I returned from a spiritual retreat at Mount Eagle, at which we studied the Enneagram. This is our United Methodist camp site dedicated to holy listening. Of the nine spiritual personality types, I happen to be a Four: The Creative. I’m “The Sensitive, Introspective Type: Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental.” Fours are self-aware, sensitive, and reserved. They’re emotionally honest, creative, and personal, but also can be moody and self-conscious. Fours sometimes feel vulnerable and defective, so they’ll withdraw from others, and they can also feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living. A Four typically has problems with melancholy, self-indulgence, and self-pity; but at their best, they’re inspired and highly creative, and they’re able to renew themselves and transform their experiences.
One of the things I’ve learned over my years of teaching art is every student is unique. They all aren’t Creative Fours, even if they have an interest in art. When I taught in schools, some of the students didn’t even have an interest in art at all. It was a requirement, and they were unwilling prisoners, who were set on rebellion because they knew they wouldn’t succeed. In most education classes, this would be true. Art education classes teach young teachers how to make lesson plans with distinct outcomes and a list of steps. This makes grading easy: did the student follow the steps and how close did their product match the model?
I don’t teach art this way. Children learn to walk by crawling, but they have to roll over and pull up first. Each step is an improvement over the first one. As long as a student keeps working and learning, their work will improve. We adults have to silence the judgmental voices in our heads that tells us, “You aren’t any good.” Instead, let’s listen to that inner voice of joy which says, “Wow, we’re having fun playing with the colors and making shapes appear—it’s like magic!”
We first looked at a few images of leaf paintings to get some ideas. Often by Friday morning, my brain needs some extra caffeine as well as extra jolts of creative input to get an inspired thought to percolate through the fog. We don’t all learn just by listening, but by seeing also. Sometimes students need a demonstration or hands-on experience to figure out the best way to use the materials. I always try to let them manipulate the materials themselves, since the best way to learn is by doing. This isn’t brain surgery, so we won’t harm anyone. We also won’t lose our salvation if the paint gets out of hand. We can always save our old works and say, “Look where I started from!”
Yayoi Kusama: Leaf painting (1990)
Tim was entranced by the Yayoi Kusama Leaf painting (1990), so he began to work on drawing a leaf in this manner. He’s recovering from carpal tunnel surgery, so smaller movements are better therapy for his hand.
Tim: Leaf drawing in progress
Not everyone is focused on details. Milton Avery is a modern colorist who simplifies the landscape into its essential elements. His trees often look like large leaves.
Milton Avery: Landscape with Trees
The bright colors of the autumn leaves in the landscape provided Mike’s color scheme for his one brilliant tree. Mike has exuberance in all he does.
Mike: Tree Aflame
Henri Rousseau was famed for his jungle scenes. These were green in every shade possible. He visited the botanical gardens in Paris for his inspiration.
Van Gogh favored yellow and orange, especially in his later years. The Mulberry Tree from 1889 is a lovely example.
Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena, CA
Gail went outside to grab an actual leaf, rather than work from her imagination. She has a direct connection with nature, maybe because of her years with the national parks.
A leaf against our painting cloth
Repeating this leaf shape, she covered the canvas with it, allowing it to overlap in some areas and run off the edges in others. Using a monochromatic color scheme, she gave the illusion of shadows and light.
Gail’s Golden Leaves
Matisse sought to reunify humans with each other and with nature. As the great painter said, “What I dream of is a balanced, pure and quiet art which can avoid the trouble of frustrating subjects. This kind of art gives everyone’s mind peace and comfort, like a comfortable chair where they can have a rest when tired.”
Matisse: The Dance, 1909-1910
Viewers in Matisse’s day thought his brightly colored painting of dancers was quite daring, but today we can appreciate his work as an ode to life, joy and nature.
Cornelia: Dancing Leaves
As I’ve been watching the brisk winds blow the gold and red leaves from the trees this fall, I’ve also watched them dance against the bright cerulean sky. When the sun shines on these dancers, they glow even brighter than before. They don’t have a care for tomorrow, much less for today. Now and this moment is enough for them. They remind me of the Lord’s advice to us on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:34—
“So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
I painted the back side of the leaves with a thin coat of acrylic paint and laid them one by one down on the white surface of the canvas. Then I gently hand rubbed the top of each leaf until I thought I’d transferred the paint. The hansa yellow was least successful as a print color, so I over printed it at the end. I mixed the green ground with the cerulean blue and two yellows. The sky has cerulean, violet, Ultramarine, and white. These I mixed as I painted, so the sky wasn’t an even color. (All skies change color due to atmosphere and distance: they get lighter toward the horizon).
Next Friday we’re going to make stamp prints. You may have cut your own design in a potato once upon a time in scouts or used vegetables to make prints. We can also use leaves, natural materials, metal objects, or found objects to create prints. Art is a time to explore and experiment. We’ll find out what works and what doesn’t!! Curiosity and the willingness to experiment and explore are all aspects of creativity. We can all learn to stretch our boundaries and learn resilience, which are experiences that help us address the stresses and challenges of daily life.
I learn something new every day. Today I learned a starfish has a brain that covers its entire body. Its whole body is made up of brain nodes! There are days I wish I were a starfish: I would have loads of brain cells!
Joy, peace, and happiness to everyone!
Cornelia
Type Four: The Individualist — The Enneagram Institute
My parents would often say, “Time flies when you’re having fun.” If this is so, I’ve had a one whale of a time in 2023. I don’t know where the time has gone, for I’d swear I just woke up in the bright new year of 2023, and now this year has grown a beard of some length. Indeed, the ground was bare, awaiting the warm breath of spring, and now it has experienced its first freeze.
Autumn is a time of transitions. Not only do the trees change colors, and then lose their wardrobe altogether, but we rabbits go from Halloween’s sugar high on October 31st to overstuffing ourselves and the roast beast at the Thanksgiving feast on the Fourth Thursday of this new month. Then we segue into Christmas somnolence with yet more cookies and egg nog (spiked and plain). On occasion we tramp out to decorate the house or scour the woods for greenery, but those days are long gone for most urban dwellers. We’re going to buy from local providers or have it delivered online.
Some of us on the first day of November will still have some of the 35 million pounds of candy corn which are still produced each year. That’s about 9 billion pieces — over a billion more than there are people on Earth. As far as this bunny is concerned, this is 8,999,999,999 pieces of candy corn too many. I’m not a lover of this form of sugar; give me dark chocolate any day. Fortune reported the “dangerous” amount of sugar consumed by kids on Halloween — three cups of sugar in 7,000 calories of candy. For context: That’s 675 grams of sugar, or the same as chomping down almost 169 standard sugar cubes, according to a Fortune article published in 2017.
A Young Bunny
When I was a young bunny, sugar was so restricted in our home, my friends and I would escape our parents’ notice during fellowship time at church to go to the empty adult Sunday school classrooms. We knew where they kept the wonderful Domino Pure Cane sugar cubes for the coffee the grownups drank. We didn’t care for coffee, which was already gone, but the sugar we fell upon like pirates on buried treasure. We didn’t ever consume 169 cubes at once, since that would’ve destroyed the entire stash.
