The Moment Almost Always Comes as a Surprise

There are times when you happen upon a scene that makes you pause. Life reaches out, connects dots in your experience and catapults you to a new level of awareness and insight.

DOG WATCH - A Siberian Husky & Portuguese Water Dog wait for their master in the shade of a tree growing from a colorless hardscape. This is the first image in my series of MOMENTS photographs.

DOG WATCH

On my way into the village, I took a shortcut along a tree-lined walkway and came upon a white Siberian Husky & black Portuguese Water Dog. Their body language communicated contradictions: calm and excitement, confidence and wariness, coiled energy and straight-forward in-the-moment ease. As striking as the Husky and Water Dog were, however, the setting in which they waited seemed somehow unreal. I reached for my camera and attempted to capture this balance of opposites.

The walk and wall were lifeless, colorless cement; the only life was the tree with brilliant green foliage and the two dogs waiting in its shade. This Trompe-l‘oeil-like scene was both an optical illusion and an authentic moment. 

DOG WATCH is available as a collectible archival print at Mark Roger Bailey | Art with options for professional mounting, matting and hardwood framing.

More MOMENTS to follow …

Art Clarifies

Today marks Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere when the north pole is farthest from the Sun. Because of this, we will experience the shortest period of daylight with the Sun at its lowest daily maximum elevation in the sky, and tonight will be the longest night of the year. But tomorrow, the dawn will come a bit earlier and sunset just a bit later. We will enjoy more daylight hours.

We sense these shifts in the laws of our environment. Emotions rise and can surprise us. Often, we are unable to communicate what we’re feeling. How we experience change, be it seasonal, personal, physical, interpersonal, financial, economic, or safety, and react to that change is highly subjective.  Then there are the moments of discovery that suddenly reset our relationship to the world. Often, encounters with change guide us to deeper truths. Even these happy experiences are challenging to process and express. How do we express something for which we lack words? How do we share the way these profound effects inspire us?  

Art.  

Art clarifies, communicates, and inspires in ways that words cannot. Art has the potential to help us connect with others. Art empowers us.  

I have just launched a series of artworks that I have been actively working on completing for three years: The Art of Sail | WINDJAMMERS.  I invite you to visit Mark Roger Bailey Photography.com to see the first six pieces in the collection.

In WINDJAMMERS, I am pursuing a practical idealism that weds technical skill, a seasoned nautical sensibility, and a lyrical expression of often opposing ideas -- strength and vulnerability, sinew and iron, loneliness and the company of Nature’s outsiders. I seek precision in a frame’s subject – accuracy and detail that invites the viewer to lean in and study it. For me, when I accomplish some dimensional aspect of Nature, I glimpse something authentic and timeless. In this way, I discover, learn, and develop meaningful connections with our world and myself. 

From my earliest memory as a boy on a gravel beach at Lake Champlain when I saw my first square-rigged tall ship beating north through high winds, I was inspired by the spectacle of wind, generally, and wind-powered boating specifically. From the sailing canoe to a massive three-masted ship, humankind had long ago devised ways to move all manner of vessels over water – quietly, predictably, sometimes fast, sometimes slow and steady. I was fascinated by the mystery of how sailors mastered invisible currents of air to motivate a massive hull and its cargo through dense water. How is it possible that a 150-pound person can withstand 30 to 50-knot winds, while a 325-ton vessel – the average tonnage of a mid-19th century whaler – could master light 10-knot winds and traverse thousands of miles of oceans? 

There it was, a bluewater tall ship on Lake Champlain! THAT five-sensory experience jarred my circuits, penetrated my consciousness and subconscious, and silently reoriented me in some new parallel existence. Experience in and around all kinds of boats and ships touched hard-to-understand inner thoughts, emotions, and needs. Some of my most meaningful experiences were on boats - rowboats, 8-man shells, canoes, Lightning sloops, powerboats, massive offshore Blue Riband challenger yachts, sloops, 12-meter America’s Cup class racing yachts, SWATH tenders, pilots, brigs, barks, clippers, square-rigged ships, and my favorite, schooners. The art of sail became a language for me that gave form to deep feelings that defied intellect and consistently guided me forward.  

I have strived to capture the authentic aesthetic experience at sea, beyond where the land transitions into fathomless depths, where sailors walk across oceans (on wood and steel decks). Along the way, I’ve learned about the sciences of optics, climate, weather, geology, marine geology, human color perception, sunlight refraction in air and water at various times of day through the seasons. I’ve internalized an understanding of physics, naval architecture, hydrodynamics, tide tables, and shipping news while adapting to transformative changes in art, craft, and image-making technology. All in pursuit of a simple image, a slice of truth, something elemental and authentic. More straightforward, yet not at all simple. Eventually, I got the right combination of elements at the right time and captured a collection of pieces I want to share: The Art of Sail | WINDJAMMERS. 

