infinite Love?

Softness. It takes a certain softness, openness, spaciousness, to consider that joy and tears may not be different.

In the midst of a meditation, these words appeared: “Be Still, and the Universe Will Unfold.”

Hold soft, and keep going.

Stillness, like the center of a wheel.
Motion without movement.

Fully engaged, intimately close.
Watching.

Title: Be Still and The Universe Will Unfold
#198-209
Size: 4x4” print on canvas of varying size
Date: 2022
Medium: Relief printing, water-based ink on 140-pound cold pressed paper.

SRO #206 & #208 are in the shop, and one is FREE!

SRO#222-233 ... Truth Has No Meaning

When it comes to what is true — absolutely true — it isn’t much. So it’s best not to take “Truth Has No Meaning” as a nihilistic statement. They key is in the word “meaning.”

Smooth Ray isn’t much on dictionary definitions, but in this case it’s helpful: “Intended to communicate something that is not directly expressed.”

“Meaning” implies division, separateness, not one-ness. More than one. If something “means” something, then it implies or indicates something else. That’s all fine and well for the relative world, but Smooth Ray enjoys pondering the nature of the infinite universe (and tacos).

That which is absolutely true points to no thing. It implies nothing else, because there can’t be anything else. At the most fundamental level, the only truth is the indivisible nature of the universe. There is no meaning because there is no thing to mean.

Title: Truth Has No Meaning
#222-233
Size: 4x4” print on canvas of varying size
Date: 2022
Medium: Relief printing, water-based ink on 140-pound cold pressed paper

SRO #223 & #227 are in the shop, and one is free!

SRO#210-221 ... This Moment Is Perfect -- Just Like Tacos

Smooth Ray has a theory about tacos: They are all perfect. Breakfast tacos, black bean tacos, fish, cochinita pibil, barbacoa, shrimp, nopales, al pastor, birria … perfect, perfect, perfect.

You know what else is perfect? This moment.

This moment must be perfect, because it can only exist exactly as it is.

The idea that we can “change” a moment is a misunderstanding, because once a thought arises about the moment — that it is good, bad, pleasurable or undesirable — that moment has already passed.

It is impossible to think about the present moment. You can only Be, in the moment. Thought arises in the present moment, but that thought is always concerned with either the past or future.

The present moment — this moment you are experiencing now — is real. All else is imagination.

And if something cannot exist other than how it does — which is every thing and every one — that is perfect.

None of this is to say that We cannot work for change, to help those around us, and to improve situations and systems. All that work is made possible and more effective, by fully inhabiting the present moment.

Acknowledging the perfection of the present moment doesn’t imply that every moment is fun or that all action is right. It is instead an invitation to stop arguing with reality.

As for tacos. A little extra lime makes a big difference.
Be grateful for extra lime. In whatever form it manifests.

Title: This moment is perfect.
#210-221
Size: 4x4” print on canvas of varying size
Date: 2022
Medium: Relief printing, water-based ink on 140-pound cold pressed paper

SRO #220 & #221 are in the shop, and one is free!

SRO#186-197 ... You Will Die

The phone rang one evening, and it was Smooth Ray's lawyer.

"I've got some good news. But you're not going to think it's good news," the lawyer said.

The lawyer was half right, but that's a story for another time. Here's the news today: "YOU WILL DIE."

Is that good news? Bad news? No news at all?

If you think it’s Bad, then you may be focused on the “DIE” part. Smooth Ray prefers to focus on the “YOU.”

“You Will Die” is a reminder that all form is temporary. Our time is limited, and this knowledge is an invitation to engage directly and intimately with that which is most precious and immediate.

“You Will Die” also invites another question: Who is the You that dies?

All form is temporary, but consider that what you are — essentially — is beyond form and exists prior to experience.

You Will Die.
And, You were never born.

Title: YOU WILL DIE
#186-197
Size: 4x4” print on canvas of varying size
Date: 2022
Medium: Relief printing, water-based ink on 140-pound cold pressed paper

SRO #193 and #195 are in the Smooth Ray shop, and as always one is absolutely free. Everyone needs some free art.

SRO #150-185 ... You Are Love

Smooth Ray has been doing a lot of printing lately, and experimenting with new colors and tones. Really digging this latest run.

There are three in the shop — including, as always, one for free. With free worldwide shipping, that’s not a bad deal!

