Artandicon's Blog

  • THE DARK SIDE

     An Old Homestead, Hot Springs, Arkansas  Reading about the killer of the Emanuel Nine’s worry that these martyrs were “killing whites to take over” sent me to the FBI Crime Statistics Table. This mistaken idea comes from the various hate groups the killer associated with. They reject the other, the different. They see themselves as…

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  • MEDITATION ON RAIN AND REST

    Good morning! I’m back in my studio today. It’s a beautiful rainy day, just perfect for writing, but not for painting. Thanks to all who stopped by my booth at annual conference. We had our means of grace times! This gray day caused me to reflect that others might not have shared this experience: Rain…

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  • WATCHING FROM AFAR

    No one wants to be on the train that’s wrecking. Not many want to watch the disaster unfolding, but when you care intensely about a person, sometimes you cannot take your eyes off the pain and trauma. You watch from the cheap seats in the balcony, rather than paying the full price of orchestra pit,…

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  • More Power: Thoughts on the Spiritually of A Found Object Icon

    I should never begin working with power tools without caffeine. Having said this, I’m glad to report that I still have all the fingers on each hand and no body parts remain glued to a flat surface, unlike Tim “The Tool Man” Allen. My only error was to put my battery pack backwards into the…

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  • MY ACCIDENTAL VACATION

    Everyone should take at least one accidental vacation, at least once in their life. This event will throw you off your game plan, sweep away your plan B, and leave you up a creek without a paddle. This is your Kobayashi Maru, your Waterloo, and your Little Big Horn all rolled up into one. Most…

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  • A ROAD IN THE WILDERNESS

    As I am entering the outskirts of my city, I leave the local highway and climb onto the bypass that loops around the south side of town. I wouldn’t dare climb this route in a winter storm, but on one of our interim false spring days, I can negotiate the incline and curves without fear.…

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  • TO LIVE IN A WATERED GARDEN!

    The various named storms of this winter season are piling up like the laundry in my baskets, but the cold weather and the bad roads are keeping me inside and away from the commercial laundromat that I frequent. Since when did we start naming winter storms like summer hurricanes anyway? I must have been asleep,…

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  • THE NO ROOM INN

    Context is everything. In the real world of my daily hikes, the objects in this artwork are pieces of trash that I’ve found lying near the path that I walk. Put together with a fresh eye to shape and color, they become instead a nativity scene. I live in Hot Springs, Arkansas, a place known…

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  • The Last Tower

    Today is the first day of September: my how time flies when you’re having fun! Twelve years have passed since Mom died, and nearly fifty since she made me that cheerful zigzag afghan to take off to my freshman year in college. That flag pillow was our last project together. “I want to make everyone…

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  • Instagram in The Garden of Dreams

    I am never too busy to heed the prompting of that inner voice that calls me to stop and smell the roses. In my case, the voice says, “Stop and Instagram this moment!” I’ll be driving down the road, just going from point A to point B, singing my favorite Bon Jovi tune, when I…

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