A Life of Mystery and Hope

adult learning, arkansas, art, brain plasticity, Creativity, Faith, hope, Icons, Israel, mystery, Painting, Spirituality, suffering, vision

Our weather is changeable. Last week I had the heat turned on, but this weekend I have gone back to ceiling fans and my air conditioner. I was so ready for cooler temperatures, but I am not in charge of the thermostat outside, only the one inside. Of course, while the calendar may say it is autumn and the northern states may get their first snows, we southern folks should know better than to put away all our lightweight clothing just because we have had a first frost. That first frost freeze is just a tease, since an eighty-degree day or two will soon follow.

I talk about the mysteries of our weather because when we try a new art medium for the first time, we sometimes think, “Oh, this has some similarities to a prior experience.” Then we get into it and come to the “unknown land”—the place where we realize we are lost and have no idea which way to turn. We cannot go back, we do not know how to go forward, and we think if we stay in this place, we might starve to death.

We are like Abraham, who heard God’s call to “go to a land I will show you” (Genesis 12:1), but we have no idea how long that journey will take or where we will end up. We go from our safe place as an act of faith, travel in faith, and meet every obstacle and detour with the faith God will bring us through. Every artist is an Abraham in their heart, for they are always on a spiritual journey. Even when we reach the promised land, we always are moving spiritually “from Dan to Beersheba” as we hone our craft, just as Abraham and his family followed their flocks to the seasonal pastures. Like the ancient Jews, we too can confess:

“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…” (Deuteronomy 26:5).

If we wander, we need a guide. Beginning artists have always sought more experienced artists as their guides and teachers. For the basics, we more experienced persons act as teachers by giving instruction and directions. Some teachers give their students works to copy so each person produces an approximation of the teacher’s image. Since this method does not encourage creativity or intense attention, I have always taught people to use their own eyes to see the image, rather than have me prescribe and define it for them. That would take the greater part of the “seeing and imagining” work away from the students. This would build my neurons but not do all that much for theirs. The more difficult task challenges us and keeps our brains from becoming numb from disuse. Art is one of the best exercises for stimulating the brain.

Marie Woods: Seeking Serendipity II, Mixed media on birch panel, 12″ x 12″, 13″ x 13″ overall, Framed in a tray frame

To start the class, I showed some multi-media art works using words and found objects. Because everyone has a different learning style, I find showing images for visual learners helps those who learn through sight, while talking about these examples helps those who are auditory or hearing learners. I sometimes need to take the tools in hand to show the haptic or hands on learners. No style is “better” or more “advanced” than another, but our unique style of learning has to do with the design of our brains. We can train our brains to work in a different fashion, but our preference will always be easier.

I had begun working on a piece the week before when Mike and Gail were in class. Mike had to go away to handle a work emergency and Gail wanted to finish a pumpkin painting. Since they had known what we would work on, and we had a week off, they were ready with a fleshed-out idea. These two also have experimented with other media in the past also. Gail’s granddaughter brought a variety of materials to work with and already had an idea. Marilyn had a promising idea, but needed technical help to bring it to life.

This is where we become those who say, “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). We might look at our canvas, the paint we have put on it, the gauze we tied to it, and say to ourselves: “Well, this is a fine mess I’ve gotten myself into!” This is when a call for help, the lack of activity, or the smoking of a brain working overtime makes me look up from my own work and ask, “You need some help?”

I do not read minds, but my old schoolteacher skills never really die. If the room gets too quiet, someone is either in trouble or fixing to cause trouble. In our Friday art class, we do not have the latter. When I went to help Marilyn, she was at a decision point over what to do with her image without the netting. To begin with, she had tied it on tightly and did not have scissors on hand. In our class, we are willing to share, so no one has any need. As the writer of Hebrews 13:16 reminds us,

“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

My scissors broke when one of our group tried to cut a cork, so I borrowed Gail’s X-acto knife. Plan A was not available so we moved to Plan B. First the blade fell out, but I put it back in. Marilyn may have been wondering if we ever were going to find a working tool to cut away her netting. She had tied it very securely on the canvas board. Once we got it off, we could look at the paint texture on her board. There was always plan C—arm wrestle the netting off the canvas by sheer force of will, but Plan D would have been better: use the shears in the kitchen. Nothing stops us when we are going to make art. We will find a way.

“Talk to me about your goals here,” I said.

“I was trying to get some green here, like a green ground.”

“You have plenty of green colors on your palette. Do you want solid greens or washes, like transparent greens?”

“More like transparent greens.”

“So, use your big brush and water.”

“I did not bring my big brushes. Just my small ones.”

“You can borrow mine.”

