Care-full and Thank-Full

Every year around Thanksgiving, I always want to get in touch with all my friends and family, just about everyone I know, and share a meal, throw a party, write each person a tribute and tell them exactly why I love having him or her in my life. I never quite accomplish this ambition, but it usually carries me through Christmas and New Years.

This year the impulse is especially compelling, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the growing sense of how fragile life is. We must be care-full in the basic sense of the word. More and more, I am strengthened in my conviction that all that really matters is caring for one another and the place we inhabit.

Each individual on earth is capable of caring in a particular way, specific to talent, temperament, vocation. Some of us are especially lucky in that our gifts complement someone else's gifts and we happen to discover each other in the course of our journey. This has been the case with Marcus and Anne, and Marcus, Anne and me.

I got nostalgic and looked back at last year's Thanksgiving post about time and what we make with it, and found it as true this year, with the added gratitude of another blessed year of writing and doing this work. The physical manifestation of our care will be in our hands soon, and you can get a sneak peek if you are around Greensboro this weekend, where Anne and Marcus will have an advance copy of Flight of the Mind and the Craftsman Classic at the Greensboro Coliseum.

It was also a year or so ago that Bob Peck of Asheville Multimedia filmed me interviewing Marcus for the DVD companion to Flight of the Mind. So, dear reader (for whom we are also so thankful) I'll leave you with this Thanksgiving gift from the completed work as we all continue care-full-y along our wandering, wild and miraculous journeys. May our paths cross in good time!

The Good Life for All

Anyone who has been to an art show to see Marcus' work knows the familiar face and irreverent laughter of his sister Amanda. In every kind of weather and over thousands of cumulative miles, she is a friendly and forceful presence in Marcus' and Anne's life and career, giving freely of her time, muscle, heart, and humor.

Amanda is also a force to be reckoned with in her work with Homeward Bound, the Asheville organization that works tirelessly for social justice, operating shelters and programs that feed, clothe and locate housing for the city's homeless. Following a calling she's known since college, Amanda devotes her spirited energy and gifts to serving people who exist in the cold, uncomfortable margins of what most of us consider normal everyday life.

Though it seems incongruous to pair Biltmore Estate with Homeward Bound, leave it to Marcus and Anne to combine the two in a brilliant "thank-you" (with a kick!) to Amanda.

Twelve bottles of Marcus' Christmas wine were signed by Biltmore Estate wine makers Bernard Deleille and Sharon Fenchak. Marcus signed these bottles as well and is making them available for a $60 donation to Homeward Bound. Wine warms the heart quite well, but to sweeten the deal, your donation also includes a 25% discount on an original Marcus Thomas print and  15% off framing the print at Art Accents on Main Street in Weaverville, NC.

Marcus and Amanda

Fine wine and beautiful art work together in so many ways as luxuries of "the good life." With this opportunity, you can join Amanda in working to make basic creature comforts a reality for those who don't have it quite so good. Like the days of Christmas, these twelve bottles of Biltmore's Christmas wine, featuring Marcus' piece Biltmore Winter will go quickly. They are available at Art Accents in Weaverville, where we hope to see you on December 7th for the preview book party. More on that event to come!   

Hunt for Beauty on the Art Safari

One thing that distinguishes humans from all other life (except perhaps hummingbirds) is the desire and longing for beauty. So great is the longing that alone among all other creatures, human beings, with much practice, are able to create beauty . . . in works of art.

You can satisfy your quest for beauty and glimpse the inner workings of its creation in many forms - from paint to metal to paper, pottery and wood - this weekend in Weaverville, NC at the Fall Art Safari. The event offers a unique opportunity to meet artists in the natural habitat of their own studios and experience their work.

Marcus and Anne Thomas open their studio for the Safari and welcome visitors from 10am-6pm. Stop by to see Marcus, and get a peek at work in progress and more. Flight of the Mind information and ordering details will also be available. Nothing compares to an up-close-and-personal encounter with a true artist except for perhaps an encounter with undeniable and lasting beauty. This weekend's safari offers both. (Please, no firearms required!)

October is a tease (and Marcus plays along)

What's that red-gold flame on the horizon? A bird? A sailplane? The mountains set alight by October's mischievous, fleeting leave-taking? A magical realist poem in color and shape, painted by a man who laughs with his paintbrush in his mouth?

