Just Keep Swimmin'....

I found this painting on Facebook yesterday (unfortunately forgot which page, and forgot to note the artist...I will have to go hunting). I think it's a beautiful image, which is part of why I'm sharing it. The other reason is that I'm using it this week as a prayer focus, to pray for my sister Martha, who is also keeping this image in mind as she prays for me.

I found the image not long after she told me she kept having an image in her mind of the two of us swimming toward our goals this week...which is funny, because neither of us really can swim!

M has a few very busy days: her annual board meeting, and a national convening for her organization. She has put a ton of work into prepping for both.

Me? We are completing our move on Saturday -- for real, we've hired movers -- and I start my clinical trial on Monday. And I don't really feel ready for either. And I'm exhausted. And struggling with some sadness and discouragement.

So "just keep swimmin'" feels appropriate somehow. I keep thinking of the buoyancy of water and feeling thankful for the ways in which God's love upholds us every day.

One gift today? It rained. Besides our wonderful sky light, one of the things I will miss most about the apartment we are leaving (the one we have been in for fifteen years) is the wide open view I have from my bedroom window. It's a view of a parking lot, where I love to watch the rain gather in puddles and shine in street lights, and a view of a tree lined street...with a number of trees that I have long called my sycamores. Although I am thankful that we are moving to a place with a tiny backyard, I will still miss this wide open view. The new "view" from my bedroom window is of a restaurant that sells chicken and has several neon beer signs in their windows. No trees from any windows but the sweet girl's room.

So I kept my blinds open all day, while I packed and sorted and spent a lot of time on the phone setting up things taking place next week (beginning of my clinical trial, internet wiring for the new house) and I kept an eye on my trees. I thanked God for the sanctuary that this room and that view have been for me, especially this year when I've had to spend a lot of time in bed.

It was a hard day in other ways I don't feel like going into. It's probably enough to say that I feel old and tired and broken tonight, but I just keep remembering I'm loved. And I just keep swimmin'.

Mrs. B's Centennial

A couple of weeks ago, on the 12th of October, it was the 100th birthday of dear Mrs. Brooks, the neighbor and lifelong family friend who shared Jesus with me when I was a little girl.

Mrs. B, as I grew up thinking of her, is a precious saint. She was not only instrumental in leading me to faith, but in influencing and loving most of my family in Jesus' direction. When my mother, spiritually hungry and looking for help in understanding God, went to her door years ago to find out about the Bible clubs Mrs. B had for neighborhood kids, Mrs. B invited her to come see for herself what it was all about. That invitation, and her gentle teaching and loving presence, made all the difference in the life of our family. I will be forever grateful that she was the one who scattered gospel seeds and helped to water them for so many years.

I have no idea how many other lives and families Mrs. B touched over the years, but I would guess it is beyond counting. She taught Bible clubs for decades. She and her kind husband, Clifton (who always reminded me a gentler real-life version of Fred Flintstone) were known for their loving and generous friendship to many. Just as one example, when I was a pre-schooler, they once took care of me for a whole week during the day-time when my mother was in the hospital and then recovering from surgery. For a child who had not grown up located near grandparents, this was heady stuff. I still remember Mrs B scrambling eggs for my breakfast and adding bacon bits to them, Mr B pushing me in the cart at the grocery store, and Mrs. B laughing as she made me peanut butter sandwiches (hers were the best, I apparently proclaimed, because she spread the peanut butter right to the edges).

Both of my sisters eventually taught during the summers with CEF, the organization Mrs B was a part of. Although I never did their summer program, I did end up working with Mrs B in a Bible club when I was a teenager. She had decided to teach some refugee children from Cambodia who had moved into the neighborhood and she asked me to help. We couldn't speak their language and they could speak only a little of ours, but she loved on those kids with Jesus love and I followed along in her wake, happy to watch and learn.