This is how the art studio life goes. We chat things out for a bit until we get over a hump, and then we let a person explore on their own some more. Some things they will discover for themselves. The more water you put into a color, the thinner it is on the canvas. The more paint put on your brush, the more opaque it is. If you want transparency, you thin your paint with a medium or water, but if you want to cover an area, you paint straight out of the tube. Keeping your brushes clean by changing the water often is also important. Otherwise, you are dragging colored water into your other colors. None of your other colors will be true colors, but will take on the color of your water.

Jimmie Durham: “Still Life with Spirit and Xitle”, car being crushed by a volcanic boulder with a comical smiley face painted on it.

When we journey, we sometimes need to take a detour along our well-planned route because a boulder has rolled down into the middle of the road or a recent flood has washed out the bridge. My map reading skills before GPS were so suspect, my daughter was frightened whenever I announced, “I’ve found a shortcut to save us some time.”

“Oh, no! Not the long cut!” She would wail. Unfortunately, she was usually correct. The shortcut might have been true, but my map reading skills always turned these short trips into long journeys. I do get to see the “unknown lands” off the beaten path of the scenic tours of whatever place I visit. “Oh, the places I have been!”

Learning how to paint, create art, make pottery, play a musical instrument, or any other creative activity does require attention, practice, critiquing, and patience. We must be pilgrims on a journey, knowing the long walk is part of the spiritual process of becoming the person we want to be. Our works will reflect our inner journey as we get closer to our destination. An artist never quits learning, so the artist’s journey never ends until they can no longer create physical works here on earth. As Anselm Kiefer, a modern German multimedia artist says,

“Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will.”

Anselm Kiefer: Feld (Field), 2019-20, Emulsion, oil, and acrylic on canvas, 110¼x149% inches (280 x 380 cm)

Gail tried laying her paint on with a painter’s spackling knife. Normally she thins her paint out with water and treats it like a watercolor painting. She will build up layers to add depth and color. She also has a good clean edge to these works. She brought none of that vision to this painting, but laid on the three primary colors so thickly, they glistened. She tried printing the words with a rubbery shelf paper, but they did not stand out enough. I asked, “Do you think those words would read better in a different color?”

Her reply, “Peace is elusive these days. It is hard to find.”

“Form follows function” is a design principle, so Gail must be on to the metaphor of her theme word.

Harper came to visit and made an ocean with sea foam bubble wrap and a heart floating on the water. She also brought her latest fancy bead bracelets.

Mike was making up for missing art. He sat down with all his materials and worked his background in paint. After listening to my intro, he returned to cut up his purple cloth, arrange it on the canvas, and set the two pieces of scrap wood into a cross shape. Then he used spray fixative to hold the lot together. I saw him trying to get the wood to stick, so I suggested putting spray on both surfaces. This way the two would bond together. That piece of information was a technical revelation.

“I just need it to stick together long enough to get it home,” he said, “and then I can glue it for real.”

I noted his background colors reflected the unusual auroras which graced our evening skies this past week.

I had started my small canvas the week before when I was half sick. My hand, heart, and mind never feel quite connected when I feel bad, but I still work anyway. The beauty of acrylics is I can paint over them later. In fact, this is a repurposed canvas. If a work does not “speak to me” after a few months, I either cut it up to reweave it or paint it over entirely. I always think I will find hope for it in another form, but it may need to take its own journey to find its best self.

Jeremiah once said to the Jewish exiles in Babylon,

“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” (29:11)

When we have forgotten what our home looks like, God still remembers where we once lived. When we have lost our memories of the ancient Temple practices, God still knows the rituals. God will remind God’s faithful of our service. If we have lost our knowledge of how to walk with God, God will send us teachers once more. God always provides us with what we need.

Christ the Redeemer, 16th CE, Gallery of Art, Skopje.

Hope is part of our GrecoRoman heritage also. “Dum spiro spero” is Latin for “While I breathe, I hope.” Some form of this saying has been around since the 3^rd century BCE. My grandmother sewed her antique crochet trim onto pillowcases for wedding gifts. This is a scrap I found in her sewing kit. I stenciled the letters HOPE and glued down the wooden letters H, P, and E. I used an old metal circle for the O. Torn corrugated paper added a touch of texture, as did a few string prints. Sometimes hope appears to slide away or seems raw and unvarnished. The colors are blue and violet because Advent is the great season of Hope. Matthew quotes the Servant Song from Isaiah in 12:18-21—

“Here is my servant, whom I have chosen,

my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased.

I will put my Spirit upon him,

and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.

He will not wrangle or cry aloud,

nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.

He will not break a bruised reed

or quench a smoldering wick

until he brings justice to victory.

And in his name the Gentiles will hope.”

This is the Messiah of Hope of Israel and the Anointed Christ in whom we hope today. We can best share the hope of this Christ to our suffering world by serving the suffering, the grieving, the hungry, and the overlooked.

