By Don Quiett

Decades have passed since this book’s inception.  But, I’ve lived long enough, a last chapter yelled out for me to pen, in this struggling with art and life. So did I learn what’s up? Writing not being a strong point, we may never know. Fifty, sixty years ago, don’t hold me to the timing, memories fade and resurface at will for the octogenarian, don’t you know. Anyway, I read Gauguin’s title, saw painting too(!), ‘Where’d I came from? Who am I? Where am I going?’ They’re paraphrased (ie I changed his ‘we’ to ‘I’), my French being non-existent, and I like my translation better. I’m like that. Struck me not to waste time on questions 1 or 3. Hell, no way to elicit where I’m going until dead, just feel it’s a continuum. Matter’s neither created nor destroyed, only changes form - physics and all. Besides, I don’t know anyone recently passing and miraculously returning to proffer such a tale. Where I came from, it can only be from those rowing with the same oars as the dead.  Neither place I’ve been, nor remember, then can shed no light. Leaves me with ‘Who am I?’, as a task to answer, mimicking an Everest ascent.  Makes sense for earth people. So, where’s my painting come in, you keep pressing, as way of enlightenment to this question? I have no idea!!

But, painting was a trail to traverse for me in this quest - who am I (we)? Don Quixote like? Probably. I got paints, when I was young, by digging in garbage for empty pop bottles, which could be returned for the 2¢ or 5¢ return deposit. My savings rose slowly.

Mom said, “You gotta see the world as it is!” My response, “Why?” We lived in a slum, but an ‘upper class’ one I was told. Then she added, things like, “Horses don’t have rainbow colored legs!” “Mine do,” my response. Clearly I was a dreamer from youth. And I was so happy decades later when I met Don Quixote.

Dad asked, “Why do you have to paint?” I immediately shot back - “Why do you have to breathe?” Some famous artist, who I’m not sure of and plead halfzimes on that, said the same thing decades or centuries before me. Damn, not original. Ms. Dutney in grade school taught me how to spell damn correctly after absconding a note I’d passed, spelling it dam. No stupid kids were going to leave her class. It seemed I was in good company, art-wise though

So, ‘Who am I?’ I’ll have to re-read the beginning of this progressing opus to see how this book started. But for now, I’m a simple man with simple pleasures basking in nature, the world, I’ve been privileged to experience. Inhabit. That’s what art has given me. All should paint I preach, not for gallery walls or profit, but, like cavemen before us, for our living room walls. To be shared, exchanged, interacted with. For when a painting is completed, the painter becomes a viewer too. What’s the work telling us, the product of hand directed by the conscious, as well as, the unconscious mind? And before blasting me with calls of bull crap, I don’t comprehend what’s meant either. It just happens.

Now, where are we? In other words, ‘Who am I?’ In this world, universe, galaxy, as minuscule as I am compared to it’s immensity? Like the Zen guy said, “What do I look like to you, if you shrink down on a grain of sand so you are the same proportion to it as you are presently to the earth?” Huh? Answer, the stars! Kind of get it, but mostly it says to me we’re empty space, chiefly. That’s what I try to paint in finding me or ‘Who am I?’ Yes, an impossible task, my thought exactly.

Seventy-seven years ago, kidding, let’s see, I was 7 or 8 when life started dawning on me, so let’s say 72 years ago, realism was my dream. In reality, my small mind only fancied to fathom whether or not I could do it.

The effort grasped too many of my years, but I did it, except for the perspective thing. I was off kilter for some reason. Still am in art and life. It’s my talisman, yet not a burden, I think. Needless to say I copied a lot of works to begin with. Didn’t abet my self-discovery anyway regarding ‘Who am I?’ Only made me appreciate what or who I painted. However, nothing here contributed to uncovering ‘Who am I?’, so my next quest was to paint my dreams. That was realism again I found, but fake, thus, abjuring nothing. I remained a dunce on dream meaning. Ms. Dutney would be disappointed

Then something weird happened. I was painting a landscape and then bop. Suddenly, brief flashes of color surrounded what I was looking at. Disappeared, appeared, disappeared, appeared, you get the idea. My first thought was to lay off the booze, but then I remembered I wasn’t drinking at that time. I was on the straight and narrow. Withdrawals? No! More eerie, uncanny, was the fact the landscape I was looking at changed as I stared at its volume. Scared the bejesus out of me.