Loving others in her gentle way has always been what Mrs B does best, and it's why her quiet voice, speaking the truth of the gospel, has always carried such weight. During my first couple of college vacations, I went with my mom and Mrs B to a program that Mrs. B regularly taught in. It was a detention center for juvenile girls who had gotten in trouble with the law, and Mrs B thought it would be good if someone closer to the girls' age could share a testimony with them. Introvert that I am (never a public speaker), I went because she asked, and I did my best to share as honestly and lovingly as she had shared with me. And I watched as those teen girls, hip and cool and insecure and in pain, swarmed around her after the Bible lesson she taught, just wanting to be with her. Some of them called her Grandma.

Mrs. B has outlived her dear Clifton (though he lived to be near 90, I think) and has even outlived one of her children, her pastor son who sadly died unexpectedly of a heart attack several years ago. She now lives in a nursing home where she can get the daily care she needs. It's not hard for me to imagine her bathing everyone there in the same gentle love she's always shone on everyone she's come into contact with.

I didn't know what image to put on the card I made for her birthday. I finally chose this:

I had seen this painting no long ago on the "I Require Art" blog. It's a painting called "Yellow Sycamore in Autumn," painted by Edgar Payne. I thought the wonderful spreading shelter of the tree, and its bright color and stage of life, seemed to capture so much of what I felt when I thought of Mrs B and all the beauty she's shared in her hundred years. Right down to that blue patch of sky...like a window where you can glimpse heaven.

When I went to write down the specifics of the painting so I could put them on the back of the card (something I always try to do when using an artistic image) I almost laughed aloud. Payne painted this in 1916. It's 99 years old...painted when Mrs B was just a tiny girl of 1.

Monet Sunset, 1880 (An Original Poem)

One hundred and thirty-four years ago,
A man named Claude chose colors just so.
On canvas he captured his dream of the sky –
A misty cloud river, the sun’s golden eye.

He noticed each streak and shadow and hue
And wrung every drop from the beauty that’s blue,
He added some rose and a touch of fuzzed peach,
And showed slender limbs in their sinuous reach.

One hundred and thirty-four years have gone by,
But today I am blessed by his dream of the sky.

~EMP 3/10/14

The Staying Power of Art

My husband brings home the most interesting books. This week it's Charles M. Knight: The Artist Who Saw Through Time.

You may think you don't know Knight, but if you're at least forty, you probably do -- even if not by name. Knight was the artist/naturalist who, for many years, was the "go-to" guy for artistic renderings of dinosaurs in museums and textbooks.

Although the jury is still out on what dinosaurs looked like/acted like (in recent years, there's been a switch to quicker moving avian-like as opposed to slower moving reptilian-like) it was Knight's imaginative renderings, based on fossil reconstructions and the scholarship of his day, that captured the public imagination for so many years. When I look at the paintings in this book, especially of his T-Rex and Brontosaurus, I harken back to elementary school...and I also think "yup...that's what's dinosaurs look like." Stephen J. Gould is referenced for saying that "although Knight never published original research in scientific journals, he was more influential in shaping our ideas about ancient extinct animals than any paleontologist who ever lived."

I found this buzzing around my brain this morning as I thought again about what I reflected on in my last post ("Feeling and Thinking"). The power of imaginative work that engages our senses as well as our minds is staggering. Work that captures our curiosity, makes us feel or ponder, has real longevity -- in our own lives and in the life of the culture. It's not that creative artists can't be scholarly -- many creative artists are also scholars, or are creating their works of art (paintings, songs, stories) as part of a responsive engagement to scholarship. But it's the stories/poems/songs/paintings that have the staying power, long after the scientific (or theological) journals are set aside.

For evidence of that, one need only turn to an imaginative storyteller like C.S. Lewis whose heart and imagination capturing work has phenomenal staying power. So does J.R.R. Tolkien's. The pictures these writers painted of a world invaded by grace have an ability to raise questions, stir eternal longings, and move people Godward. Their work lives on in a way that the work of academic theologians of the same era -- and there were some good ones -- simply can't. I'm not saying that good, theological scholars aren't necessary; I'm not even saying that either Lewis or Tolkien saw themselves as theologians. But they were actively engaged people of faith who poured their grace-steeped views of the world into their work, with the result that the gospel truth was so intricately and beautifully woven into their stories that people still see it and marvel and respond to the whole big picture (and sometimes without even seeing all the threads). 