Title: YOU ARE LOVE
#150-185
Size: 4x4” print on canvas of varying size
Date: 2022
Medium: Relief printing, water-based ink on 140-pound cold pressed paper

Note: Love is what you ARE, fundamentally: energy, light, peace, happiness, joy. Love.

Love isn't something you need to find. You aren't lacking in it. You ARE it.

The experience of love is the experience of feeling connection rather than separation. When we love and feel loved, whether by a friend or parent or romantic partner, there is a sense of unity, of connection, and feelings of loneliness fade.

The thing is, this sense of separation that we all walk around with is an illusion. We are not separate. And seeing that clearly — knowing the true nature of our connectedness, of our being — that is the same experience as love.

Curious to know more about the origin of these three words?

SRO #173, #176 and #177 are in the Smooth Ray store!

January Tacos & The Cosmos ... SRO #126-150

If you often dream of seaside taco shacks, winter can be tough. When the temperatures drop down below freezing, Smooth Ray starts thinking of places like Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, Rincon, Culebra and Oaxaca.

Only 153 days until summer. In the meantime, January Tacos abound.

There’s something about a good taco that implies warmer weather and simpler days. It’s a four-bite exercise in hope.

So what is a “January Taco?” It’s whatever keeps you going — in January or whenever; taco or not. A January Taco is a reminder to the soul that experience is impermanent.

And speaking of impermanent …

We had a snowstorm over the weekend, with multiple gray days and temperatures hovering around zero. When the thick clouds finally passed, night skies opened to a view which reflected the infinite.

We are only here for a moment. Enjoy it. Play.
Even in cold weather.

Smooth Ray is a big fan of print multiples — be they photographs, lithographs, intaglios, stencils, what have you … There is something about the repetition and individuality of each print that reflects deeper truths.

This series of small prints, The Cosmos, was inspired by snowstorms and January tacos, frozen pipes and Caribbean dreams. Sometimes, you want to be anywhere else. Other times, you see clearly that there is nowhere else to be.

SRO #126-150
The Cosmos
2x4”
linoleum block print + gouache & watercolor

#147, #127 and #129 are in the Smooth Ray shop and — as always — one is FREE. With free worldwide shipping, that’s not a bad deal!

Stay warm out there, and find you some January Tacos.

Smooth Ray Shares a Family Recipe … SRO #121-125

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It’s the holiday season, and that means food. So Smooth Ray is sharing an old family recipe. A couple of copies are available in the shop, including as always one for free.

When it comes to cooking — and so many other things — fewer and better quality ingredients is typically the way to go.

SRO #121
Smooth Ray family recipe
mixed media
status: For sale in the shop

SRO #122
Smooth Ray family recipe
mixed media
status: Launched into space

SRO #123
Smooth Ray family recipe
mixed media
status: In private collection

SRO #124
Smooth Ray family recipe
mixed media
status: In private collection

SRO #125
Smooth Ray family recipe
mixed media
status: Launched into space (Watkins Glen, NY) via the USPS.

9 Bars: Smooth Ray Paints Charleston, S.C. ... sort of ... New Auction Record, Holiday Sales and More!

Hey folks, it’s been a minute. … Smooth Ray has been painting imaginary bars for the last couple of weeks.

After the trip to Charleston, S.C., Smooth Ray was looking for something to paint and used a photograph from the trip — of a wonderful old sign for a furniture store — as the basis for a series of paintings. Reminiscent of classic cocktail lounge signs in San Francisco, details and focus shift between iterations before finally settling into a bar that looks welcoming.

“I’d drink in that bar,” said Smooth Ray. And thus ended the series.

Four from the series are in the Smooth Ray shop, and as always ONE OF THEM IS FREE. … With free world wide shipping, that’s not a bad deal.

In other news…

**A new auction record was set, with the sale of Smooth Ray Original #091 on Nov. 16! For now, it’s an affordable way to own a miniature masterpiece — but prices are rising! Check the sidebar for active auctions.

**Location scouting for the taco stand continues. It’s difficult to find beachfront property in Trumansburg, and creative solutions may be needed.

**There are multiple pieces available in the Smooth Ray shop — for FREE. Art is essential, so please avail yourself. No payment info is necessary. Retail therapy with a $0 price tag? Awesome.

**If you’re looking for holiday gifts, consider art! There are also zines, stickers, postcard and more … The Smooth Ray shop always ships free!

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