Joy, peace, and hope,

Cornelia

Four Pears Still Life

art, Cezanne, Creativity, failure, nature, Painting, Pompeii, Transfiguration

We painted a still life of four pears and a handmade blue bowl in our recent Friday art class. After looking at some art prompts and reminding the class, “Pears are just variations on spheres piled on top of each other,” we got down to business. In art class this means spending some time looking. Unless we’re designing an abstract creation, we usually have a desire to make our images reflect what we see. Yet each of us sees from a unique perspective and we each have a special creative use of color and line. This is our creative genius which lives within each of us. My goal as a teacher is to lead this genius out of each person and set it free to feel confident to exercise its own voice.

The genius is a Greco Roman idea like our guardian angel, in that each person has a guardian spirit. The Romans put the father at the head of the family, so the genius was the spirit of the male head of the household. In the family altar areas lares, (guardians of the family, who protect the household from external threats) stand on either side of the genius, who wears a toga and makes a sacrifice. Beneath them all is a serpent. The murals often depict snakes in the lararia because the Romans believed they were also guardian spirits of the family and as well as messengers to the underworld.

The poet Horace half-seriously said only the genius knows what makes one person so different from another, adding the genius is a god who is born and dies with each one of us. Individuals worshipped their own individual genii, especially on their own birthdays. Today we use the term genius to mean “gifted or special,” but each of us has special abilities of our own genius, just by the grace of God at birth. As Romans 12:6 reminds us,

“We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.”

Some of us may be rich in gifts, and some of us may be letting our gifts lie fallow, but we can all work at increasing the gift we have. Some of us may discover a hitherto unknown gift! None of us would ever want to be like the third servant who received the one talent and promptly buried it out in the back yard in a coffee can, only to return it to the master without even added interest. He was so afraid of failure and loss, and worried about future punishment, that he did not even loan the money out at interest. (Matthew 25:24ff)

Samuel Beckett in in Westward Ho (1983), said:

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again.

Fail again. Fail better.”

This quote was written on the back of a envelope in my grandmother’s art studio up on the second floor of the big wooden Victorian home my granddaddy built for them when he was promoted to conductor on the railroad. He had an eighth grade education, but made sure his boys had more. My grandmother was not going to let anything stop them.

Failure is how we learn what we don’t know. Then we learn some more things and discover we still don’t know everything! We become lifetime learners because the world is always changing, whether we want it to or not. We too will transform, because this is the truth of the Christian life.

Test of Vanguard launch vehicle for U.S. International Geophysical Year (IGY) program

Most of life in the art studio is a process of failing upward. Most people think failing is always a negative activity, but children always fall before they can consistently walk. We give them joy, cookies, and hugs. I am old enough to remember rocket ships blowing up on the launchpad more often than streaking into the great beyond. NASA had a few kinks to work out before we sent chimpanzees or humans into space. Even then, space has claimed its heroes. We don’t call NASA a failed organization. These sacrifices taught us much. We are infinitely more careful and do not want to move so fast that we break humanity. Break the technology but care for the humanity.

In my own work, I can learn so much on one painting, I will look at it a month later and want to “fix it.” I realized long ago I needed to let that feeling go. If I were to work with new insights on the old work, I would have to totally repaint it. I would be better off beginning all over. I’m now in a new place and have new skills. My individual genius is ready for a new challenge. I will learn so much on the new work, I will be eager to start on the next one.

Art is like life. We get a new day to do better and another opportunity to do better. There are cynics among us who believe people cannot do better, or they will never change. Those of us, who afflicted with incurable optimism, believe change is possible and a better life awaits. We would have no teachers, healers, or community leaders, much less no clergy of any faith, if we didn’t believe in transformation or think we have no part in bringing it to fruition. I am not one to settle for chaos and despair. I keep saying this world has enough negativity, and I will not contribute to that excess.

Henri Rousseau: Pears, Apples, and Teapot, c.1910, oil on canvas, private collection

Simplifying what we see before us is a first step in drawing from life. The KISS Principle works in art class too: “Keep It Simple Silly.” Most of us try to eat the elephant all at once. We look at a houseful of boxes and collapse: where to start? After years of itinerating, I can say with certainty, “The one nearest to you at the moment.” If it took three weeks to pack, expect the same amount of time to unpack. Hooray, you get to eat out until you find the kitchen gear. Likewise with a painting, we make a mark with a light-colored wash. If it is in the wrong place or the wrong size, we can overpaint it. No one will ever know.

Mike kept his pear painting simple. He made a study of the one pear which called his name. Just because I brought four pears and a blue bowl didn’t mean he felt the need to paint the whole still life. This is his unique genius. In his work life he can find the primary truths and key facts to support his clients’ cases. Those same attributes will show up in his artwork. At the end of the class, he was unhappy, however.