One of the reasons I think it's so deeply necessary for Christians to engage in the arts (beyond the sheer joy of doing so, in response to our very creative God!) is that it's storied/poemed/sung/painted truth that has a lasting power in the shaping of the human soul and a lasting influence on the culture.

Tolkien as Artist (Heraldic Symbols from Middle-earth)

We're continuing our study of imaginary landscapes in the afterschool arts program today. D. has been researching into art inspired by Tolkien – there’s a lot of it – and he’s also had a fascinating book and documentary video that showcase some of Tolkien’s own visual art.

I knew that J.R.R.T. had done maps, other drawings, and water colors. I had even seen a few of them (mostly the ones that appear on the covers of some editions of his books) but I had no idea how many lovely paintings and drawings he did. Not to mention some very fine doodling. As a somewhat prolific doodler myself, I was happy to see some of the interesting designs he created in pen and ink and watercolor.

One of the things that fascinated me most was to see that he had created heraldic devices, symbols for many of the characters and houses in Middle-earth. It doesn’t really surprise me to learn that he did, given the incredible amount of detail that went into the creation of every aspect of his subcreation: language, geography, cartography, legends, music. It makes complete sense that he would have colors and symbols in mind for his characters. But oh, I love them. As someone who likes to play with repeating designs, I find these symbols beautifully winsome. I think they have inspired me to try my hand at some similar symbols and designs for my characters in the Four Princesses.

They're all lovely, but I think this one, for Luthien, is one of my favorites:

(This is taken from the Tolkien Gateway site; as a non-profit, they use the image under fair use laws.)

"New" Van Gogh Painting Authenticated: Hooray for Beauty and Story!

Exciting news in the art world today: they've identified a "new" Van Gogh. You can read about the discovery and see the painting, "Sunset at Montmajour," in the NYT article here.

I found this news fascinating, and not just because Van Gogh is one of the artists of my heart. It seems amazing to me that a painting done in 1888 and hidden from view for many years could suddenly be unearthed from an attic, a little bit like finding buried treasure or something surprising and wonderful in an archaeological excavation.

It's making me muse about beauty. It's also fun to speculate on the details of the story of the painting's journey, just briefly sketched in the article.

The painting, with its incredible light-filled brush stroked sky, was beautiful from the moment Van Gogh painted it, and that beauty has never ceased to be, but it was hidden for years. It was sold from Vincent's brother Theo's collection in 1901, they think, when Theo's widow sold it to an art dealer in Paris. The dealer sold it to a collector in Norway. In 1908, someone told that collector it wasn't authentic and he stuck it in an attic where it was apparently rediscovered several years ago by the people who now own the house. The Van Gogh museum recently authenticated it, saying that techniques for authenticating paintings have improved greatly in the past century.

It makes me wonder...well...so many things! Story brain in high gear this morning. Why was the painting considered inauthentic in 1908, just twenty years after it was painted? Had Van Gogh's work recently come into vogue? Was there a rush of Van Gogh look-alike fakes? Did the person who claimed it wasn't authentic really believe it to be the work of someone else (probably) or did he or she have an agenda (fanciful fiction brain...)

And if you had a painting this gorgeous, would you stick it in the attic even if you believed it to be a fake? That's the part that really pulls me up short. If I had this painting in my possession, I can easily see being disappointed if I was told it wasn't an authentic Van Gogh. While it would change my perspective on the painting's ultimate collectible value, why would it necessarily change my view of the painting's enduring aesthetic value? I would never have stashed a painting like this in a dark attic, even in a fit of pique or melancholy (or so I hope).

Once in the attic, it sounds like it was forgotten (sort of like Old Bear) and sold off when the house was. Can you imagine the current owners' astonishment when they found it? I picture a rainy day, the kind good for exploring attics, and a canvas wrapped up in an quilt and tied with twine. (Yes, story brain in overdrive today, folks...hang with me...)