If these had been the 35 million pounds of candy corn, which are still produced each year for Halloween, neither I nor my bunny friend would have ever touched them. The idea about 9 billion pieces — over a billion more than there are people on Earth—are still produced today is incomprehensible to my bunny brain. I think the texture of corn syrup and gelatin isn’t my first choice.
Of course, when the weather turns colder, our bunny bodies sense the need to stoke our internal fires. We do this by consuming more calories, especially the quick acting carbohydrates we find in the sugars and starches that provide the instant “heat” boost our bodies crave. Actually, any food will heat us up, but fruits and vegetables don’t have the same appeal as warm, savory, and fatty foods do in colder weather. The shorter days and the decrease of light in the winter cause problems with our body’s biological clock and lower the levels of the brain chemical serotonin. Plus, many of us reduce our physical activity, so our exercise induced levels of serotonins drop.
Healthy Eating includes More Fiber
We can overcome this loss by planning to be outside during the daytime and making sure to exercise at least 30 minutes daily. Having protein rich snacks and fiber rich soups with complex carbohydrates will help control our hunger spikes. Perhaps this transition time into longer nights and shorter days is why the First Wednesday in November is always National Eating Healthy Day (November 1). If we do only one new healthy choice per week, and add a new healthy option each week thereafter, we can transition our lifestyle into “Eating Healthy.” As a bunny, I remind my friends, it’s also National Vinegar Day—have compassion on yourself and on others. We can love ourselves and others into a better life with kindness rather than harshness. As my grandfather Bunny always said, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”
Day of the Dead Skull
All Saints Day and Dia de los Muertos both are celebrated on November 1. Both recognize the departed loved ones. All Saints recognizes both those who have worked miracles as well as those ordinary saints who have lived among us and given quiet witness to their faith. Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, is a three-day festival to remember the ancestors and friends who predeceased us. People decorate altars with marigold flowers, photos, and skulls in memory of the dead. They make special food offerings in their honor also.
All Soul’s Day on November 2 is a Catholic holiday to pray for the souls which aren’t yet in heaven, but are in purgatory. Protestants don’t believe in purgatory, so we don’t attend upon this day as holy.
Cookie Monster: “Me want COOKIES!”
Many of us do celebrate Cookie Monster Day on November 2, because who doesn’t like cookies?! The same goes for National Sandwich Day on November 3, for hot or cold, almost anything can be slapped between two slices of bread and get slathered with avocado or mayonnaise, and it’s good to go.
Sandwiches first appeared in American cookbooks in 1816. The fillings were no longer limited to cold meat, but the recipes called for a variety of things: cheese, fruit, shellfish, nuts and mushrooms. After the Civil War sandwich consumption increased and were sold both in high-class lunch rooms and in working-class taverns. A typical turkey sandwich in the 1980s contained about 320 calories, according to a report from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Twenty years later, a turkey sandwich contained about 820 calories. Choose whole grain bread if possible.
We seniors have more than time on our hand
“Fall Back” on Sunday, November 5, when Daylight Savings Time Ends. We get another hour of sleep on this day when the clocks go back 1 hour at 2 am. I won’t be awake to notice it, but I suggest those of you who aren’t good sleepers begin to look at your evening routines. Set a wind down time on your clock, watch, or mobile device. Let it remind you to turn on quiet music, read inspirational books, or begin your bedtime routine. Sometimes taking off our outside clothes and wearing our “at home” clothes is a signal to our mind to let go of the cares of the world.
Fighting over Van Gogh Pokémon Gifts at the Museum
Go to an Art Museum Today Day and National Chaos Never Dies Day are both celebrated on November 9 this year. I don’t normally consider chaos and art museums as being in the same category, but Disney has made several Night at the Museum movies that revolve around the trope of ancient Egyptian gods awakening to cause havoc. Actual chaos recently erupted at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam when visitors realized the gift shop had already sold out of the Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat promo card, which was modeled on the Vincent self-portrait. Evidently a small group of fans descended on the gift shop, causing a ruckus, and buying out the merchandise. It’s now for sale on eBay.
2023 Veterans Day Poster
Armistice Day marks the November 11,1918 anniversary of World War I, a war which began in August 1914, that few expected to last beyond Christmas. In 1921, an unknown soldier was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. This First World War was “the war to end all wars,” but we’re an overly optimistic nation. We’ve had a Second World War since then, plus many a regional conflict. Every time our battle ships show the flag somewhere, people think it’s going to be WWIII. Fear mongering doesn’t help the nation. We’re better and stronger than that. Plus, we have the moral duty of leadership: our country needs to show the world there’s a better way.
As I recall, both the North and the South expected the great Civil War to last just a short while, just as Putin entered Ukraine believing his army would roll into Kiev in mere weeks. Yet WWI lasted four years, WWII was six years (the US was involved only the four years from 1941-1945), and our Civil War was another 4-year slog. Wars aren’t so much “won” as lost by attrition: one side loses more men, materiel, and willpower so they surrender to the other. War is the most brutal way to settle our differences.
Armistice Day now is Veterans’ Day, November 11, but observed a day earlier (10th) this year. We celebrate our veterans who do the difficult and challenging work of using judicious force against enemy combatants, rather than civilian populations. All of our enlisted personnel take the same oath to protect and to defend our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic:
I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (So help me God).”
The US Constitution, 1787
We are an unusual people, we Americans, for our loyalty isn’t to a party, a president, or a person. We are loyal to the constitution, which protects our democratic institutions, values, and freedoms. We can be thankful for those who were inspired to write it, heard the prophetic call to amend it, and have the wisdom to keep us on the straight and narrow.
National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week is November 11-19 this year. While the economy is recovering, the loss of pandemic assistance funds Is hurting lower income households. They are making hard choices: food or rent, medicine or food. The number of homeless veterans has decreased, but so has the overall population of veterans. The bad news is veterans are still overrepresented in the homeless population. As you prepare for your own feast this year, I hope you remember the hungry in your community. The best way to help is with a financial donation to the local food bank. The bank can purchase food from the warehouse food bank at greatly reduced prices, thereby providing more food per dollar than individuals can purchase on their own.
World Diabetes Day is November 14. Diabetes is a disease on the increase in the world today. In the US alone, over 37 million people have this disease and over 8.5 million have it but are undiagnosed. Over 96 million US adults have prediabetes, a condition in which their insulin doesn’t take the sugar out of the bloodstream well. Switching to whole grains, less processed foods, and adding more fiber to the diet usually helps lower the blood sugar. So does daily moderate exercise.
National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day is November 15. This is a good day to practice this task, since you’ll be filling it up with excess foods if you’re hosting the feast, or you’ll be traveling away from home. If the latter, you don’t want to return home to spoiled food if the power goes off for any length of time. Ugh: I won’t regale you with the story of stench of the refrigerator in the garage which didn’t power back on after a power outage. Those outlets need to be reset manually because they’re in a “might get wet” zone. The refrigerator inside will come back on automatically. (This turned out to be a get rid of the refrigerator day.)
National Stuffing Day is November 21. If you bake your bread mixture outside of the great bird, it’s called dressing, but if you cram it into the bird, it’s stuffing. It’s safer to cook the bird without stuffing, also quicker. When baking stuffing inside a turkey, it can get get wet and mushy. If you make a flavorful stock from the turkey neck and giblets, you can make your stuffing moist and flavorful without turning it into mush.