“Use your words,” I always say, “or at least point to where you are unhappy with your work.”

Pointing to the waistline of the pear, he said, “This section here looks wrong.”

“That’s where you quit looking at the pear and were just putting paint on the canvas.”

“OK, I thought that was what was bothering me about this, but I didn’t know why.”

“We have to keep looking at the objects while painting. Our memories aren’t that good to keep the image in mind for long.” We can train our memories by the technique of blind drawing, which is the technique of only looking at the objects, but never at our drawing. This trains our hand to connect to our eye. Our first drawings are very lopsided because the right side usually won’t match up to the left side. Yet with practice, these blind drawings will look somewhat realistic.

Gail S has a more reflective and introspective approach, so she will dissect the major elements of the still life before she makes a mark on the canvas. Some people can imagine three dimensional objects as two dimensional patterns without making marks visible. I consider this a particular form of genius, for they also can usually access their thoughts without having to write them down, which is what extroverted thinkers need to do. This is another example of how different people approach art from their own specific genius: if we all were all alike, we would produce indistinguishable results as if from a factory. Art class isn’t a factory production line, but an experience and opportunity to get in touch with our creative selves.

I managed to catch the personality of the different pear species. I was painting on a raw, unprimed canvas, so my first layers of paint soaked into the weave. The successive layers built up the colors. I ignored the drapery and the busy background of the actual setting, but I added the rainbow clouds of my own. The violet grey of the tablecloth might read to some eyes as a mountain. Then the size context of the pears and the bowl becomes questionable. Are they normal sized pears on a table or giant-sized pears on a mountain? The tension is part of the painting.

Once the artist makes their work, they give it a title for what it is meant to say to others. That is its “birth name.” Much like a sermon, once the word or image gets out into the public, people interpret it according to their own lived experiences and prejudices. As an example, historians have misinterpreted Rembrandt’s Night Watch, which wasn’t its original title.

Contrary to popular myth, the commissioners did not reject painting, but it has suffered many indignities in its almost 400 year history. In 1715, the townspeople pared it down to fit between two doors in Amsterdam’s Town Hall, and its current name arrived at the end of the 18th century on account of varnish and dirt that had darkened it into a nighttime scene. The action takes place at dawn’s first light, a fact revealed after a recent 2013 cleaning.

Paul Cézanne: Still Life with Apples and Pears, ca. 1891–92, Oil on canvas, 17 5/8 x 23 1/8 in. (44.8 x 58.7 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.

The same goes with any spoken word or sermon. If we wonder how so many people can get so many different meanings from a preacher’s sermon, or how people can read the same Bible, but produce wildly different interpretations of the claim Christ has on their lives from the same holy word, it might be because we all come from differing perspectives, environments, cultures, and therefore have unique “geniuses.”

In the seminary we try our best to strip all our preconceived notions away from our hearts and minds and hear the texts as the authors originally spoke to those who wrote them down. Then we ask, “What meaning do they have for us today? What is Christ calling us to be? What are we to do to bring God’s kingdom one step closer?” If the scripture cannot touch us, transform us, and call us to action, we will be as John Wesley once feared, only “almost Christians.” To be fully Christian we need to have not only the outward appearance of the Christian life but also have “the love of God and neighbor shed abroad in our hearts.” That is the mark of the “altogether Christian,” rather than the one who is only just as good as the “honest heathen.”

Wesley never minced his words, as you can read in his sermon, “The Almost Christian.” When our toes tingle, we might want to give some thought to our strongly held beliefs. If scripture contradicts them, then we might want to look deeper into the background of that text and see if the rest of the Bible speaks with the same voice. We also might want to consider if this word has meaning for today (for instance, we no longer make animal sacrifices to God, since Christ made that need irrelevant by his gift on the cross).

Cezanne: Still life with three pears, Pencil and watercolor on paper, 1880-82, 12.6 x 20.8 cm, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Koenigs Collection

When we struggle in learning a new art technique, we are also undergoing a transformation. We sometimes must unlearn an old comfortable habit to learn a better one. Anyone who has played a sport knows the difficulty of making a swing change or adjusting their throwing motion. We are creatures of habit and want to take the well traveled path. We fear any disruption from the ordinary. Yet it’s in the challenge of the new where we learn. Iron sharpens iron. We never hear the metaphor, “Wool sharpens steel.”

We will do Day of the Dead T shirts next and turban pumpkins after that. It is always an interesting time in Friday Art Class. You can join us and begin at your level. Bring your own acrylic paints, brushes, and a small canvas or canvas panel.