All of which again begs the question of how we think of beauty and value. Sometimes we recognize and celebrate such things, but sometimes we hide them or ignore them or can't see their true worth because of what we've been told is important or what we choose to believe about their worth. Sometimes beauty stays in plain sight and we still overlook it. If this is true of crafted artifacts, how true is it of the natural beauty in creation or the beauty of our fellow human beings? 

Story starter ideas:
Create a character who has come into possession of what he thinks is a rare and valuable painting, only to discover it's not by the famous artist he hoped painted it. What does he do next? (And how many possibilities could you spin from that?)

Create a dialogue between two people arguing over the authenticity of a certain painting. Make each one very vested in his or her position. Write the dialogue once where they reach an impasse. Write it again and have one of them persuade the other of his or her position.

Imagine the attic exploration that leads to the discovery of a rare and famous painting. Who discovers it and how? How does it make them feel? How might it change their life and circumstances?

Watching the Boats (an original poem)

Monet's Les Barques

Where clouds end and boats begin

I cannot tell.

I only feel the gentle swaying swell

of the waves beneath my feet

and hear the billowed sails that snap

like sheets on a line. Are there eight?

Maybe nine? I start to count

but am lost in delight as the wind-capped waves

meet blue sky bright. Spume, clouds, sails –

soft as cotton or down, the sky in a bowl

and the world upside down and the wind

rushing free and the bend of dark trees and

the roofs of red tiles and the sense of good

miles still before me today.

I don’t know what to say.

~EMP, 2/25/13 

Dear Vincent (an original poem)

I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken 
in my great discouragement, and I will go on 
with my drawing.
 --Van Gogh

Dear Vincent,

I received your postcard.

I don’t know how much postage

Costs in the past that was your present,

But I do sense that the words cost you deeply.

I thank you for flinging them forward

In the wild, thick-stroked way you love

So that they would stick to the wall of the world

And land in the mailbox of my heart today.

I would just like to say

Take heart, take up, and go on

And know that no matter how hard it feels

To sketch each line

There is someone in the future who believes

That it matters

And who hears the scratching of your pencil

And thinks it is the most encouraging music

She has heard

In a long, long time.

(~EMP 11/16/12)

Sketching (An Original Poem)

Our fourth week of arts camp came to a close Friday, and found me limping -- figuratively speaking. I am worn out and weary as we round the corner on week five, and I've been trying to find some small ways to replenish my energy reserves this weekend. Listening to Elgar, watching a brief but refreshing rain, reading...they've all helped.

I was looking through my drawing folder (a little portfolio I began to keep a year or so ago when I was sketching more) looking for a scrap of artwork I might build on to make my Daddy's 80th birthday card, when I came upon a poem I'd written and forgot about. Bits and pieces of poems are tucked all over my drawing folder because I find that sketching frees me up to poem and vice versa -- the two activities are clearly connected, and doing one often inspires me to spend time doing the other. This poem captured my imagination today not only because it reminded me of the year I spent more time drawing, and what I learned through "re-learning" how to draw, but because it's what I wish I could tell some of the older kids in our arts camp. I've been amazed at how differently younger and slightly older children approach drawing. There really is a certain age -- it's probably different for each kid -- where self-consciousness and worry about doing art "right" works its way into the minds of most children. They become cautious with the pencil or predictable in what they draw, sticking to one thing they think they know how to do well.

Here's what I wish I could tell kids -- and the grown-ups who tend to freeze up when faced with a blank page. I think one of the enemy's great lies to people of all ages is to get them to doubt that they can draw, write, paint, poem, dance, sing, or that if they try, it will be stupid or a failure or wrong or not as good as the next person's. I'm not saying that there isn't an inner critic in all of us that recognizes the difference between what we envision in our minds and what we're actually able to do, but I am saying how sad it is that we can be so crippled by the notion that we can't do it that we don't even try, don't even start. And we miss out then on one of the wondrous gifts God has given us, the gift of creativity. That's why it's such a noxious lie of the enemy.  He tells us we're not creative, or he gets us to limit the idea of creativity (the person who can draw is creative, but I can only knit or cook, and that's not creative) when the reality is, we are made in the image of a boisterously, wonderfully creative God. And he has given each one of us creative gifts to explore, enjoy, and use for his glory.

