Eternal, by Lynda Pogue. This painting has gold mica flowing through the vein in the middle. My heart of gold. by Lynda Pogue

How does the musical art world relate to the visual art world?
It can be galvanizing to reflect upon how one artistic journey parallels and influences another. This article will explore how Neil Young’s wisdom bridges these two artistic universes. It’s about breaking rules. It’s about navigating your own currents. It’s about mining and searching for your heart of gold. All the italics are Neil Young’s words.

I want to live,

I want to give

I've been a miner

for a heart of gold.

It's these expressions

I never give

That keep me searching

for a heart of gold

…
I've been in my mind,

it's such a fine line

That keeps me searching

for a heart of gold

Neil Young was born in Toronto, Canada 62 years ago and has lived in America for most of his life. He’s famous for continually evolving… his hauntingly authentic voice is heard as a singer/songwriter/musician/filmmaker. He’s relentless in pushing himself to discover new ways to develop and utilize his raw talents. As with many artists he’s driven, idiosyncratic, focused, and defiant when it comes to standing up for what he believes. A dreamer of pictures / I run in the night.

Last year, Mark Kermode (an interviewer from the BBC) flew from London to New York to interview Mr. Young. He surprised himself because he had never been a fan of the legendary star… and that all changed. As soon as he listened to and watched Jonathan Demme’s concert movie “Heart of Gold” Kermode said, “It was like a light went on in my head. I could hear this beautiful melancholic music and I burst into tears. I was converted.” Kermode gets full points for being open enough to reformulate his opinion and gain incredible new insights. He grew.

Your own personal adulation of or conversion to Neil Young’s music might be revealed in the emotional train wreck you’ll experience if you click on YouTube: Neil Young Interview-BBC2 and then continue your journey as you move through the video clips of his early music. You’ll notice how profoundly and deeply he feels and reacts to everything around him. He becomes part of the surrounding environment as he responds like a tuning fork. He listens with his penetrating eyes.

It’s both Kermode’s and Young’s willingness to break through straightline thinking that those of us involved with art/ideas must grasp. It’s worrisome when invisible blinders go on and reveal that an artist (or anyone else) has such a narrow focus that either they cannot embrace a new way of looking at something old… or literally hide his or her head inside an old dream. How “down” is that? Where’s the growth? Where’s the spark of revelation?

He hides his head

inside a dream

Someone should call him

and see if he can come out.

Try to lose

the down that he's found.

The famous/infamous Dennis Hopper is Neil’s friend and one of his biggest fans. He says that every time Neil Young goes on the stage “It’s like watching Picasso doing a series of paintings.” This statement from the enigmatic Hopper is brilliant and this idea of actually seeing paintings/colors/textures/images when you hear Young’s music is mind-blowing. Consider the converse… you can hear a painting. This concept sends collective shivers up the spine of artists. What a glorious way to view/experience art… by listening to it. There’s probably a piece of art somewhere close to you right now. Can you hear it?

“Trusting” by Lynda Pogue. Now, when I see how I picked the colors from the air I can actually hear this painting and the story about how much these two have come to trust each other. The painter stood

Before her work

She looked around every where

She saw the pictures and she painted them

She picked the colors from the air

Green to green

Red to red

Yellow to yellow

In the light

Black to black

When the evening comes

Blue to blue

In the night

It's a long road 
Behind me

It's a long road 
Ahead

In Toronto, Jana Lynn White interviewed Young while he was on his CSNY2K Tour (2000). During their conversation Neil gave the viewers another astonishing insight that has the potential to deeply affect artists. (Again… this applies to anyone who’s paying attention.). There was a discussion about the plethora of songs that Neil had recently written.

There were way too many songs about the same thing… it got overweight… and wasn’t able to reach it’s potential because it was so heavy…so I gave some away… created some space… it was one of the most beautiful Zen things that ever happened…
[The songs] now have a lightness and a delicacy that had been drowned out by the others…old songs suddenly have new meaning.

This is delicious advice. The purity of this idea is poetry. Giving things away to simply create more space.  More space in your mind. More space in your studio. More space for inventory. More space on your website. Clean air. More space. For an artist this often equates with donating a piece of art to an institution (possibly for fundraising purposes) and consequently gets his/her name out there. However the Zen thing doesn’t apply to this notion. While donating art is an important thing for artists to periodically do for others, it’s not the same as unreservedly giving something away with the only payback being the freeing of space. I've got the love art blues/ Don't know which one to choose. The pieces of art with the most quality can rise to the surface because you can see them clearly again. Unobstructed. Old songs suddenly have new meaning.

Let’s consider one more concept that Mr. Young explored with Ms. White that reveals another parallel between the musical and visual arts worlds.

Caramel Haze, by Lynda Pogue. I’m mad about this painting because the energy it took to create it flowed at such a fastfast pace. I keep getting out of the way of it. The best ones come out fast because it’s a

natural thing and I keep getting out of the

way of it… I don’t want to control it for my

own gain or do some manipulative thing to it.

I try not to judge it but let it just come

through…I can’t really explain… it’s hard

to detail poetry and explain why… it’s got

an individual thing going and it’s not trying to

be anything other than what it’s doing.

Hundreds of thousands of people have made the pilgrimage to Neil Young for his music or his films and know they can count on one thing: he has always always always stayed true to himself …always. We have to do linear things that have nothing to do with music… so when I go back to it it’s like jumping in cool water. Researching Neil Young has renewed my personal commitment to the integrity of my own work. It’s good to be around someone with screamingly passionate beliefs.

The lyrics for this article were quoted from:

Heart of Gold
Love Art Blues
Only Love Can Break Your Heart
The Painter