• Homage to Morandi

    My students in the art class at the church have shown much progress since we began last year. I’m proud of them for sticking in there and taking this journey down a path less traveled by others. Most art education classes begin with the idea of a model and the students should all try to…


  • LESSONS FROM A MASTER

    “Only when he no longer knows what he is doing, does the painter do good things.” Edgar Degas, the French artist known for his ballerina paintings, is a good teacher from whom to learn. A true artist learns something new every day and isn’t afraid of failure. Failure is just another word for discovering what…


  • The Image of God

    When I was a child, my mother’s friends were sure I was the spitting image of little Martha. Likewise, my daddy’s friends thought I was a chip off the old block of Stew-boy. I suppose I had enough of the parental DNA to be claimed by both sides of the family, as long as I…


  • 2,244,80,700—I’m a Billionaire

    Today I’ve been alive for a grand total of 25,976 days. That’s a big number for an old gal. Of course, if I really wanted to feel old, I could count all the minutes I’ve been alive—just think about being 37,406,345 minutes old! I’m a millionaire in minutes. Don’t multiply that number by 60 to…


  • The Inspired Church

    My newest painting is from a photo I took of a church in downtown Hot Springs on one cloudy spring day. It wasn’t much to look at as a photo, but I was called to stop and snap its image at that moment. I learned long ago in ministry to listen to those promptings of…


  • The Suffering Hero

    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…


  • Reflections of God

    I carry my phone when I walk, so I always have a camera for the scenes of beauty which catch my eye. Since light is ephemeral and these moments are fleeting, catching them as they occur is important. When I come home, I often photoshop the image on my computer or in Instagram to get…


  • ICONS: A Moment of Mystery

    Making Found Object Icons is an art project that evolved out of the Great Macaroni Multimedia Traveling Artandicon Show. In seminary during Art Week our fellow students were horrified we were making sacred images out of edible products, such as macaroni, lentils, peas, and beans. “That’s sacrilegious!” “Jesus is the bread of life, and macaroni…


  • Icon of Christ the Redeemer

    My latest icon of the face of Christ is based on the Napkin of Christ or The Image Not Made by Human Hands. The tradition tells us the Lord washed his face on a cloth and the image of his face transferred directly to it. King Abgar took the image bearing cloth to Edessa and…


  • Day of the Dead Altars

    Some things I take for granted, since I had the great privilege of knowing my great grandmother in her last years. I knew all but one of my grandparents, since my daddy’s father died when I was only a year old. Even my daughter knew both her Nana and all four of her grandparents. Growing…