I invite you to view the WINDJAMMERS Collection and consider one of these artworks as a gift for a special friend or yourself.  

Stay safe and be well.

 

Mark

 

Pandemics Converge

The US presidential election is over - except for the defeated leader’s desperate grip on power and the followers who enable him. Ballot-counting in some of the US Senate races continues. And run-off elections are weeks away, so the campaigning continues, although fortunately at a lower temperature and intensity for most Americans.

We are a nation at war with itself for the spoils of its two centuries of progress, its brand, and its soul. Our experiment in democracy is still more art than a science; few of our defining accomplishments can be replicated and result in the same outcome. We are a community of individuals responding to an unprecedented alchemy of competing needs, fears, and furies. It is as if multiple viruses have formed an Axis-type alliance against democracy, America, and human idealism. Let’s hope that this war is brief, we learn from our better angels and never allow such darkness to gather again.

What is Your Brand Story?

What makes you, your message and product unique?

If you’re pausing to think about it, you might have your answer: you either don't have a brand story or don't know it yet. Either way, in this year of pandemic isolation and narrowed connections, you are what you do, what you make and your social media persona. You need to understand what defines you to others - family, colleagues, strangers, clients, customers, and friends you haven't met yet.

As a writer, creative strategist and artist, I've helped clients understand who they are to their customers, the media, and competitors in their market space. I have performed this role in a Big Three automobile manufacturer's boardroom in Detroit, at advertising agencies in the U.S., Australia, and the U.K., in meetings with the World Wildlife Fund, at national banks, airlines, Hollywood motion picture studios, the Vatican and high-profile causes including the United States Olympic Organizing Committee and the victorious Stars & Stripes America's Cup Challenge. We all have seen others passively take a back seat and let the market drive their brand. There have been times when we stepped back and went along with the flow. It happens. Yet it shouldn’t. If we know our goal, we should keep our eye on the next objective and hold to our course. Abdication of our role, whatever it is, is a failure to author our life, business, and relationships. If we're not guiding our image and reputation, inevitably someone else is. That is a problem. It is essential, therefore, that every individual master their brand.  

Regardless of your personal or professional goal, developing your brand story supercharges your ability to envision, connect, and succeed. Artists invest years developing skills that require practice, commitment, and significant sacrifice. As they evolve, they develop expertise that makes artistic excellence possible. This process can be all-consuming and leave little time or tolerance for distraction. Communicating oneself and your work to others can seem impossibly challenging. As a result, many artists avoid sharing themselves and their work to collectors.   

An artist's brand makes it possible to engage, educate, and establish relationships with buyers. Some artists react negatively to the word 'brand' because they feel it is too corporate, even crass when all it is is a word to describe an artist's vision, work process, personality, achievements, and most importantly, their uniqueness. Sometimes, it helps to replace a challenging or misunderstood word with another, less freighted word. 

How about 'reputation?' Your brand introduces, characterizes, and sets expectations. Your reputation does the same. It also suggests standing, position, professional status, station, even rank. 

So, what is your brand exactly? 

Your brand can surface when you confront a problem, overcome obstacles, and become associated with your outcome's distinctive qualities.

The Problem 

The problem can be anything from trivial to traumatic. It is something that someone decides needs to be addressed or wants others to know about them. A high school athlete who chooses to be a physicist needs to persuade others that s/he is serious about pursuing such a challenging career and prepare for years of extensive postgraduate study. An accountant has a simple way to file taxes that any individual can learn and use for themselves. A dockworker wants to become a shipowner. A shy introvert wants to help other shy introverts understand their Nature and help free them to pursue their rightful places in society and achieve their goals.

The Stakes

The stakes can be small or large. We each view the stakes of any problem in a highly individualistic way. Yet, we recognize that every story involves stakes, and our experience teaches us that the greater the importance of the outcome, the higher the stakes.

The stakes for the athlete are high. S/he may lose friends who relate to her/him as an athlete, but not as a physics nerd. S/he may incur extreme student loan debt for extensive postgraduate studies and then fail as a physicist.

The accountant's idea of a more straightforward way to file taxes may put him out of business.

The dockworker may lose friends, family, and the support of his union.

The shy introvert may expose himself to bullies and unwanted attention.