If you live in a giant pumpkin, buy a smaller pumpkin for your pie
Pumpkin Pie Day is also November 21, so you can prepare this ahead of time if you wish. You can make a handmade crust or use a store-bought crust from the grocery. Pre bake it and fill it with the pumpkin mixture.
National Cranberry Relish Day is November 22. You can easily make your own with the juice of an orange, some sugar to taste, and cinnamon combined with a package of rinsed cranberries. Heat over medium in a saucepan, stirring frequently to keep from sticking. When the berries burst, reduce heat to simmer and reduce the liquid. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Take off the heat and put into container for icebox. Chill overnight to let seasonings combine. Serve cold as side dish.
Thanksgiving Day is Thursday, November 23. You’ve baked the turkey, and it smells amazing! Let me introduce you to pan gravy from the drippings. You need a little flour, about 2 Tbs; some pepper, about ½ cup of drippings, and 1 cup of hot water. Put the drippings in a heavy saucepan or skillet, add the flour, stirring constantly over medium high heat until flour turns caramel color. This is a medium roux. Slowly add hot water, stirring so no lumps form. Keep stirring till smooth, reducing heat. Add more water slowly if gravy thickens too much. Pepper and salt if necessary.
The idea of “thanksgiving” for the harvest is as old as time, with records from the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. Native Americans in North America celebrated harvest festivals for centuries long before Europeans appeared on their soil and before Thanksgiving was formally established in the United States.
In the 1600s, settlers in Massachusetts and Virginia had feasts to thank for surviving, fertile fields, and their faith. The Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts, had their infamous Thanksgiving feast in 1621 with the Wampanoag Native Americans. The three-day feast consisted mainly of meat: wild fowl procured by the colonists and five deer brought to the feast by the Wampanoag. A a stew called sobaheg was most likely served as a side dish to the main course. It was an easy way to make use of seasonal ingredients, for the stew often included a mixture of beans, corn, poultry, squash, nuts and clam juice. All are used in the traditional dish today, and all would have been available in 1621.
Potatoes weren’t around in 17th-century New England, but corn was plentiful. Natalija Sahraj
Corn and cornmeal were the main carbohydrates on the first thanksgiving meal. The first New England crop of potatoes was grown in Derry, New Hampshire in 1722, so no mashed potatoes were on the menu. Corn bread, corn mush, and corn puddings abounded, since the Native Tribes had shown the colonists how to plant beans, squash, and corn together to maximize growth of all three. The harvest of 1621 likely included beans, squash, onions, turnips and greens such as spinach and chard. All could have been cooked at length to create a green, pulpy sauce that later became a staple in early New England homes. Sweet dishes concocted from sugar or maple syrup weren’t on the menu, nor were honey sweetened deserts. At least, the Pilgrims didn’t have to save room for pie.
After the Pilgrims, for more than two centuries, individual colonies and states celebrated days of thanksgiving. The first national celebration of Thanksgiving was observed for a slightly different reason than a celebration of the harvest—it was in honor of the creation of the new United States Constitution! In 1789, President George Washington issued a proclamation designating November 26 of that year as a ”Day of Publick Thanksgivin” to recognize the role of providence in creating the new United States and the new federal Constitution. During the Civil War, President Lincoln called for a national Thanksgiving Day on the last Thursday of November after the Battle of Gettysburg. In the Great Depression President Franklin Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving Day to the next to last Thursday in November. After two years of public unhappiness, Congress passed a law in 1941 setting Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November.
Thanksgiving, 1858, by Winslow Homer, Boston Public Library
During the week of Thanksgiving, from November 19-25 or 26, we have the holidays of Church/State Separation Week and National Bible Week. If you haven’t been giving thanks for your blessings up to this time, take a break, breathe, and rejoice that you are alive. Give thanks for your hands, your food, your breath, and your heart of love. Share this thanksgiving with someone else. If each of us gives a bit of hope to someone else, we can help others have something to be thankful about.
Chocolate answers all questions.
After the rush of Thanksgiving, some of us bunnies may need medicinal chocolate. November 29 is Chocolate Day. Depending on your personality, you can buy fancy chocolate to share, or you can enjoy it by yourself along with a good book and some lavender tea. If Thanksgiving Day was really overwhelming, National Personal Space Day on November 30 might be calling your name. We all have times in our lives when we don’t need hugs, either because of physical or emotional distress. Besides, we bunnies need to catch our breath before we dash into the Christmas season.
I’m thankful for each of you who read and share my stories.
I was reading an article in the New York Times the other day. In “How I Learned to Love Finishing Last,” the author wrote about her slow pace as a runner. As one who regularly finishes last in my age group in the annual Spa 5K Walk each November, I’m optimistic one day I might get old enough to be in a nonagenarian age group all on my own. Perhaps if I’m 90 and still doing a 5K, they’ll give me a ribbon just for participating! “The last will be first and the first will be last,” especially if there’s only one of us in the race!
“When we compare ourselves to others,” said Dr. Justin Ross, a clinical psychologist in Denver who specializes in athlete mental health and performance, “we set ourselves up to suffer. Instead, the real psychological benefits come from enjoying what your body can do.”
Portrait of Yayoi Kusama in costume in front of pumpkin painting, photo: Noriko Takasugi
Suffering physically isn’t what art class is about, although we may suffer indignities to our egos, but this shouldn’t hold us back from doing our art works. The case of the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is evidence even hallucinations of voices and images can’t keep an artist from creating. If our daily efforts don’t measure up to what we imagined in our mind, it’s merely because our inner eye sees better than our hands can execute our vision. Sometimes our eye forgets what it once learned, for we haven’t used our skill of looking in a while. A runner doesn’t leap off the couch and immediately run a marathon or even a 5K. The smart athlete takes the time to train progressively for the distance beforehand. Also, they get new shoes.
Kroger Run: Two ghost pumpkins and a small pie pumpkin
Sometimes the coach has slept over the summer also. Just as students in school need a time to relearn last year’s lessons, as a coach in art class I sometimes forget the lessons, which are second nature to me because they’ve been inculcated by multiple teachers since I was eight years old, aren’t as ingrained to my own students. I also forget I’m always observing everything around me: cloud patterns, changing colors on trees, sunlight dappling on tree branches, shadows on the ground, and reflections in windows. I think about these patterns rather than about what I need to do next or next week. My calendar will remind me of these things in due time. I’ll be wrapping this up soon so I can work on my monthly Rabbit blog.
Rabbit playing “Hide the Pumpkin.”
A National Institute on Aging study found five healthy lifestyle factors — physical activity, not smoking, not drinking heavily, following the Mediterranean-style diet, and engaging in mentally stimulating activities — can have important benefits. People who engaged in four or five of these behaviors had a 60% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s compared to those who only followed one or none. People who followed two or three of the activities had a 37% lower risk. This is your free wellness plan from Dr. Cornie, who has no medical degree, but did stay in a Holiday Inn once.
Debunking the Myth of the Split Brain Theory
Although we commonly think art is a “right brained” activity, in 2013 a group of researchers at the University of Utah discovered people actually use both sides of their brains equally. Back in the 1970’s when I was seeking employment after graduate school, the “Art is a right brain myth” ruled the creative work world. I once suggested I’d be a good candidate for a museum position because I understood both the artistic and the logical mind. I was not hired. Intuitive understanding of the brain a half century ahead of time doesn’t exactly open the doors to a fancy job.