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

Genius | Ancient Beliefs & Practices

https://www.britannica.com/topic/genius-Roman-religion

Revealing the Secret History of Rembrandt’s ‘The Night Watch’

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/secrets-of-rembrandt-the-night-watch-2627404

BBC – History – Ancient History in depth: Pompeii Art and Architecture Gallery

https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/pompeii_art_gallery_08.shtml

Wesley’s Sermon Reprints: The Almost Christian | Christian History Magazine

https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/wesleys-sermon-reprints-almost-christian

Test of Vanguard launch vehicle for U.S. International Geophysical Year (IGY) program to place satellite in Earth orbit to determine atmospheric density and conduct geodetic measurements. Malfunction in first stage caused vehicle to lose thrust after two seconds and Mission Control destroyed the vehicle.

HALLOWEEN HAPPENINGS

adult learning, art, CharlieBrown, Halloween, holidays, Imagination, Ministry, Painting, picasso, pumpkins

Michael Jackson: Thriller Video still, 1982

Let’s party like it’s 2025! Nothing takes our minds off the stresses of the real world’s ghouls and goblins like pretending to be a ghost, zombie, pirate, princess or superhero in the All Hallows’ Eve hijinks of the holiday we know as Halloween. Especially if we have the license to eat candy or drink purple fluid to slake our thirst after our door to door “threats of trick or treat.” With all that masked mayhem in the cities, towns, and county seats of the country, the forces of ICE and Homeland Security won’t know which to turn. The INSURRECTION they conjured out of thin air will suddenly become real, only to disappear shortly after sunset. And before troops can surge to all points involved.

Portland ICE protest—October 11, 2025—gives people an opportunity to wear costumes early

How many people in America will celebrate Halloween? Across the country 132.6 million households purchase about 745.8 million pounds of candy during the Halloween season every year. This works out to the weight of 33.9 billion bats or 62.16 million jack-o’-lanterns. Also only about 20% of people don’t celebrate Halloween at all. While I don’t eat loads of candy, I also don’t expect to micromanage other parents. My folks put a limit on our consumption back in the dark ages, plus we only went to a single neighborhood. Once we made the circuit of our city block and arrived home, we were done. The concept of “haul” was nonexistent in the days when dinosaurs lurked in the shadows, along with actual ghosts and other scary creatures.

Vintage Card, reminds me of the Headless Horseman

Most Halloween shoppers (79%) anticipate prices will be higher this year, specifically because of tariffs. Despite these reservations, nearly three-quarters of consumers (73%) plan to celebrate the holiday, in line with last year’s 72%. Top holiday activities include handing out candy (66%), dressing up in costume (51%) and decorating their home or yard (51%).

Economist’s Pumpkin, noting the scary prices of everything

Also, chocolate costs more because of cocoa prices, which have soared in recent years, have hit record highs amid adverse weather conditions, pest outbreaks and supply tightness in West Africa, which produces around three-fourths of the global supply. Cocoa futures have remained choppy but overall eased this year, falling from $8,177 per metric ton at the start of January to around $7,855 in August. That compares with $2,374 three years ago. Your basic Hershey Kiss is up 12% in price. If your favorite chocolate seems a tad lean on the chocolate, remember a warming climate means pests, droughts or floods, and fungi, all of which impact growing food.

Even if candy costs more, it continues to be the most popular purchase, with total spending expected to reach $3.9 billion. Across other categories, 71% plan to purchase costumes and spending is expected to reach $4.3 billion. Another 78% plan to purchase decorations, up from 75% last year, and will spend an estimated $4.2 billion in total. And 38% plan to purchase greeting cards, an increase from 2024’s 33%, with total spending estimated at $0.7 billion.

Picasso: Blue period, The Family of the Blind Man, 1903

Compared with last year, more people also plan to carve a pumpkin (46%), throw or attend a party (32%), visit a haunted house (24%) or dress up their pets (23%). October also means our art class works on a pumpkin still life. This year instead of making a realistic rendering, we looked at Picasso’s different styles. He began as a classically trained artist, and then broke all the rules of realism with cubism by fragmenting his subjects into multiple surfaces or flat geometric patterns. Later he did return to a “balloon” neoclassicism, but reverted once more to flat patterns of color. Picasso was always reinventing and responding to the creative genius within him. He didn’t feel constrained to continue to produce art to please others.

Pablo Picasso, *Mother and Child*, 1921, Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA. © Estate of Pablo Picasso.

Our pumpkin paintings reflect this creative energy. Gail S chose various red hues and deconstructed the pumpkin, as well as imagining it from above. She added some gourd shapes to the mix.

If Picasso had an orange period in addition to his blue and rose periods, my pumpkins would fit right in. They certainly look like his balloon neoclassical period! I confess I spent more time visiting with a stranger who graced the church door and who seemed to need to talk, but could not find her words.