The Arc That Leads to Your Brand Story

It's your story, it's what defines you to friends, colleagues and clients you haven’t met yet. If you're an influencer, it's because you identified something that you thought could be better, a solution to a problem. You approached it from your distinct perspective and shared what you learned. Others noted what you accomplished and tried it themselves. When it worked for them, you suddenly became a 'can-do' brand.

 
“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
— Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon
 

Maybe you're drawn to the particular color value of conifer tree needles on the Maine coast at sunset in August when the sunlight ignites branches in brilliant greens and golds. You've been painting with pastels for years and have developed a way to achieve the specific hue, value, and chroma of weathered verdant green that haunts your coastal life memories. You've been at it for so long that you've forgotten exactly how you did it. Your work touches the sensibilities of a fan who buys your painting, then another and another. Before you know it, you're the sunset green brand. It's who you are. You innovated a process for representing the emotional truth of one of Nature's mysteries. 

MRB+Photog+Star+of+India.jpg

Perhaps you are a photographer obsessed with capturing the authentic aesthetic experiences at the edge of the sea, where the land melts into fathomless depths, where sailors walk on water (aboard wooden vessels powered by wind in canvas). You've felt the exhilaration of sailing close to the wind, the lift when a minor adjustment of the helm thrusts your boat forward and becomes what sailors refer to as airborne. Along the way, you've learned about the science of optics, climate, weather, geology, marine geology, human color perception, sunlight refraction in air, and water at various times of day through the seasons. You've internalized understanding of physics, naval architecture, hydrodynamics, tide tables, and shipping news while adapting to transformative changes in the art, craft, and image-making technology. All of this in your pursuit of a simple image; just a slice of the real you, something elemental, minimal, and authentic. More straightforward, yet not at all simple. When you get the right combination of elements at the right time, someone notices, and a brand is born. 

Tech giants have gathered so much information about each of us that they can predict our thoughts and actions years into the future. But they're human. They can make mistakes and might misrepresent you. Millions of smaller marketing entities leverage big data to influence your thoughts, beliefs, and actions and the attitudes of your clients. There is that. And then there is you - overwhelming, right?  

PROBLEM: You lack the brand story that helps you to navigate to your goals.

STAKES: Without self-knowledge or your vision, you are vulnerable to neglect, failure, or worse. If you can't see what your idea looks like in a year or two, no one else will see it.

SOLUTION: Identify your distinct value and believe in your brand. Tell your authentic story.

Are you still daunted? Sure, me too. People are busy, and they don't have time to learn about your brand.

Stop there; don't make excuses for them or yourself. Decide what you want and share your enthusiasm. By doing so, you launch your brand. You may be surprised. They may ask for your story. That's a start and an excellent way to build a relationship.

You have a role in defining who you are. A little self-knowledge can go a long way in helping you successfully interact with friends, neighbors, bosses, prospective employers, customers, community, and government. Help yourself to become the best version of you. Control your personal and professional brand story. As you do, you will help others understand you better. In turn, they will become your partners in an ever-widening network of authenticity, accomplishment, and mutual respect.  

_________________________

Mark is an Emmy, Andy and Hermes award-winning strategic communications specialist who creates branding, positioning, advertising, taglines, commercials, videos, docs, books — in a word, marketing — that is beautiful, engaging, and smart.

Mark's insights have helped global brands Sony, Columbia Tristar Pictures, World Wildlife Fund, Chevrolet, and the NFL, among others, make winning multi-million dollar decisions. That's why the United States Olympic Organizing Committee turned to Mark to write the successful proposal and positioning for its first all-weather training facility. And Stars & Stripes America's Cup Challenge asked Mark to help them develop its brand story and identity for its historic effort to return the America's Cup to the United States, and then document the four-year journey to victory.

 
 
 

Fathers and Sons

A Father Who Wrote What He Couldn’t Say

It is true - a story has no beginning or end, only the perspective of the person telling it and the time they choose to start. My grandfather Cady sold farm implements for a living and wrote letters to live life as the father he wanted to be to his family. He wrote every evening to his dear Elsie and their sons. He was on the road for days at a time throughout Vermont, New Hampshire, and eastern New York, and for weeks in the spring when farmers needed to buy new grain silos, tractors, balers, and combines. A tall man with broad shoulders, a strong back, and a heart as big as a Clydesdale’s, he was a Yankee. A Yankee family man who wrote what he couldn’t say face to face.