As I recall, I got a checker’s job in a grocery store and ended up counting the teller trays and preparing the bank deposits for that store. The good news is creating works of art is a multi-process activity, one that depends on several brain regions and on redundancy of art-related functional representation rather than on a single cerebral hemisphere, region or pathway. This means even when we lose our ability to form words (typically a left hemisphere activity) our ability to create art still exists. We can still express our inner feelings and thoughts. This is good news for the aging and those who love them.
One one the great sadnesses in my ministry is being with young people who desperately want to have their old one’s memories recorded, but waited too late to ask them or were too busy with their own lives to sit and listen to these stories of the olden days. Once their old person has a stroke and loses the ability to form words, the opportunity has passed. Those stories will be locked in their minds due to aphasia, and no one or no amount of time will pull them out. We always tell young parents their babies need to be enjoyed while they’re still young, but we should also tell families to get the stories of their elders while they still can. “Strike while the iron is still hot” will take on a new meaning one day.
We needed bigger pumpkins
Gail and I were the only ones in class today. Lauralei showed up to gift us chocolate cake and keep us company. Tim and Mike were out of town. Gail and I both repainted old canvases. I showed some of the unusual ways pumpkins have been decorated by various artists, but none of them sparked any interest. We got down to work by covering our old canvas with a base of titanium white paint. Then I located all three of the pumpkins with circles and drew a baseline for the object on which they sat. I didn’t look over at Gail’s work for a while, but then I noticed she’d almost completely finished one pumpkin without roughing in the shapes of the others.
Gail had a big canvas today.
“Did you plan on finishing that one pumpkin before drawing the other two?” I asked.
Gail gave me a “needs more caffeine” stare.
“That’s what I thought. Maybe next time draw in the rough shapes so you get everything located in space relevant to each other.”
Pumpkin Spice Latte Time
We kept on painting until clean up time. I often say “I’ve slept since then.” It’s my all purpose excuse for forgetfulness or just plain airheadedness. Sometimes I have my mind on other things and I’m not focused on what’s in front of me. I forget about the wisdom of Brother Lawrence, who said “many do not advance in the Christian progress because they stick in penances and particular exercises while they neglect the love of God which is the end. This appeared plainly by their works and was the reason why we see so little solid virtue.” He also said, “there needed neither art nor science for going to God, but only a heart resolutely determined to apply itself to nothing but Him and to love Him only.”
Cornelia’s small painting of pumpkins
We know Brother Lawrence from the classic text, The Practice of the Presence of God. Although it dates from the late 17th century, his lessons on living life in joy in the present moment, all for the love of God are invaluable for us modern folks who tend to live for our 15 minutes of personal fame, social media clicks, or self interest. We aren’t used to the monastic life today, or to the discipline of that lifestyle. We live in a Burger King world, in which each individual gets his or her own way to every extent possible. Unfortunately, the Christian lifestyle is one of discipline, but not harsh punishment:
“Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” ~~ Hebrews 12:11
In art class we focus on the disciplines, just as the guild artists taught the apprentices back in the day. These disciplines are not only for safety, for some of our art tools are dangerous, but also some of our techniques are proven to yield better results than others. This is why carpenters measure twice and cut once. They also cut on the outside of the line, rather than the inside. They can shave down a piece easier than adding to it. Murphy’s Law recognizes this: “A wire cut to length will be too short.”
Zen Tangle drawing of pumpkins: exercise in texture
Art class has no mysteries, but we can forget the “secret gnostic knowledge passed down by word of mouth” from our previous classes. I often use the excuse “I’ve slept since then.” Another good excuse is “My mind has gone to Pluto.” I share these with you all, for they’ve always worked for me. Of course it helps to be a natural blonde. Then again, I’m very organized, but I’m also very active, so sometimes my calendar gets overwhelmed, and I pull out the “OOPS! Card.” Even in retirement I’m still creating and sharing my faith through art and writing. It’s my way of exercising those brain cells to keep them from dying off. We old folks can still learn new things, even if it takes longer. This is what we call the persistence of effort. Those who keep using their skills won’t be losing those skills.
The same goes for learning a new skill. It’s all a matter of repetition. We can’t get frustrated if we don’t get it on the first try. We won’t be a good role model for the young if we have that attitude. We need to lower our expectations. I used to think I couldn’t knit, but only crochet. After my mom, who was a stellar knitter passed on, a friend taught me to knit in an afternoon! Where this sudden bilateral coordination came from I have no idea, but it was so welcome. Perhaps I needed to be in the right frame of mind, or I wanted to be able to carry on my mom’s memory, but I was definitely receptive to her teaching.
Letter to Theo Van Gogh, September 18, 1888
It’s never too late to learn and we’re never too old to start learning. Art isn’t just good for the brain, but it’s good for the soul. Art is our attempt to represent truth, beauty, and nature in media that can be accessible to others. By doing this, we bear witness to the creation and the Creator. We only need give our best efforts, and let God’s Spirit guide our growth.
Joy, peace, and perseverance,
Cornelia
We have pumpkins galore on the autumn altar.
How I Learned to Love Finishing Last
How the Aging Brain Affects Thinking | National Institute on Aging
Aristotle said in his Poetics, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance, and this, and not the external manner and detail, is true reality.”
He spoke mainly about poetry, which was the highest art of his age, but his words also apply to the fine arts. Today, many people are still mesmerized by artists who practice various styles of realism, but they overlook the artists who show us the realities of emotion and inner vision.
The good news about art.
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time,” said the spiritual writer, Thomas Merton. Some people use art as a cathartic exercise, and pour out their inner emotions on the canvas or their chosen media. Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings and Van Gogh’s late works are good examples of emotional expression. We all know folks who have a project going in their garage. They go work on “that worthless piece of junk” to focus their attention and energy on fixing something on which they can make a difference, instead of getting tied up in knots about things they can’t change and must accept. Gardening and knitting are also good hobbies for focusing this energy.
We know our nervous system grows to the modes in which it has been exercised. This is what we call building a habit over time. Just as a child doesn’t walk straight out of the womb, they have preparatory skills that must be acquired by stages as they grow. Exercising their muscles by rolling over also helps to strengthen their necks to hold their heads up. Crawling leads to pulling up, and that leads to letting go to learn balance.
Each time a child repeats these movements, he or she will simplify the movements required to achieve the needed result, make them more accurate, and diminish fatigue. In this, they’re building habits that bring them closer to walking. Rushing them to achieve “early” walking actually puts them behind cognitively.
Not only are there twenty five body parts in a baby’s body that are used in the crawl movement, but crawling also strengthens the hip sockets, so the baby will have a strong platform on which to stand. Crawling helps the corpus callosum, which is a band of nerve fibers between the hemispheres of the brain. Criss-cross crawling on the knees and hands stimulates the corpus callosum to develop in a balanced way, facilitating the hemispheres of the brain to communicate. These cross lateral movements work both sides of the body evenly and involve coordinated movements of the eyes, ears, hands, feet, and core muscles. This helps support cognitive function, problem solving, and ease of learning. Exploring the floor in a baby proofed home allows your baby to achieve his or her optimal potential.