Why not I said, “Paint it.” I talk to myself a lot, tell others I’m conversing with the ‘Powers That Be.’ Paint what you see they say, so I did. This was what I called the crack in the world period.

My mother always said I was on the wrong side of the crack. Not being a psychiatrist, my only explanation was that my conscious brain being intensely occupied allowed my unconscious brain to push it aside to communicate. Sounds like shrink crap, but all that I know is — I felt a sense of wellbeing or something akin. It was like I knew but I didn’t know what I knew. And that was an unknowable truth of some kind. Before my pretzelized brain exploded, I decided to paint the abstracts I visualized around my reality target. This was a happy time though.

Best I can say for abstracts — they’re fun. Playing with color, texture and all, in an expression way, let something out of me. My ghosts? Who knows, but it was cathartic. To the point, so far, I cognitively appreciated life around me more and dreams were a language that escaped me. Mystifying dribble was spouting from a let-loose-brain in an alien language, was my notion. I ‘learned’ stuff, yet I didn’t know what, however I seemed happier, unburdened and got rid of ghosts. As you see painting, so far, has left unanswered - ‘Who am I?’

The next natural step seemed to be to fuse realism and abstraction. Disaster. Can’t force something that’s not you. So, I stopped breathing. One year, could have been five years, but the next decades I took on the task again to use the real world with the artzy-fartzy world. Yes, my though exactly. Can’t. To this end, my texture was created with dirt, sand, leaves, seashells, straw, you get it., anything in the real world. Combine with paint, the paintings were becoming me.

Plus my mind was pushed aside easier and insight to life bloomed, I never asked how, I just accepted these with open arms. Ask people from my ancient times, they swear I’m my evil twin’s good half. Seemed right, I changed my name. We wander. Focus - ‘Who am I’?

Through this painting time warp I became happy with mental peace, caring, thoughtful, understanding, mellower, interacted with people. Was this ‘Who I am?’ No, it’s what I am, a far cry from any ‘who’. Besides, everyone says I’m only that way because of the fantastic woman in my life these past 40 years. To repeat, it’s been my contention, for half a century, wow 1/2 a century, that all should paint. It is a religious act, if done in the right vain. Personal exploration not profit. I’ve found recently, many medical studies agree. For one example, painting projects for Californian prisoners. Participants markedly improved. Nothing to do with ‘Who am I?’, but thought I’d pass it on.

Where was I, that’s not a new art question, I’m thinking to myself on paper. Oh, can the act of painting, (note — the act is the quest or adventure not the painted product, and is the good thing), truly stop evil intent? Like change big business ways that presently enhance economic disparity or stop wars so the innocent are not forced to fight to gain power and money for the already wealthy or making money not be the gauge of successful life. And con jobs, hate, cheating, stealing, murder and the like will all fade into history. Doubt it. I’m not naive. But, I am hopeful with my personal outcome as an example. So, why not all paint! My hero said, “Ask for your limits and they’re yours.” Why not a constitutional amendment — All Must Paint! Aaagh, I fantasize again But, just to let you know, I recognize bad’s presence, and am not Pollyanna in the flesh. Just a dreamer. Is that my answer to ‘Who am I?’ Don Quixote incarnate? Is that possible — the fictitious person becoming a real reincarnation? We digress again. Back to art.

My hands were becoming more arthritic, so, I moved to, what I invited, Paphoism. (Probably I didn’t). An amalgamation of painting and photography. Mainly, I could barely hold a brush so photos were fused and twisted into abstract renderings, supplying realism I could no longer paint. All the realism though was about 1/3 photo and 2/3 painting, expanding the photo. Thus, Pa(inting)pho(tography)ism. Said I was getting old. Hell, I am old! Older than my years.  Hard life.