Cady Arthur Bailey (1883-1965)

Cady Arthur Bailey (1883-1965)

Cady was born in the fecund rush of life that was every New England farm late in the 19th century, where existence was creation manifest. Birth, life, death, always with purpose. Faith in the mystery of it. He was merely a current in the river, useful for a time, who would pass naturally into a higher flow. He didn’t talk much about his future; he focused on his sons’ and daughters’ futures and how it would be different for them.

One day before the second great war, he wrote to his fifth son - my father - from the Union Hotel in Victory Mills that he missed being home more. He wrote that doing right was not often easy, but always best; share what you can and then give a little more; and that he knew my father’s leg would recover. My father’s youngest sister, Marcia Frances, lay quarantined in the kitchen at that time with the fever and died before my grandfather came back from that trip. When he did, he carried her body cradled in his arms down Pearl Street to Pinecrest Funeral Home and handed over the 38 dollars he had made for his last three week’s work travels. The family ate turnips, soup, and days-old bread that month. The service at Holy Family was well attended, and Cady tucked little Marcia in one final time in that plot at Pine Hill.

During the war, granddad Cady continued to write to my father from inns in Bennington, Sudbury, and Poultney, and hotels in Glens Falls, Chatham, and Utica, carrying on a conversation as naturally as if they were face-to-face by the fire. He wrote about how he sold the first corrugated steel silo in the state to a dairy farmer in Graftsbury. His zeal for betterment - in this case, the practical advantages of steel over strapped wood - glowed on the page in his forceful handwriting. He mentioned that he would be there on silo raising day to support the dairy farmer’s radical decision and make sure it was done ‘plumb and proper.’

My father wrote back from an island in the Pacific that he worried about my mother taking care of Mike and Jimmy all alone and working the late shift at GE. My grandfather responded that he and Mother had visited last weekend, and the boys and Mary Jane were crackerjack.

That was February when it was cold and white in Chittenden County. My grandfather did not complain, but his curiosity about golden sand beaches, warm evening breezes, and yes, tropical women lingered just behind the words on the page. My father wrote back weeks later – it took the Army Air Corps censors weeks to read the mail and pass it along in mailbags that hopped from island to island by plodding, blunt-bowed supply ships. Letters arrived already opened and old, but that did not lessen their importance to fathers who believed in hard work, promises, and family. And sons so far from green mountains, sweet rains, white winters, and family.

Updated: 1 Aug 2020

Takeaways As Starting Points

As winter departs, spring's bright colors, roaring winds and fresh new life surge around us. The snow melts, overcast skies clear, the sun rises earlier. We adapt to new temperatures, weather, angles of light, and soon we forget an entire season of our life. It's lost to memory. Yesterday’s reality becomes history. So we rise to opportunity and break new ground.

When we recall yesterday, an image usually rises from our vague fragmented recollections to help us make sense of our experience. The memory might be of an action we took or didn't take, a friend’s wry expression, a flash of insight while driving to work, a discovery, a sound, a feeling of peace, fear or purpose. Did we connect with our goal? Most of us have fewer specific recollections about yesterday than we have unanalyzed feelings about that recent past.

Three Ridges at the Snowline | Mark Roger Bailey

Three Ridges at the Snowline | Mark Roger Bailey

As for seasons, what about the winter recessing in your rearview mirror will you recall next week, next season or next decade? What about this winter's short, brilliant days and long shadowed nights will define it in your memory?

Start there. Process what meant most yesterday, then tackle today. Don't overthink it, recognize what mattered most, and invest it in today.

Does your latest artwork-in-progress resonate?  Does it capture the meaning you intended? Probably not yet. It will come.

Next week, when a crisis emerges, what if anything will we recall about our response to this image?

Tomorrow, when we're getting traction on the next challenge, what should we think about our exchange today?

Start here, now, with your thought or feeling that rose above the others about our departing winter. Our minds retain ideas and events that intersect with emotional, physical or psychological needs in the folds of our brain as latent memory. Later, it can manifest unexpectedly. We may not recognize its origin, yet that dispatch from the front lines of our experience is telling us something that our subconscious believes is important. That conscious connection may seem random, yet in my experience, it is often a clue to a core concept. Yesterday's topline memory becomes a takeaway, a suggestion for a course correction if I am aware enough to act on it.

Takeaways are powerful starting points.

 _______________________ 

View my Shoreline Collection and please stop by my Gallery Shop to consider a special series of signed and numbered limited-edition prints for the collector. A haunting perspective of shore life or a miniature print of a tall ship would make a wonderful gift for yourself or a thoughtful surprise for a friend. 