October is a month of warm colors and chilly winds. She's a tease, but we don't love her any less. In fact, she endears the days to us, tiding us over with golden light, woodsmoke, pumpkins and trees that burn with beauty, spoiling us before the austerity of winter.

The month has been full of bright activity for us. A reading at Mars Hill College homecoming officially gave the public a peek at the book and orders are well underway.  The Laurel of Asheville published a bright, friendly piece on Marcus and the book. And on the cusp of all this excitement, Marcus took to the skies himself.

In the spirit of October we've got a teaser of our own. In addition to the book, we are offering a DVD created by Bob Peck of Asheville Multimedia which delves deeper into Marcus' life, work and imagination. Below is a short excerpt from the film. Savor it as you would the days of October and enjoy it while it lasts!

Homecoming at Mars Hill College

In Of Time and the River, Thomas Wolfe declares, "All things on earth point home in old October: sailors to sea, travelers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken--all things that live upon this earth return, return."

The Quad

This weekend Mars Hill College celebrates Homecoming and both Marcus and I will be returning as alumni of the school. Marcus will be showing his art in the Montague Building, a gallery exhibit to mark the launch of Flight of the Mind. I'll be giving a reading and presentation, a sneak preview of the page design and images. 

Marcus' painting, The Quad is a tribute to our alma mater and it captures the spirit (and perhaps the ghosts) of the place: homesickness tempered with whimsy, meaning deepened by mystery.

Thomas Wolfe, who I read as a student at Mars Hill College, winding my way through sentences thick as the ivy that once grew on the Montague Building, seemed to have known Mars Hill College in October when he wrote the quote above.* We return from our far-flung journeys, changed. Yet recognized. Our memories of the place, and of our earlier selves, seem as real as leaf and stone, flesh and blood. We meet ourselves coming and going in October in the mountains and it seems only right to bring out the best work we have and celebrate the timing of the full circle.

Whether you've ever been to Mars Hill College or not, all are invited to join us there as Marcus returns to the place where his love of nature, once lived through his body, now lives in his art. In honor of his journey and the work born of the soaring travels of his spirit, the college will be recognizing Marcus as Alumnus of the Year.

The exhibit opens at 9am with the reading at 11am. The Alumni of the Year presentation precedes the game at 12:45pm. The entire weekend is full of activities from music concerts to an invitational alumni art exhibit to the game itself. Get the full schedule here. You can even sit beneath a maple in full autumn glory and read Thomas Wolfe.

*Special thanks to Brandon Johnson for the Wolfe quote.  

Marcus' Flight: A Gallery

Marcus entered what he calls "surreal-abstract space" on Saturday at the New Castle Airport.  

Many of these pictures were taken by Anne. The aerial shots were taken by Dalila from the chaser plane. Breathtaking.

And he's still smiling. Might be a permanent grin.

Marcus takes to the skies and lives his metaphor. Literally.

Transcending all metaphor and leaving his paintbrush behind, Marcus C. Thomas the artist will launch into the great blue yonder over the Shenandoah valley tomorrow morning at 11am.

It is a rare occurrence when an artist takes the metaphors through which he has made reality shine, and reverses the equation, leaping into reality through the living of his favorite metaphor. But leave it to Marcus to do just that.

The Fourth Flight

For 25 years, he has painted the magic and mystery of flight represented in all manifestations: fierce birds of prey, delicate songbirds, ethereal hummingbirds, and the ingenious inventions my early pioneers of the art of flight. The Fourth Flight, pictured here, depicts the Wright Brothers at the Outer Banks, launching their handmade creation into the sea winds. This trial, the fourth, was the successful one that once and for all proved that human beings - featherless and equipped with wings only in the imagination - were capable of flight. The top photo shows the sailplane that will carry Marcus tomorrow; a non-motorized enclosed glider. In reality, and in Marcus' art, flight has come a long way on those same wings of imagination.

Tomorrow morning, he will coast the thermals, shared with his favorite raptors, in a two-seater sailplane, piloted by Matt Broughton, a lawyer from Roanoke and a good friend who has known Marcus since high school. The flight will be a leap into the ever-enticing unknown, a celebration of the completion of Flight of the Mind, and a chance for Marcus to confirm his own lofty visions and soaring adventures of imagination from a bird's eye angle.

Read the press release on his sailplane flight from New Castle airport here, and send him soaring blessings and the luckiest skies for tomorrow! May the wind bless your wings, Marcus.
See a gallery of photos from the flight itself here.