Finding the Green Man

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​FINDING THE GREEN MAN

The Green Man is a self-portrait of my father from the early 1960s. Waxy green complexion against a red background, boxy black eye glass frames, that bleak, beady stare and thin, asymmetrical mouth. Good old Dad. As I child I considered it a good likeness; he did turn green when he was angry, maybe not that green, but it could happen.

Later it was a cool painting. One I hung with pride in dorm rooms and shared apartments. That’s my Dad, I would say and my roommates would shrug.

Now I see other things in that mottled green face. Isolation. Distance. Fear. Otherness. Stubborn resilience. Some pretty fierce eyebrows. My same square jaw.
 
My father was a chameleon. Or so I imagined as a child. Mild mannered public school art teacher by day, reclusive artist by night—a creative superhero. Despite a seeming disinterest in any kind of public recognition or acknowledgement, he painted and sculpted, he made things. He never talked about it, or much else. So far as I know, he never asked or cared what anyone thought. Nor did he ever stop making art. It was magic. Enduring magic.

The Green Man has become psychic shorthand for a lot of things, the endurance of the creative spirit, the quest for meaning and purpose, timelessness and universality through story and art. Finding the Green Man is a place for diverse and sundry posts about the creative impulse and process, its ebb and flow, fits and starts, also butter cookies, quality caramels and the occasional rant.
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“This tremendous world I have inside of me. How to free myself, and this world, without tearing myself to pieces. And rather tear myself to a thousand pieces than be buried with this world within me.” 
- Franz Kafka, Diaries of Franz Kafka

 

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​Mild mannered public school art teacher by day, reclusive artist by night—a creative SUPERHERO

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