Cornelia’s Orange Period Pumpkins and Leaves

She didn’t want a pumpkin muffin either, so we let her sit. After a bit, I began to talk about how some of my well meaning friends give me advice that doesn’t make any sense. Like if I make one small mistake, they think I’m ready for assisted living!

“What are they thinking?” was Gail’s response.

“Exactly, this comment says more about them than me. I ignore it and go on. Some folks are perfectionists.”

We painted for a while and then I spoke up again, “You can’t please everyone. If you make A happy, B gets upset, or if you make B happy, then A is upset. Group C is just contrary and nothing ever pleases them. I try to make God happy and let people know that is my only goal. I’m not here to choose sides in their puny fights.”

I must have said something that helped her out, for she said she now felt strong enough to deal with her day and its problems. We thanked her for stopping by and wished her well. We didn’t have much attendance in art class, but if there had been more people, this lady might not have felt free to be with us. God must have provided this quiet space for this woman who had an unvoiced need that day. We aren’t always open to the human needs of those on the margins, but we should recognize they struggle with the same need for autonomy and authenticity as everyone else does.

Speaking of pumpkins, the Wôpanâak are a Native American tribe from the eastern coastal region. Their language gives us the loan word for the ubiquitous fruit that “grows forth round,” also known as a Pôhpukun or pumpkin. Marion Webster posits the derivation of this word as follows: “alteration of earlier pumpion, modification of French popon, pompon melon, pumpkin, from Latin pepon-, pepo, from Greek pepōn, from pepōn ripened; akin to Greek pesseinto cook, ripen — more at COOK.”

Of course, this pedigree prefers the Eurocentric derivatives because Native Americans were once considered savages, and therefore unworthy of their historic contributions to our language. We know better today and celebrate the gifts and graces of all persons who contribute to the vast melting pot of the great stew we call America.

What a dull soup we would be if we were just the pale watered down broth with no pumpkins or spinach, no tomatoes or onions, no garlic (to ward off werewolves), and no corn, beans, chicken or beef to provide substance to our stew. We need a variety of spices to make a good soup, just as we need a variety of people’s to build a great community.

One night a year, we can dress up in the costume of our shadow fears or our innermost desires. We get to act like our inner child. We carve our pumpkins with scary faces and put them on porches decorated with all sorts of ghoulish things. The Halloween holiday is cathartic, for it allows us to share with others our innermost selves, an act many of us have difficulty doing.

If we eat a bit of candy here and there, it’s ok. It’s one night, and we can plan for this. The goblins do not win, for they are not real. They are here today, and gone tomorrow. I usually set my candy haul into the freezer where I can’t see it. Out of sight, out of mind. I have a piece now and then, “for medicinal purposes,” as my nanny would say, when she took a nip of the bottle stashed in the linen closet. Always with a table spoon, a measured dose, of course, because she “didn’t drink.”

If it helps to keep your cravings in check, you do what you have to do. I just ask, remember our life is short upon this round ball, so don’t rob yourself of the joy of this time. Find something to celebrate daily. On Halloween, we can celebrate our inner child. Even better, we can give the gift of magic to a small child by entering into the fantasy of the night.

Joy, peace, pumpkin spice, and magic,

Cornelia

USDA List of Retail Prices for Fruits and Vegetables, page 11, pumpkins.

https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/fvwretail.pdf

NRF | NRF Consumer Survey Finds Halloween Spending to Reach Record $13.1 Billion

https://nrf.com/media-center/press-releases/nrf-consumer-survey-finds-halloween-spending-to-reach-record-13-1-billion

The states most mad for Halloween — and candy — revealed in new survey

https://www.scrippsnews.com/life/holidays-and-celebrations/the-states-most-mad-for-halloween-and-candy-revealed-in-new-survey

Chocolate lovers, brace yourselves: Prices are rising, but not forever

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/22/chocolate-set-to-get-more-expensive-but-2026-outlook-looks-sweeter.html

How Americans Are Celebrating Halloween Despite Rising Prices

How Americans Are Celebrating Halloween Despite Rising Prices

Fun with Words | WLRP Home

https://www.wlrp.org/fun-with-words

Two Types of Color Wheels

adult learning, art, color Wheel, Creativity, flowers, Painting, picasso, Rumi

Rumi, the 13^th CE Persian poet and theologian, once said, “Inside you there’s an artist you don’t know about…say yes quickly, if you know, if you’ve known it from before the beginning of the universe.” Most of us live unawakened to this talent. When we were children, we had no thoughts of “trying to be an artist.” We picked up colors or clay and made our shapes and designs without a care in the world. Our loved ones praised our projects, and we felt good.