Gail’s Painting
“Practice makes perfect” is only as true as the practice is directed in a true direction. This is where a teacher, a parent, a coach, or a spiritual guide comes into play. Only one who’s been led well can lead others with grace. We don’t tear down the learner, but ask questions, give guidance, help them see alternative paths, and allow them a safe place to explore their choices.
Art class isn’t brain surgery. No one will die if the painting isn’t successful, and no one’s salvation is at risk if the painting doesn’t come out the way we hoped it might. Art class is a safe place to take risks, unlike jumping from a tall tower without a parachute. Learning to accept failure on our canvases and coming back next time to try again is a mark of resilience and courage. Every time we fail closer to our target, we realize we’re gaining on it! We never say I CAN’T in art class.
Crawl before you Walk or Run
The sad reality is we can teach and expand the horizons of young people up til the age of 25 or 30. After that, they seem to lose energy and desire to learn more or to change. They “habitually” repeat their previous acts, for good or for ill. We’ve all heard the old saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Those of us who are no longer young have sometimes been accused of being set in our ways. Some of us are afraid we won’t excel at a new challenge, for we’ve always been held to a high standard of achievement. Since none of us will be the next Georgia O’Keefe or Leonardo da Vinci, we can set that worry aside. They both had more years to practice than we have left in front of us. Instead, we should give our remaining time our most focused attention, so we can get the most from our experience.
My high school chemistry book had the same information in it which my daddy’s college chemistry book covered. He was amazed I was learning “advanced” ideas at my young age. In 1982 R. Buckminister Fuller introduced the idea of the “knowledge doubling curve.” Up until 1900, knowledge doubled every century. By 1945, knowledge doubled every 25 years and by 1982, it doubled every year. Some say it’s now doubling twice a day! The newest computer we buy off the shelf today is already obsolete.
We can’t train our students for the jobs of today because these jobs likely won’t exist tomorrow. We need to train people to be lifetime learners instead. Luckily, we don’t have to know all things, but we do need the skills to find the knowledge and sort through the best sources for the best possible information.
1930-2006
Today, knowledge we acquire in high school, college, graduate school, and our last job may already be obsolete. (I’m one who still grieves the loss of Pluto as a planet; it exists but is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt). This is especially true in fast moving fields like technology. As futurist Alvin Toffler wrote, “the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
This means all of us will need to become lifelong learners or we’ll risk losing touch with an ever evolving world. Maybe we think our brains can’t handle something new, for we’ve heard about the effect of aging. Cognitive process studies with older brains show learning, memory, and problem-solving in humans are often less efficient in these areas.
However, it has recently been established that dogs show many of the same kind of age related changes that humans do. A study in Vienna showed that older dogs learned new tasks just as well as younger dogs, although they took longer to do so and required more repetitive corrections. This aptitude is also known as “resilience training.”
I think it’s also important to know why we want to keep our brains agile as we move into our later years. John Wesley was fond of repeating William Law’s summary from the Practical Treatise on Christian Perfection,
“Do all the good you can, to all you can, by any means you can, as long as you can.”
Because Wesley was better known than William Law, this quote is now attributed to Wesley alone. We Methodists have made it our own, however, and have carried its banner around the globe in our world wide mission efforts made possible by our Connectional ministries. Wesley thought enough of Law’s writing to reprint 19 editions of his work.
My late mother, at the age of eighty, learned how to use a laptop computer. She was motivated because she wanted to see emailed photos of her grandchildren, but then she realized she also could find recipes. When a child in her hometown needed a Mercy Flight, she used her new skills to get him transportation to an out of state hospital for treatment. I occasionally had to reteach her on how to double click quickly on her icons, rather than slowly, but she finally caught on.
iPad drawing of pear and apple
If we want to keep our brains agile throughout our middle, silver, and golden years, we always need to try new things. Doing art challenges makes our brain build new neural pathways. Every time we look at a still life or a landscape, we have to make multiple decisions: what shapes do I see—circles, squares, triangles, or rectangles; how do these shapes relate to one another on the plane of our canvas; what is most important; what colors will I use; what emotions do I want to express; and where will I begin?
Eventually, we will find our “style.” We don’t find a style by copying another’s work, but we create enough works until our hand becomes one with our spirit. Since God has placed a special spark of God’s own creative Spirit within each of us, eventually we’ll experience the joy of being one with God when we are in our painting moments. As Paul said to the Romans (8:16):
“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”
Last Friday we had a simple still life as our inspiration. Half our class was out sick with spring pollen troubles, but it was good to see those who could come after a two week hiatus. After a brief show and tell to get us inspired by other artists’ takes on the subject for the day, we got started. I reminded everyone not to make the fruit too tiny, so it wouldn’t get lost on the canvas. I believe everyone succeeded with this goal!
Mike’s painting
Mike painted his whole canvas with one brush. This gave the fruit a certain texture with contrasting colors, and the background, which was in a close value, didn’t show much brush strokes or texture. I like the perspective he chose, which brings the viewer in close to these fruit.
Gail tried a larger canvas with bolder colors than she normally uses. It was more dramatic and stronger in contrast than usual, while she kept her smooth strokes of paint as usual. She also took a view from above.
Cornelia’s Fruits
I stuck to a traditional rendering of the still life, since I do many abstract paintings in my own studio. I’d call these two Day and Night, for the Apple is quite awake and the Pear seems to need a little nap. It’s a study in contrasts: red and green, blue violet and yellow orange—a color wheel study masquerading as a still life.
Next week we’re in the season of Lent. As Christ turns his face towards Jerusalem, we’ll begin a study on the icons. This will be accessible and interesting. You’ll end up with your own icon for your personal worship center also.
In the “late unpleasantness” which has some of our Methodist congregations in turmoil, many have their reasons for going or staying. As one born into the Methodist Church, who spent a portion of my life looking for a “better god” before God called me back home, I have some experience with faith. I’ve had it, lost it, and received it once again. My privilege in seminary to work along side the Wesley librarian allowed me to touch authentic Wesley letters. I also had the blessing of being the late Dr. Billy Abraham’s assistant for the Evangelism Chair. When I think of faith, Romans 12:3 comes to mind:
“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”
Here Paul’s word for faith is the Greek word pistis, which is always a gift from God, never something that can be produced by people. In short, faith for the believer is always “God’s divine persuasion” and therefore distinct from confidence or human belief. The Spirit continuously births faith in the yielded believer so they can know God’s will (1 Jn 5:4).
The former UMC Bishop Mike Lowery wrote in his notice of withdrawal from the Council of Bishops as he surrendered his elder’s orders: “I believe “We are in a fight for the faith delivered once for all.” (Jude 3, CEB).
Resurrection Christ
I’m not picking on the former bishop. I knew him from my Emmaus community days in Southwest Texas. But his posted letter, which can be read at the link below, charges the United Methodist Church has lost her Wesleyan understanding of Christianity. This piqued my interest, so I decided to focus my own thoughts, as well as to inform others, on this matter of faith.
Faith as Doctrine of Assent vs Doctrine of Assurance:
Today we often think of faith as a set of beliefs, or the Doctrine of Assent. In Wesley’s time, he understood faith as the Doctrine of Assurance, a unique gift to the Christian church, whereby believers can know with certainty they are truly beloved of God with a steadfast love which endures forever.