Sketching

Don't freeze, flow.
Let your hand go.
Unclench your fingers
and your fears
and follow the lines.
Don't worry if
your eyes move more
quickly than your
skill can keep pace with.
Shade, center, curve,
back up, move again,
pause, re-look,
re-think, re-dream,
and start again.
For today, banish erasers
from your thoughts.
If the line won't work
where it stands,
leave it till you can
decide how to work
it back into
this newly imagined
world.
Incorporate
it all, every mistake,
lines thin and tall
and squat and wide
and all
the shaky lines
you try to hide.
Don't freeze, flow.
Look. Look! Love.
And let you hand go.

~EMP (4/11)

Arts Camp, Week One

Well, we've reached the end of our first week of arts camp. You may have thought I'd fallen off the planet, but in truth, I have just been running up and down three flights of stairs in between doing art with fifteen-twenty 4-11 year olds.(Technically camp is for 6-14 year olds, but we've not been pulling in older kids, and we've been allowing a few younger siblings to come with older ones if the older ones are responsible and mature enough to help their younger sib out.)

My husband is the director of the camp for the third year, and while in previous years I have helped out occasionally (and mostly behind the scenes) this year a lack of volunteers has meant I am in the thick of things. That would be in the thick of excited, wiggling, yelling, laughing, joking, mostly fairly attentive kids who have varying degrees of interest in art, but who are mostly just happy to be there. It's been fun to welcome them -- a lot of them returnees -- and to watch their creativity blossom.

We've been doing art projects inspired by different world cultures each day. Turkey, Morocco, the Vikings, Mexico, and China were this week's cultures. We've done projects with paint, paper, yarn, clay, cardboard, beads, pen and ink. Some of the kids have produced some pretty cool things.

A few observations I've made this week -- in no particular order.

Ministries need prayer. If we weren't steeped in prayer, things would probably have been a lot crazier than they have been, especially with not enough staff. We're on a real shoestring in all kinds of ways this year, and I've been enjoying seeing the ways God is at work -- sometimes before we ask. My favorite prayer instance this week came yesterday. We had just found out that the pizza place that normally donates free pizza for our park event with the campers and their families each week could not do that this year. They cut us a deal for half-off, which we appreciated, but we had no $ for pizza in the budget. We decided to announce the park event anyway, and before the end of the day, a local family/friends of the camp had donated what we needed to cover this week and next. When I got home and checked my email, I found a message my husband had sent me in the morning (but which I hadn't seen) informing me of the need and asking me to pray for God's provision. I found myself very grateful that God doesn't need to check his email (but even if he did, he'd stay on top of it).

Ministries need people. Heads, hearts, hands, and feet. There is a lot of work to be done in a ministry like this, most of it not glamorous. Carrying things up and down the stairs, setting up and cleaning up messy art stations, handing out snacks, making sure the kids wash their hands and don't poke each other in the eye or drive each other completely nuts with teasing (or screaming). Ministries with kids need people who can be really patient and who can encourage kids who are timid and nervous and think they can't do something as well as help calm down kids who feel a need to be running things and in other kids' faces. We've been blessed with the help of one family who is very good at all those things -- the unglamorous work that has to be done and the ministry of encouragement.

Ministries need money. I know, I know, it's obvious, but boy, is it true.

Kids need encouragement of different sorts (see above) depending on the situation and the kid. And wow, is it ever true that age makes a huge difference in how a child approaches a learning situation. One of the things that's fascinated me this week is watching the difference in the very youngest campers (the four, five, and six year olds) who tend to throw themselves into things with rather joyful abandon, heedless of the mess or the results. This versus the seven-eight-nines, who often want you to repeat instructions and who are more concerned about making mistakes, and even more differently are the ten-elevens who either a) work painstakingly and with great attention or b) give up quickly if they think they "can't" do something and ask if they can do something else instead. I know a lot depends on a child's temperament and learning style too, but age is still a very important factor as we contemplate how to teach.