Somewhere along the 4^th or 5^th grade, many of us lost touch with that artist within. As Picasso said, “It took me my whole life to learn to draw like a child.” What Picasso meant is he learned all the adult rules for a good painting first and then unlearned them so he could create something completely new. When children are between 9 to 13 years old, they try to draw more naturalistic figures and landscapes by using shadows and perspective. They also start comparing their work with others, but this discourages those who are not discovering the new visual language of realism.

Picasso: Great Still Life on Pedestal, 1931, oil on canvas

As a result, by the time many children reach middle school, they are no longer in touch with their inner artist. Young children do not worry about whether they are wrong. They will forge bravely into unfamiliar territory, even knowing they may make a wrong decision. However, as we mature, we quickly learn that being wrong often has negative consequences. We learn quickly in school that making mistakes brings negative consequences. Not studying for the test brings a bad grade. Talking too much might get a time out in the dark cloak room (traumatic 3^rd grade experiences).

Teaching art to middle school students who say, “I can’t draw a straight line without a ruler” always got my retort, “We don’t have straight lines in nature, so you won’t have that problem in this class!” They learned working would bring improvement. This is a lesson learned well by the folks who have been with me for the last five years since Pastor Russ Brashears invited me to teach classes here. While we are saved by faith, not by works, in art class we need to have faith that our work will bring us closer to perfection. (Of course, there’s always an exception …)

Frank Stella: Harran II, 1967, Polymer and fluorescent polymer paint on canvas

At work, the boss penalizes us for being wrong. According to Sir Ken Robinson, an expert in creativity, “If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never produce anything original. Since creativity inherently requires a willingness to be wrong, we begin to avoid it. For many of us, we become so good at avoiding it that we convince ourselves we are “not creative.” Another destroyer of creativity is current need to teach to the test standards. The one right answer for this important test leads children to think many questions have one answer, when in truth, multiple answers might be worthy.

In addition, many factors that seem related to the self-controlled aspect of ourselves—like research, facts, or being grounded in reality—feel like they are helping us mitigate the risk of being wrong. Therefore, we rely more on our executive function skills and behaviors, and less on our imaginative behaviors. Psychologists at Cornell University conducted a study that showed that we have an implicit bias against less conventional, practical-seeming ideas. We tend to like what everyone else likes, rather than original or creative ideas.

Johannes Itten: Bau Haus Color Star with Shades, 1921

This tendency runs deep since studies going back to the 1950’s have shown people are prone to conforming to popular opinions and perspectives. Research suggests that the rote learning and direct instruction used in schools often drives out whatever nonconformist tendencies we may have as children. This type of instruction may counteract our more exploratory and creative modes of thinking and learning. The Fauves, or “wild beasts,” were a group of French artists who scandalized the Academic standards by painting in wild and unnatural colors to evoke emotion, rather than observable reality. Of course, we love their works today.

Mike: Age of Aquarius: moon in 7th house

Half our class has been doing the color wheel multiple times, while the other half is getting their first exposure to it. Gail and Mike have made enough color wheels that I would not ask them to make another unless we changed our medium. Then it is always worthwhile to see how a new set of colors behaves when mixed. I gave them the guide, “Choose any design you want, and mix up the colors to make an interesting design.” Of course, they are two different personalities, so they produced two different paintings.

The basic premise for the beginner’s color wheel exercise is to take the 3 primary colors of red, yellow, and blue, and mix them to form the 3 secondary colors of orange, green, and violet. The tertiary colors are the “in between color” of each primary and secondary color. I was pleased that both Jeannie and Tonya mixed the colors well and kept their brushes clean in between the varied colors. This showed concentration and care, which are attributes of good craftsmanship. This will pay off in the future when we paint more complicated three-dimensional objects.

They also took time to add backgrounds. Jeannie made her color wheel into a giant flower on a green stem, with a softly sun kissed leaf. Tonya set hers against a night sky, as if it were a cosmic wheel of time. I enjoyed the burst of enthusiasm from their hearts when they added these parts of their own imaginations.

DeLee: Doves returning with green leaves after the flood

One of my goals as a teacher is to release the artist within each person. Some people keep a tight rein on that creative genius living within them. Society has acculturated us adults to conform to the common denominator, so most of us have lost our spark of creativity. This is not an individual problem, but a societal fact. Creativity scores among adults have been declining since the 1990’s, even though intelligence scores are rising worldwide due to better health care and nutrition.

If I can have a second opportunity to help create minds which are more flexible, more imaginative, and more productive over the long term, I will have fulfilled my call to teach another generation the joys of the creative life. My own example is from the Genesis story (8:10-11):

“He waited another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark; and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth.”

The square is a symbol from the language of the icons for the earth, so I painted it primarily in earth colors. The surrounding is in various shades of blue or blue blacks. The abstract doves hold an edge of green in their beaks. Is it too abstract to understand? This is a creative solution to “color wheel,” not a travel book. It is a painting, not a map. If you need to find Mount Ararat, ask your GPS for directions. Not everything has to be functional. Some things can be “art for art’s sake.”