New England Light

New England Light on San Diego Bay

San Diego’s morning marine layer is a familiar September weather phenomenon along the Southern California coast. While the Bay can be socked in with severely limited visibility, bright golden sunlight heats the hills and arroyos less than a mile to the east.

On this morning, I was struck by how similar the light at the Embarcadero was to the light at my favorite coastal haunts in New England. In this flat light, the topsail schooner Californian’s hull, masts and spars popped out from the grayness in a way I haven’t seen outside of Stonington, Mystic and Essex in ten years. Made me want to catch the next flight East for more. I knew this particular quality of light wouldn’t last long, so I moved quickly to find a composition that captures some of the power of opposites in this Southern California mecca for sun-seekers.

Topsail Schooner Californian and Bow of Raptor - Morning Overcast

Topsail Schooner Californian and Bow of Raptor - Morning Overcast

The 145-foot topsail schooner Californian is a replica of a mid-19th-century revenue cutter, launched in celebration of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. In 2003, she was designated the official tall ship of the State of California.

In the foreground is the freshly painted bow of the Seattle-based work vessel Raptor. The US Navy-style standard stockless anchor adds a compelling visual accent that echoes the serious purpose of the schooner’s clean lines and powerful rig.

Nikon D5 with Nikkor 28-300mm lens (at 48mm) ISO 100, f/8.0 at 1/250 of a second.

WARLIGHT | Michael Ondaatje

The Fog of War Never Clears Completely

Michael Ondaatje is so adept at creating seductive and compelling settings and observations of the human element in his storytelling that he can share the premise and foreshadow the entire novel’s narrative in the opening line. 

In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals. 

In WARLIGHT’s first sentence, he tells us the who, what and when of the novel. There is also something in the voice and phrasing that suggests the where. And by his omission of the why, he hints at an entire universe of mystery, adventure and discovery.  

ISBN 978-0-525-52119-8

ISBN 978-0-525-52119-8

Ondaatje writes as if it’s just the two of you apart from distracting crowds, bosses, spouses, children, marketers, even smartphones. He wants you to know this story and tells you exactly what you need to know to get to the next sentence with its revelation of another intriguing surprise. And on he goes, rewarding your interest with deeper insights again and again.

Fourteen-year-old Nathaniel and his older sister Rachel are abandoned by their parents and left in the care of a not very talkative enigma, an ageless fellow they come to know as The Moth. As they become certain that the Moth and his associates are as untrustworthy as their aliases, Nathaniel and Rachel worry less and adapt each in their distinctive way to their mysterious circumstances.  

Years later, Nathaniel penetrates the reality of his myth and that of his parents and others and chooses to continue his journey to understanding.

Ondaatje was born in Columbo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to unreliable parents. By the time Ondaatje was six years old, his father abandoned him for alcohol. His mother left for England. Eventually, he followed his mother and kept going to Canada to study literature.

In addition to being a Booker Prize novelist – The English Patient – Ondaatje is a gifted poet. He writes from a place of such sensitive and elegant connection to truth that one occasionally wants to pause and reread a sentence for its power and artfulness. His writing possesses a sense of time, place, and action so profoundly known and understood that he doesn’t slow down for exposition. Nothing bores a reader faster than telling. It slows the momentum. Any obstacle to complete surrender to the story is to be avoided.

Ondaatje draws upon his distinctive grasp of human aspirations and fears as he relates the young teenagers’ coming of age among a ring of operators who manage to survive during World War II London by skillful manipulation of the levers of hidden night schemes. Each setting evolves from shadows with characters that resonate with the cleverness of Dickens’ Artful Dodger, the resolution of Le Carre’s George Smiley and entirely new yet recognizable strangers who become acquaintances, some of whom we trust. 

Some critics have held Ondaatje’s patience in revealing character strictly through action against him. I laud him for it. In life, we are each on our own ultimately to discover the truth of things in other people and ourselves. 

“If you grow up with uncertainty, you deal with people only on a daily basis, to be even safer on an hourly basis. You do not concern yourself with what you must or should remember about them. You are on your own.” 

In WARLIGHT, Nathaniel and Rachel grow stronger through uncertainty in ways that Michael Ondaatje seems uniquely qualified to tell us.

~ 

MICHAEL ONDAATJE is the author of seven novels, a memoir, a nonfiction book on film and several books of poetry. In addition to Warlight, he wrote The English Patient (Booker Prize), Anil’s Ghost (Irish Times International Fiction Prize and Prix Medicis), The Cat’s Table, The Cinnamon Peeler, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Coming Through Slaughter and Divisadero, Coming Through Slaughter and Running in the Family.