I think one of my favorite moments this week was seeing the very youngest camper -- a four year old with sparkling eyes -- gamely hold up her wooden disk. The kids were making Viking shields, and some of them did rather intricate designs. This little girl had covered the whole thing in layers of paint, front and back, and her hands were covered in layers of paint too! But oh the delight on her face as she grinned in triumph! (And yes, I took her to wash her hands, though I first helped her out of her smock, an oversized shirt which was so long it looked like a floor-length dress.)

An exhausting week in many ways, but a good one...connecting kids with creativity and reminding them that creativity is a loving gift of their Creator.

One week down. Five to go.

Girl With a Watering Can (Diamante Poem)

As an end of the year treat, since she finished her grammar text early this year, the sweet girl is getting extra language arts time to work on poems and stories. We've been working with some terrific poem starters from Joyce Sidman -- ideas and forms that are really inspiring us.

Today we worked with the diamante form. You're supposed to start and end with a noun, but I gave us some leeway -- sometimes we went with an adjective. The line format is built on number of words. The form is 1,2,3,5,3,2,1 ~ sounds like a waltz, doesn't it? So the lines get successively longer at first, it's all balanced by a long beam of a line (like a rafter) in the middle, and then the lines decrease in the back half.

Sidman suggested using a picture to inspire the diamante. The sweet girl has been enjoying the gorgeous Child's Book of Art by Lucy Micklethwait again. She looked through and chose several pictures to work with. I was really tickled with all the results, but I especially liked this one she wrote based on Renoir's Girl With a Watering Can.

Girl:
watering plants,
picking white daisies.
She's just watered the garden.
Buttons on dress,
red bow,
peaceful.

(SBP, 5/28/12)

She really liked this way of poeming and I must say I do too. Setting word limits helped her to really focus on what she was seeing and what she wanted to say. That's an exercise that's good for all writers ~ no matter what our ages!

Annunciation

In honor of the celebration of the annunciation, I thought I would post a poem I wrote many years ago about my favorite painting, H.O. Tanner's "Annunciation."



Tanner Annunciation





She waits with her hands clasped
and one toe peeking out
beneath the hem of her robe,
as the angel arrives.
The angel arrives, glides
in with golden precision,
illumines the dusky
corners of the room with light.
It is night, and she must decide
to hear what ears cannot
believe and see what eyes
can barely see. Hands clasped,
eyes open, she waits for
the voice that speaks her future
into being with just a few
small words. One small
response is all she needs
to make in this moment.
It is enough and more
for the world to come.
It is risk and dare, leap
and live, room for God,
space for love, in a crowded
space and time that makes
little room. She waits,
hands clasped, eyes opening,
for the light to leave once
the job is done, but the light
stays with her still.

~EMP

Faith-Art Talk

With our Sunday evening youth "group" (I use the term lightly because lately we've primarily been meeting with only one young woman) we've launched a season of discussion about faith and arts. I thought of this not only because it's a topic near and dear to my heart, one I've spent a lot of time thinking about in the past twenty years, but because so many of the youth in our particular church seem gifted in and committed to the arts. We have singers, visual artists, dramatists, and writers, good ones. And yet I sense they don't always know the best way to connect their daily lives of faith with what they're doing as artists, or see how the two interconnect.

We're going to be looking at various excerpts and chapters from some books on how faith informs, inspires, and encourages art (and vice versa). This week we're reading a letter to young artists by Calvin Seerveld, a reformed thinker who works at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. He penned this letter in November 2001 for inclusion in Michael Card's excellent book on faith and art: Scribbling in the Sand.

Seerveld has a creative and not always easy way of writing, but there is much to be gleaned from his work. I thought I would jot a few of the insights that struck me most deeply as I read a few times through his letter. I'm paraphrasing and consolidating a number of his points.