This love is unconditional and saves us from the tragic consequences of the law of sin and death by bringing us into the law of life and love through Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. That descriptive mouthful is John Wesley’s heartwarming experience he had at Aldersgate in 1738 on the fateful evening when he attended a meeting very unwillingly, yet had the heart changing event that set his life on a different path.
Christ Surrounded by Angels
Historic Wesleyan Faith is a Gift of Grace
We need to ask, “What is the historic Wesleyan understanding of the Christian faith, anchored in the Holy Trinity and welded to Christ as Lord and Savior?” Is it located in regeneration, aka the new birth, or is it located in human morality as proof of righteousness in Jesus Christ? This probably means nothing to people in the pews, but if we’re going to claim the mantle of John Wesley, or the argument from tradition, we must get Wesley’s understanding of faith down pat. We find Wesley’s thoughts in his Notes on the New Testament and in his StandardSermons, both of which are part of our Methodist teaching.
In the sermon OF EVIL ANGELS, Wesley reminds us faith is “our evidence of things unseen.”
“Faith is the life of the soul; and if ye have this life abiding in you, ye want no marks to evidence it to yourself: but [elencos pneumatos/Spirit control] that divine consciousness, that witness of God, which is more and greater than ten thousand human witnesses,” is Wesley’s explanation of faith in AWAKE, O SLEEPER.
Faith as the Spirit of Adoption
Another way of saying this is Romans 8:15-17,
“When we cry Abba! Father! It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.”
For Wesley, faith is a gift of salvation, our trust in the saving work of Christ. As he says in the sermon AWAKE OH SLEEPER:
“Awake, and cry out with the trembling jailer, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ And never rest till thou believest on the Lord Jesus, with a faith which is His gift, by the operation of His Spirit.”
Then Wesley gives his altar call: “In what state is thy soul? Was God, while I am yet speaking to require it of thee, art thou ready to meet death and judgement? Canst thou stand in His sight, who is of ‘purer eyes than to behold iniquity’? Art thou ‘meet to be partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light’? Hast thou ‘fought a good fight, and kept the faith’? Hast thou secured the one thing needful? Hast thou recovered the image of God, even righteousness and true holiness? Hast thou put off the old man, and put on the new? Art thou clothed upon with Christ?”
“Hast thou oil in thy lamp? grace in thy heart? Dost thou ‘love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength’? Is that mind in thee, which was also in Christ Jesus? Art thou a Christian indeed that is, a new creature? Are old things passed away, and all things become new?”
Mandylion: Image Not Made by Human Hands
Faith comes as a Gift. Our good works respond to Christ’s work.
Most of us are in agreement Wesley’s initial understanding of FAITH having to do with accepting Christ’s work for us as the only precondition for our salvation. There is no good deed or accumulation of good deeds needed to earn our salvation from God. What many of us have difficulty is accepting we also don’t earn our perfection in holiness by our own power.
Our Christian perfection is always a cooperative work of the Holy Spirit and our own spirit. As the Spirit works in us, we respond to work toward the complete renewal into the original image of God in which we were created. While it’s possible we might attain this perfect state in this lifetime, most Christians will attain completion in the purity of love of God and neighbor at the moment of death by God’s work, not by our own accomplishments.
Do the Born Again Christians Sin?
In Wesley’s sermon, “The Great Privilege of Those That Are Born of God,” he quotes 1 John 3:9—
“Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.”
The Golden Bridge—Ba Na Hills, Vietnam
Wesley admits people who are born again can err or make mistakes, but they don’t sin. That’s a bridge too far for many to accept today, for many of us are prone to judging others. We have a dysfunctional understanding of “perfection.” We think it’s like a Martha Stewart design, forgetting she has a whole staff of helpers to carry out her ideas. As one of my professors once explained it, “Once you’ve been to Waxahachie, you’ve always been to Waxahachie.”
If you don’t know Waxahachie, it’s a midsized Texas town about the size of Hot Springs, Arkansas. It was known for cotton in its hey day, and now hosts a crepe myrtle festival. Once you’ve been there, you can’t lose that experience. In the same way, you can’t lose your status of new birth. It’s a gift of the Holy Spirit, given by faith through Christ.
But some of us will try to throw it away anyhow. Wesley wrote in that same sermon, The Great Privilege, “Some sin of omission, at least, must necessarily precede the loss of faith; some inward sin: But the loss of faith must precede the committing outward sin.”
The Outward Appearance vs. The Inward Attributes
So, one who has faith doesn’t sin, since we have to lose faith in God to sin. In other words, we have to reject the gift freely given to us without price. As he also says in his great sermon on Christian Perfection, “Every one of these can say, with St. Paul, “I am crucified with Christ: Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:” [Gal 2:20]— Words that manifestly describe a deliverance from inward as well as from outward sin.”
Van Gogh: The Good Samaritan
Christian Perfection
For Wesley, the goal of Christian perfection, or the recovery of the image of God, was to love God and neighbor with one’s whole heart until nothing else could exist inside. No favoritism for a group, no exclusion for a group, no yearning to be better than others, no desiring a better place at the table, no hoarding of resources for selfish purposes, no fear of tomorrow, nor any other anxiety that strikes the human heart.
We give our resources away so we can have room for new blessings. God always provides for those who give with generous hearts. We open our doors to the least, the last, the lost, and the unloved, because Jesus and Wesley went out into the fields and met the people where they were. Those are our people out there, and they aren’t “living moral lives,” any more than the imperfect people within our churches are. But we all can and do live lives of faith. We all can learn to trust a savior who loves every sinew of our wounded and broken bodies. We can love a God who never gives up on us even if we’ve given up on ourselves.
Homeless Jesus Statue, Timothy Schmaltz
We United Methodists might be messy, but we surely can love God and neighbor. Moreover, we’re all going on to perfection, even if some of us are moving more slowly than others. We’re still a community of faith, a people who trust God’s grace and one another to get through this thing called life together. We’ll bring each other along, for we’re not leaving anyone behind. We include in the great worldwide Body of Christ the body of Christ whom we meet outside our doors. After all, the race isn’t to the swift, but to the ones who help their brothers and sisters to the finish line, where we have a finishing medal for everyone, along with a big potluck dinner with enough food for folks to take home leftovers. That’s the never ending banquet table to which we invite all who hunger and thirst for community—both spiritual and personal.
The Word of God holds the Scripture of Salvation
Trusting Faith for a Risky Love in Unsettled Times
All we have to do is ask ourselves in this unsettled time: “Do I have Wesley’s trusting faith to live this risky love? Are these the people with whom I want to experience God’s steadfast love and share the grace of Christ? This is our heritage in the United Methodist Church, for we’re a people of faithfulness, who believe the “Bible has everything sufficient for salvation.”
I can only hope for those who leave, whether they become global Methodists, independents, or community congregations, that they will provide a large enough tent for our big God and big Christ, for the Spirit always is seeking people and places to fill completely with the gift of God’s extraordinary love and power.
Why not become all aflame with the fire of God’s redeeming love?
