• Art for the Inner Child

    What is the purpose of an art class? Why does anyone learn to speak a foreign language or take up a craft or sport they’ve never attempted before? We must want to explore some unknown universe or get out of our comfort zone, or as my old favorite television series would announce weekly, “to boldly…


  • Sharansky’s Hanukkah

    NOTE: This extraordinary story comes from Arguable by Jeff Jacoby, an opinion writer for the Boston Globe, on December 12, 2023. I’m sharing it with all of you because even in the worst of times, even with the least of resources, if we have faith in God, we can be a light unto the world.…


  • Season of Light

    As the days grow shorter and the nights lengthen, the chill air adds to the darkness of our world. We can give into this dour outlook, especially this year with devastating wars in Ukraine and Gaza, or we can light a candle against the gathering gloom. Cultures across history have seen the time before year…


  • Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to December 2023

    “Gloom begets gloom,” my daddy always said, “so if you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, it’s best to go back and get out on the other side.” Some folks today don’t have much of the Christmas or holiday spirit, for they’re only looking at the dark side of world events or…


  • Prints, Pumpkins, and Possibilities

    Here we are shortly before Thanksgiving, at the time I call the “high holy days of family gatherings.” We’ll be in this space-time continuum until the last whistle of the last Bowl Game—the grandaddy of them all: Sunday, February 11, 2024. That would be Super Bowl LVIII, or three days before Valentine’s Day, as a…


  • Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to November

    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…


  • Megiddo at the Crossroads of History

    On a visit to the Holy Land, I walked in the ruins of Tell Megiddo and also climbed the hills above the Jezerell valley. From this vantage point, I could imagine the great battles of nations warring to conquer land and control trading routes. Megiddo lies at the crossroads and therefore in the crosshairs of…


  • Texture Paintings

    I don’t do wine painting classes. Since I teach in a United Methodist Church, our Wesleyan temperance tradition holds sway: we serve no alcohol. However, out in the world beyond there are classes where everyone drinks wine and paints the same image. They’re out for fellowship purposes more than for art, but these classes serve…


  • The Persistence of Effort

    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…


  • Megiddo: Marks and Memories

    My most recent studio work explores my memories of my pilgrimage to the ancient ruins of Tel Megiddo. Why am I interested enough to make an entire series of drawings and paintings of this site, which I visited over two decades ago? First, the city was continuously occupied from the 7th or 6th millennium BCE,…