1) The biblical injunction to "love our neighbors as ourselves" is for everyone. But when you hear that word as a Christian and an artist, it becomes "a guideline for blessing" particularly because "it extricates you from the moil of serving yourself..." Seerveld goes on to say that it also frees you from feeling like you have to jump into the midst of whatever art is elite, popular or current.

2) When we make our art, whatever kind of art that is, we should craft it first and foremost before God. He's our primary audience. "...craft it as psalm before the face and ear of the Lord and let your neighbor listen in."

I like that he uses the word "neighbor" here instead of the more common term audience. It's true that someone who is part of an audience is a listener (hence the connection to "aud" or "audio") but it's freeing and humbling to remember than anyone we hope to communicate with, touch, bless, or challenge through our art is a fellow member of the human race, a neighbor whom we are enjoined to love as we love ourselves.

3) Art is for celebration AND for lament. "...make merry before the Lord God, God's people, and even one's antagonists..." (THERE'S an interesting idea!) but "Also be as free as the biblical psalmists to cry out to God from the pits of despair" and on behalf of others and their despair.

He even suggests that churches, which move heavily in the realms of praise, might consider moving more into the realms of lament. We need to learn how to "weep with those who are weeping" and that means really trying to understand the depth of human need and sadness especially as we craft "elegies, memorials and sad songs that are authentic..."

Seeveld seems to classify almost every work of art made authentically from the depths of a believing heart as a "psalm" in a general sense. But he doesn't think these psalms are made or should be made only for the believing community. He encourages young artists to "make these psalms for settings outside the worshiping church door..."

4) Consider that not every person has been equally gifted with the ability to imagine or to articulate the joys and blessings that they see, hear and touch. For some people, the imagination is "underdeveloped." As a "professional imaginator" you can help your neighbor in need of such imaginative help. You've been called "to make such treasures known to those who walk past such creaturely blessings by fashioning a necklace of words...or the jewel of a melody..."

Later he suggests that people in our culture often experience "artistic alienation or displacement..." and that we need to "give the neighbors what they imaginatively need, not just what they want..." I find that perceptive, especially when we consider that sin (and just plain caught up-ness in the frantic pace of information and culture, be it good or bad) often corrupts our "wants" or makes us think we want things we really don't, or makes it hard for us to discern between needs and wants.

5) A Christian artist must not ignore the reality of sin. That would be hypocritical. But our treatment of evil within our art must not ever be "self-righteous" or filled with an "angry coldness." Our awareness of our own struggles with sin and of the "waste that sin brings into God's good world" should invest our works with an authentic sadness, not coldness.

6) If art is what we choose to do, then we should seek training to become skilled. Faithfulness (even when art is only shared with a small number) is more important than seeking after stardom. "The key thing is to be a reliable artist in the imaginative task you perform...so the fruit of our imaginative hands can be wholesome food for those who receive it." He encourages young artists to find talented mentors they can trust, and to "become a craftsmith worthy of hire."

7) Artists do have a redemptive task. It not necessarily to convert people or to do apologetics (though I would argue that artistic gifts and approaches can be brought to bear on the gifts of evangelism and apologetics). "A Christian artist simply needs to give away your imaginative insights to whoever crosses your path, and the Holy Spirit will take it from there."

8) You will know you have been a faithful trustee of your imaginative gift when you see disbelievers experiencing something deeper, perhaps even something unexpected, in your work. That might be a sense of "wrestling with God," a sense that your "trusting in God...(is) winsome" or that the celebration of passionate faithfulness that permeates your song (or characters, etc.) "sounds unusual" given the way our world usually looks at or celebrates love.

We can help people persevere, we can "dispense a simple joy and peace that surpasses understanding" through our art.

9) Artists need to offer hope. We ought "to be earthy with our redemptive cheer..." to bring hope to the dispirited.

