Artandicon's Blog

  • Icarus and the Sun

    After a long dry spell due to attending to other important matters, such as the taxman and the excitement of my annual conference, I have returned to my studio with pent up joy for painting. While all of us need to take care of the business of everyday life, I am finding I move more…

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  • How Do I Love Thee?

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the poet answered in her Sonnets from the Portuguese, “Let me count the ways.” On Valentine’s Day, some of the many ways people shared their love were by sending chocolates, flowers, and cards. Most of us think we are honoring St. Valentine, or at least one of the three third CE saints…

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  • The Iconography of the Nativity

    What Makes a Nativity Scene? The gospels remind us the story of Christ’s birth isn’t necessary for our salvation. Only our faith in Christ’s saving work for us on the cross is necessary “to transform our humble body that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables…

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  • THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN THE SCHOOLS

    When does an image become a meme? Or an icon, an idol, or a shibboleth? I ask those questions, and then have go about defining them. We all know what an image is—a representation of something which actually exists. An icon is the Greek word for image, but to become a venerable image, it must…

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  • Anne Frank’s Last Birthday Cake

    We never know when the tides of time will change. Most of us aren’t creatures of change, but prefer instead the well-worn and familiar paths. As a United Methodist pastor, I moved every two or three years during my ministry, so one thing I kept was my telephone company. I know some people like to…

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  • Music of the Spheres

    One of my favorite hymns growing up in the church was “This Is My Father’s World,” by Maltbie D. Babcock, a Presbyterian minister. Written in 1901, to the tune Terra Beata, or Blessed Earth, the song was originally a traditional English folk tune, but composer Franklin L. Sheppard arranged a variation specifically for this text.…

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  • Eclipse T-Shirts

    Friday in art class we painted our own unique designs on t-shirts for Monday’s Total Eclipse of the Sun. Anticipation of an event is characteristic of young children, while adults often feel over saturated with the early build up of attention given to an important event. By the time it gets here, we go, “Wow,…

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  • It’s Not Under Control!

    All things will renew themselves in good season, yet we have only the present moment before us. We can’t live in the past, nor can we control the future. We have to recognize even our present moments aren’t always in our control, as we witnessed in the big Super Bowl game last Sunday. Who would…

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  • 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…

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  • Perspective: How We See

    Perspective is both a mental outlook on life and our ability to view things in their true relations or relative importance. In art class, we use the tools of perspective to make a two dimensional surface appear three dimensional. One of the techniques is drawing parallel lines as converging in order to give the illusion…

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