My prayer is our United Methodist churches will receive a fresh rush of the Spirit to become even more of what we are today, for
“Our standards affirm the Bible as the source of all that is “necessary” and “sufficient” unto salvation (Articles of Religion) and “is to be received through the Holy Spirit as the true rule and guide for faith and practice” (Confession of Faith).” Theological Guidelines: Scripture https://www.umc.org/en/content/theological-guidelines-scripture
The heat of summer hasn’t yet passed, even though we’re past “seasonal summer” and are almost at “meteorological fall.” Yes, the autumnal Equinox is almost upon us, arriving on September 23, at 2:50 am CDT. Even though the term means “equal night,” the day is longer than 12 hours on an equinox because Earth’s atmosphere refracts sunlight. Why does day insist on exceeding its boundaries, you ask, and not be content with with “equality?”
L
DeLee: Homage to Van Gogh’s Sunflowers
Refraction, or bending of the light, causes the Sun’s upper edge to be visible from Earth several minutes before the edge actually reaches the horizon. The same thing happens at sunset, when you can see the sun for several minutes after it has actually dipped under the horizon. This causes every day on Earth – including the days of the equinoxes—to be at least 6 minutes longer than it would have been without this refraction. The extent of refraction also depends on atmospheric pressure and temperature. It’s the nature of days to want to be longer, or if they’re like my little girl, to want one more story or just one more drink of water before the lights go out for nighty night.
This is the season of sunflowers, and they bring light inside when we want to keep the shades down or the curtains drawn to keep the hot sun from cooking our dwellings and driving up our air conditioning bills. I’d bought some blooms to brighten my home and enjoyed them while I repainted my condo. They died during this weeklong endeavor. Afterwards I took a break from wall painting to do some canvas painting. I decided to paint the dying sunflowers.
Van Gogh painted numerous sunflowers, often in vases, but he also painted canvases of the flowers with no background or container. One had double heads, but the other larger one had four life sized dried heads and is approximately 24” x 39.” He painted it between August and October, 1887. Van Gogh often painted flowers to practice color combinations. Some think he saw the sunflower as a symbol for the bright sun of the south of France, the light of which permeates his paintings. His friend and art colleague, Paul Gauguin traded his work for one of Vincent’s dried sunflower paintings.
Van Gogh’s Four Dried Sunflower Heads
Doing a homage to a masterpiece helps an artist grow. The artists of old never worried about their “brand” or “style,” for they made the art they needed to make. It also helps to identify areas the artist needs to develop, such as color combinations, design, drawing, negative vs. positive space, texture of paint, and light vs. dark. Because the artists aren’t invested in “their own motifs or symbols,” they can concentrate on these focused areas.
Of course, none of us can make an exact copy, for we don’t bring the emotions or vision of the original creator to the piece. This is especially true if we use live objects rather than making a direct copy of the original painting. Not many of us have the intensity of Van Gogh’s short and chaotic life. I’m not given to sticking with natural color, so my five sunflowers all have different seed heads, rather than the same brown. The stems change color, but not as much as Van Gogh’s painting.
We can aspire to perfection, but attaining perfection is difficult. All artists and creative types have to learn to deal with this incongruity of life and work. Even in the spiritual life, we can know the truth that sets us free, but live a life in bondage, for we don’t allow God to work in our lives and set us free. It’s as if we can know the laws of perspective, but not execute them on the paper, with the result our drawings of buildings look out of sort.
I make a painting, hang it on my wall, and I can almost immediately see room for improvement. Sometimes I work some more on it, other times, I call it good for now, and go on to the next canvas. A year or so later, I might repaint it, or cut it up and reweave it into a new opportunity for creativity. This sunflower poem by William Blake speaks to the aspirations of our earthly journeys for their ultimate destination with the holy.
Ah! Sun-flower
By William Blake
Ah Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun:
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the travellers journey is done.
Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow:
Arise from their graves and aspire,
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.
Of course, we don’t need to die to unite with the holy, for we can become one with God when we dedicate our lives to loving God and neighbor with all our hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits. Doing art is a form of meditation, for if you focus on the image before you and the act of painting, you aren’t thinking of politics, eating, paying bills, hurricanes, or family problems.
“Doing it right” means losing track of time, learning from your mistakes, and keeping a positive mental attitude. It also means giving yourself some grace, for your desire to do better is only a challenge, not a barrier. It’s also what fuels your energy to get up every day to say, “What beauty can I bring to the world today?”
Don’t worry about perfection, but keep on painting or creating! Each day is another step towards your ultimate goal. We can’t climb Mt. Everest if we don’t leave home and travel to Tibet. Like the ancient desert dwellers, we travel by stages, from one oasis to another. Sometimes we rest a bit at each place, as we gather strength for the next part of the journey. Picasso, Rembrandt, and other famous artists developed several styles along the way, since they lived long lives. Those artists’ lives whose were cut short didn’t have such an opportunity.
May you live long and splash joyful color throughout your days,
We had a bright taste of spring in last Friday’s art class with the yellow daffodils from Gail’s yard. She and Mike have come a long way in their powers of observation and rendering. They take their time to see, study, and really observe intentionally whatever objects are before them. These two students have been to most of the 26 classes to date, beginning back in June 2018. They’ve come a long way.
Gail—Daffodils
We can get lost in the busyness of the world with all the competing claims for our attention, but if we take our time, breathe, look for the most important things first, and then deal with the details, we’ll usually have a better outcome. This is an art studio principle we can carry over into life.
Mike—Daffodils
I happen to be doing something entirely different. It’s a woven painting, from two old works I’m no longer keeping. As part of my recycled/resurrection series, it belongs to a theme of change. In Luke 9:51, we hear
“When the days drew near for him to be taken up,
he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”
Sometimes we have to set our minds on what God wants for us and deal with the consequences. As we head into Lent, I recognize as a teacher most students today don’t want to suffer, but want the prize of achievement without the sweat of practice. Some say 10,000 hours is the mythical threshold to acquire competency.
Will we then all be Leonardo’s, Picasso’s, or Monet’s? Some of us will work 100,000 hours and still be ourselves, but we’ll be so much more than we were when we began! It’s like the Christian life: if we aren’t intentional about giving ourselves into God’s service, we won’t practice it often enough to grow in love and grace.
I had a dream about this image I’m working on now. Jesus knows the cross is before him. He’s already seen it in his mind. When he goes down to Jerusalem for the Passover, things won’t go well for him. He can go to fulfill his mission or turn tail and run. The prelude to his ministry was the temptation in the desert, which we remember during Lent. He goes forward to the certainty of his ministry and also his death and resurrection.
DeLee—Face Set Towards Jerusalem”
Those of us who like Easter, but not Good Friday, will one day have to deal with suffering: our own, someone’s we love, or the suffering of humanity. We can’t escape suffering, for it’s part of the human condition. Some of it we choose, like training for sports, but some is visited upon us unkindly, such as the dread illnesses and wars of our world. Some were born into suffering by geographic location, and this causes mass refugee populations to move across national borders in search of hope and opportunity.
When we’re painting these pretty pictures of flowers, we can think of those who have put their hope in God’s hands and remember we are Christ’s hands in God’s world.
