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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  • 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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  • 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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  • Pears and Apples

    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…

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