10) The Holy Spirit is the artist's "true source (of) wisdom." We need the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Spirit to discern our calling, and our place in society. That may mean (and often has to mean, given our culture) that we need to work with integrity at other work as well as our art, in order to put bread on the table. If I'm reading Seerveld rightly here, he prefers that artists do that than to giving in to art-making that is formulaic or overly commercial.

11) Good art is "a worthy living sacrifice of obedience in response to Christ's command" to follow him.

12) Guard against loneliness and isolation. Artists (like all human beings and all Christians) need community. When you're tempted to feel you're "the only displaced artist left faithful to the Lord" (a la the prophet Elijah) remember your heritage, both the living, local expression of your heritage (your church community) and the huge line of saints who have gone before, including many who exercised artistic gifts. Seerveld reminds us artistic saints have existed since Adam first sang his poem for Eve before the fall!

13) Find a specific example "of Christian artistry in history" and seep yourself in it. Love it, learn from it, and find ways to add to it or extend it through your own "new" work. Then freely give it away.

I call that connection with the art that comes before us a long, ongoing conversation or dance. And it's great joy to join it!

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Does any of this ring particularly true or potent for you? How do you wrestle (or have you wrestled) with any of these insights in your artistic life?

"Come Look With Me": Picture Study

We've been using Gladys S. Blizzard's book Come Look With Me during our "relaxed Fridays" when we focus on music and art during school-time.

Come Look With Me is a terrific book, inviting children (and their parents/teachers) to explore art together. This particular book, which I believe is first in the series, focuses on paintings that feature children. The sweet girl and I have enjoyed looking at a number of paintings in very different styles. Each painting is reproduced in beautiful color on one side of a two-page spread; the accompanying page includes a paragraph or two on the artist's life and a series of questions you can ask about the picture. Excellent discussion starters.

I learned a thing or two myself today, as we explored the final two paintings, both by Pablo Picasso. I confess I've never been much of a fan of Picasso. Today we looked at his painting "Le Gourmet" (from his blue period) and "Maya and Her Doll," an illustration of cubism. Now I am not in any way, shape or form a fan of cubism, and I was wondering how the odd painting would go down with the sweet girl, but she was totally intrigued by the geometric shapes used to make up the painting. She was so game to look at it and so enthusiastic that I found myself looking at it in new ways too, and actually learning quite a bit from Blizzard's helpful notes about the way in which the girl's face was shown as though we were viewing it in two ways: face on, and in profile, all at the same time. (We had an interesting discussion about profiles...) The sweet girl also seemed intrigued by the notion that how one felt could affect the way you painted, or the colors you chose. The text notes mentioned that when Picasso painted "Le Gourmet" (with the predominant blue) that he was very young, only 19, and feeling very sad. S. wanted to know what he was sad about.

Since we were finishing the book today, and it's due back at the library tomorrow, I asked the sweet girl to choose her favorite painting from the whole book. Given her interest in Picasso today, and the fact that we'd just discussed him, I wondered if she might choose one of those. But she didn't. She picked this:



It's called "The Nut Gatherers." Painted in 1882 by the French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau. She loved that there were two girls (when we looked at it a few weeks ago, she told me she thought they were sisters...she has very much been wanting one of those!) and that one had dark hair and one light. She smiled brightly when I pointed out that you could see one girl's face almost full on, and the other only in profile.

Highly recommend this art resource for picture study. Our library has some of the other books in the series, and I hope we get a chance to use them all between this year and next.

Card Art

I used to create a lot of cards...I love making collages from beautiful paper scraps. It's been a while since I've had a chance to make any, so I was happy to spend an hour or so tonight working on some cards. I think my mother's birthday card turned out pretty nicely...I thought I'd share it here. (Mom doesn't have a computer, so this won't be giving her a sneak peek!)

My paper scraps come from all kinds of places...I've collected a lot over the past few years. Card stock, clipped words and images from catalogs, textured papers. Half the fun is just going through the scraps themselves and seeing where my fancy leads me. Shapes, lines, colors...cutting them, sketching them, putting them together in unique ways reminds me a little bit of choosing the right words to create a poem.