When my hands gave out completely for bush work, I rejected Renoir’s, brush taped to the back of his hands, scenario. Why? Move on Renoir, I thought. Enters my Blob paintings. I mixed paint in jars and poured it, scumpled it, scrambled it, splashed it, rolled it, layered it whatever. Learned to control it. Not easy. But, when I saw a happy accident I worked to duplicate it. Well honestly, I controlled about 80% of what is seen. God’s responsibility was the other 20%. Any screw-ups were His. I knew what it should of looked like. He had some good suggestions, I admit.

First, were just pure abstracts. Then I advanced to thicker blobbed on paint. My Blob Period. I find with old age and a tortured brain I have hassles capturing the right words. Anyway, these Blobs were sculpted with added finishing touches of blobs later blended into the work. Thus, a weird realism evolved. This started to occupy all my mind, so much so that I felt I WAS the painting, even more so than in early life. Or at least that stray bullet blossomed in my head. Stupid statement, one without meaning, but feelings are funny. Insight vacuum, yet it hung around. ‘Who am I’? still obtuse.

God created heaven and earth perfectly, it is written, but then he put us in it. Humans. Say what you will, the experiment hasn’t gone well. War, climate change and with few ‘love people’ being non-hypocritical. Just the iceberg’s tip examples, to not waste time and ink. Precious items of the elderly —time, ink. But ‘Who am I?’ Remains truant here.

One of my favorite paintings is by Goya where two men are clubbing each other to death standing in quicksand. Both will die needlessly without the clubbing. That’s humanity today. Look around! These Blob paintings I’m concocting at this stage of my life are in this vain  These paintings are part of a graphic novel series. Fine art and graphic art are employed, in a fetal way, along with a story related to issues like climate change, tyranny. They try to show our dilemma, quicksand. Is this ‘Who am I?’ Seems vague at best, but the search goes on.

Do these paintings have a goal? If do, it’s to paint our gift’s beauty with a crack in this beauty caused by humans. A crack that need not exist and thus we could live in the beauty provided. Humanity, then, would not be simply a sentimental idea. But, where am I? Who knows? The question —‘Who am I?’ — still must shrug my shoulders. All I can say about my Blob paintings, the point of this section, is that they are to be pondered, stepped into, walked around in and then see how, as my hero Don Quixote, says — “You can see how the world should be! Not how it is, which is insane.” Thus, which path, quest, do we take? The choice is yours.  I Paint it!

So, ‘Who am I?’ - nothing! But in the greatest Zen sense: Nothing, but yet all. The sound of one hand clapping. I am my encounters, senses, people interactions, — FREE — that ’s all. I strive to live Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s charge to respect the ‘Will to Live of All, with a Reverence for Life.’ Of all humans, plants, animals, earth. That’s me, we.

If I’m fortunate enough to be around 10 years, I’ll add another last ‘Last Chapter’ to this Book to see ‘Who am I?’ then. Or will I be answering the third question — ‘Where am I going?’ That should be a pip of a quest and I’ll be sure to fill you in on it. Look forward to it, but not too soon, still have more blobs in me and learning ‘Who am I?’ I’m really quite young. Heart and mind anyway, my body sucks.

Don Quiett, Artist

As a child, Don Quiett learned to paint in a closet underneath his stairs, hidden away so his parents wouldn’t find him. He has had one-man exhibitions in Winston-Salem (1977) and Raleigh (1995), a show of collaborative works with his daughter, also a professional artist (2014), and had paintings accepted in juried shows in Pittsburgh (1973), Chicago (1979), and Boston (1983), among others. Don took studio art courses at the University of Pittsburgh, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and studied extensively with Professor Gary Cook at Wake Forest University in the late 1970s. Don created a community arts project in the 1980s in which he taught the elderly to paint, and evaluated its effect on their blood pressure, mental facilities and general well-being.  One hundred and fifty people participated, and their art was exhibited in a show sponsored by the Arts Council of Winston Salem. Don retired from a long academic career in the 1990s to devote himself full-time to painting.

Exhibitions & Awards

2014 Sertoma Arts Center, Raleigh

2012 Wake Med Hall

2010 Two Covers for Published Books

1996 Winston Salem

1993 Pittsburgh

1983 Boston

1979 Chicago

1973 Pittsburgh

For Commissions

See "Cari Corbett Photography"