My weaving is a dream image of a transformational point in time when you see what is both before you and behind you. You choose to go ahead anyway, even knowing the consequences. Both the hero and the artist have to risk the danger. Otherwise we’ll paint pretty canvases for nice homes and be the Christians who wear our decorative crosses, but we’ll never bear the cross for the sake of Christ, his kingdom, and the better world God calls us to recreate.
The Christian life calls each of us to be a hero, one who suffers on behalf of another. If our lives are too easy, we aren’t walking like Christ. We aren’t called to suffer at the hands of another, or to be harmed by others, but there’s a real need in our lives for “structured and guided suffering in a safe environment,” such as learning a new skill or getting outside of our comfort zone.
One of the most difficult struggles in art, sports, faith, or anything else in life is knowing what you want to achieve, but finding yourself lacking the skills to accomplish it. Some people give up right away, since they can’t master it well. Art takes a lifetime to master, so even the best of us will be struggling to get better until our last breath. Perfection is highly overrated! All artists are their own worst critics! At least in faith we have God as our coworker.
In art a beginner can set aside this quandary and say, “Well, I just need more practice and I’ll get there soon enough.” The intermediate practitioner contends with a little more skill, and could push his or her technique over the edge attempting to discover the heart and soul of their expressions as they seek their own way to speak of the beautiful and the true in color and forms.
Sometimes a seasoned artist comes to a growth point. Even one who, perhaps from their past work in a certain style, has some following and financial success, when they come to the daily search for truth and beauty, will discover the old beauty no longer attracts them. So while they may have all the technical ability to continue creating their old works, they find this no longer is their truth and they can’t in good conscience continue to produce in the same vein.
Our Still Life
The search for truth and beauty is like the search for God and our inner truth as artists and people of faith. If we’re only working for fame and gain, maybe we should have listened to those who said, “Don’t quit your day job.” Or thought of Rembrandt and Van Gogh, who found both success and poverty, but at different times. Our inner search for truth and beauty is just as fraught.
Will we take the risk and try something new? This week l brought the class a shade of my former self, no inspirational paintings of old masters, and only a variation on last week’s still life. Afterwards I was traveling up to the doctor‘s poffice for “the cure to end my misery.” After a few days on sinus medications, I can hold two thoughts together again.
To really look at life and look inside oneself is the best way to discover truth and beauty. Some folks don’t want to look inside for fear they’ll see ugly things, long buried secrets, pains, and memories best forgotten. We need to see these, recognize them, and let Jesus take them into his already redeemed life. If we can let these painful parts be transformed by his graceful healing mercy, then we can use his renewing power in our own lives to bring truth and beauty to the life of others.
Some people look out and only see ugliness, decay, and despair. I imagine if they look inside, they also see the same things. They need to remember the nature of all things is not in itself beautiful or ugly, just as they themselves aren’t ugly or beautiful. Beauty is a standard, like a Virtue, which is an ideal characteristic, and it’s beyond anything here on this world. We’ll probably understand Truth and Beauty in the eternal world, when we have the opportunity to participate with God in the fullness of time.
Gail—Day of the Dead image in process
If beauty were only to exist in the eye of each and every beholder, and each one of us could determine our own standards of beauty according to our own experience and criteria, then all the plains would be level and no mountains would exist. Yet, we know this isn’t so, for my icebox door may be decorated with my grandchildren’s crayon drawings, but they wouldn’t be hanging in an art gallery in any creative district anywhere.
Mike—Basket of Veggies against a Yellow Wall
If art isn’t a challenge, if life isn’t a pursuit of excellence, and if we are content to rest at the foot of the mountains, then I really wonder why God created the heights, if not for us to aspire to them? If there’s mountains in this world, why are so many content to climb just the hills, but call them mountains? Most of the struggles we have in life are actually molehills, but we blow them out of proportion and call them mountains! The biggest successes come from the accumulation of many small failures. We’re just training until we hone our muscle memory to a fine edge. This is why we say works can’t save you in faith, but art is all about the work ethic.
DeLee—Work in Progress
Our biggest challenge this week in class was the woven basket. Some of us had never woven anything in youth groups, so experiences I took for granted as a child growing up (weaving situpons and potholders) weren’t in some people’s backgrounds. Learning to look, follow the weave, see the play of light along the wave of the reeds, and the shadows as they dip under the warp bands took a bit of doing. We’re also beginning some Day of the Dead related works. We’ll work in these in October. I was so sick, I failed to photo everyone’s work. I should be in better shape next week!
Joy and Peace, Cornelia
For now we remember, as the apostle Paul sighed,
“For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”
~~ Romans 7:19
And he leaves us with these words of hope,
“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”
~~ Romans 8:28
Flowers please us because of their colors and forms, but also because of their fleeting beauty. While the class was painting, I threw some colors on an old canvas. It is a sketch, since never got to the dark accents of the petals. The paint was wet, so I would have had mud, not two distinct colors!
In our weekly adult painting class at church, we talked about Van Gogh’s sunflowers, Gauguin’s friendship with him, and how other artists have approached the subject of flowers. Not painting every petal or detail, but capturing the energy and emotion of the flowers is more important.
Art Class and Sunflowers
This requires a leap of faith! Of course, if we aren’t sure of how to mix a color, or how to draw a shape or make a form, a student is loathe to move off a safe path. Van Gogh had this struggle also. His early paintings were dark and lacking the energy of his late works.
Still Life with Earthenware, Bottle, and Clogs
Van Gogh, Sunflowers
Unfortunately some of Van Gogh’s most iconic floral artworks in the Van Gogh Museum, painted in 1888 and 1889, are now facing the test of time.
Vincent Van Gogh painted his iconic Sunflowers in vibrant yellows and golds, but after 130 years, his bright lemon-yellow hues have begun to wilt into a brown muddle. A new X-ray study confirms what researchers and art lovers have long suspected: Van Gogh’s paints are fading over time. In 2011, Sarah Zielinski at Smithsonian.com reported that chemists were looking into how the old colors were holding up. They found exposure to UV light—both from sunlight and the halogen lamps used to illuminate paintings in some museum galleries—had led to oxidation of some paint pigments, causing them to change color.
A 2016 study looked deeper into the matter to find one of the bright yellow paints Van Gogh liked, a mix between yellow lead chromate and white lead sulfate, was particularly unstable. Under UV light, the unstable chromate changed states and the sulfates began to clump together, dulling the color. Unfortunately, the process is not currently preventable. Currently, the darkening of the paint and the wilting of the sunflowers is not visible to the naked eye.
As the book of James (1:11) reminds us about impermanence:
“For the sun rises with its scorching heat
and withers the field;
its flower falls, and its beauty perishes.”
In class, we talked about light permanence and pigment choice. If we want to make works of art for posterity, we should choose pigments able to stand up to the test of time. I choose lightfastness I when I work. Likewise, if we are going to be in business or relationships, we want to use the highest ethical principles so we can have long lasting interactions and high quality products. Cutting corners with people or resources will always come home to roost eventually.
The rest of the verse in James continues,
“It is the same way with the rich;
in the midst of a busy life,
they will wither away.”
Of course, if we put God first in our lives, rather than our own priorities, we will pay attention to the “first things,” and fading away like a sunflower will be the least of our worries.
Joy and Peace,
Cornelia
To read the whole discussion on paint discoloration and how museums are conserving art works to prevent further damage from light read:
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