Leaving you with thoughts and the hope you dream more,

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

Why Art — Give Kids Art

https://www.givekidsart.org/why-art

7 Surprising Facts About Creativity, According to Science – Fast Company

https://www.fastcompany.com/3063626/7-surprising-facts-about-creativity-according-to-science

Kyung Hee Kim (2011): The Creativity Crisis: The Decrease in Creative Thinking Scores on the Torrance

Tests of Creative Thinking, Creativity Research Journal, 23:4, 285-295

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2011.627805

Frank Stella, Harran II, 1967. Polymer and fluorescent polymer paint on canvas, 10 x 20 feet (304.8 x 609.6 cm), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Gift, Mr. Irving Blum, 1982. © 2023 Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Picasso: Great Still Life on Pedestal, 1931, oil on canvas, Picasso Museum, Paris France. 195 x 135 cm

Solid Geometric Perspective

adult learning, art, Attitudes, Creativity, Faith, Holy Spirit, Leonardo da Vinci, Love, Ministry, Painting, perfection, perspective, picasso, shadows

Steps in drawing a Geometric Still Life: sketch, refined sketch, shadows, intense shadows and cast shadows

We are back in art class again on Friday mornings at Oakland United Methodist Church. Our first lesson is in solid geometry, but it’s not a math class. Art is more like learning a visual two-dimensional language to be able to render three dimensional objects on a flat plane. This isn’t as easy as you might think, but once you learn to see in perspective, you never can unsee it again. Art class is like an old fashioned one room schoolhouse, in which a teacher has students of varying ages and experience levels to instruct. I provide one lesson and modify it for each student according to their needs.

Gail S.—Pencil Drawing of Solid Geometry

The first day of class, I had three brand new students and one who has done this exercise at least three times before. Two others were out doing family obligations, just as I was missing in action last week due to attending my niece’s graduation ceremony for her MBA in Business Administration. Life and family watershed events are always important to make our presence known. The life of the artist is as important as the art itself. We aren’t just people who make beautiful objects for others, but people who make life beautiful by being present at their most important moments.

Vermeer: The Art of Painting, 1666-1668.

When we look at the painted floor in the Vermeer painting above, we know in our minds these stand for black and white square tiles. If we take a moment to closely observe them, we realize these are more like diamond shapes. This optical illusion is the result of perspective. Perspective comes in multiple forms. Linear perspective has one-point, two-point, three-point, and multi-point vanishing points. Aerial or atmospheric perspective uses color, clarity, and value as objects overlap each other and recede into the background. There’s also reverse perspective in which objects are larger as they grow more distant and foreshortening, in which nearby objects are emphasized.

Pop Tarts from the Pop Tarts Bowl Toaster Trophy in 2024

Can we teach all of this knowledge in a single two-hour lesson? Absolutely not. Michangelos aren’t turned out like pop tarts from a toaster. In the Renaissance era, a family would place a youth between the age of 7 to 14 with a master artist to learn the trade. This child would do the chores of the studio and learn to grind the pigments and mix paint. Then they would progress to drawing and composition. After a training time, they might get to do the backgrounds of the paintings or the landscape. After eight years, if they were any good, they would be entrusted with an entire commission. Then they would venture out on their own or take over from their master’s studio.

I started taking art lessons when I was eight years old from the city parks and recreation art teacher on Saturday mornings, and then after school from a former art teacher in town. My grandmother was a portrait and still life painter. I have been taking or teaching classes for over seven decades. Art is not a skill or a product a person can ever perfect. It is more like a journey of faith, one in which we are always going on to perfection, but by the grace of God, will only be completed at our last day. Even at my age, I have more than a few “needs improvement works” left to create.

The more you know, the more room for improvement you can find. I always ask students to first find three positive critiques of their work to praise before they begin to talk about their “improvement areas.” In this lesson, if they drew all three shapes, used two distinct colors for light and dark, and used up the space on the canvas, rather than drawing an inch tall image, those are positive points. Then they can point out their troubles.There’s enough negativity in this world. We need to overcome that in our own lives. What we learn on this canvas will carry over to the next one. Then we will find new opportunities for improvement yet again!

No one who gets a significant health condition finds making a wholesale change overnight easy or achievable. This is why people who try extreme diets like Whole 30 that restrict too many foods discover they can’t stick with it or must continually start over. People looking to make lasting, healthy changes must start small and focus on progress over perfection, according to nutrition coach Brady von Niessen. “You start feeling so good about them that you can’t even imagine not doing them.” The same principle applies in art. Over time, a student’s skills will improve if they trust the process. Rome wasn’t built in a day!

Another important aspect of art class is relationships. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, “The most empowering relationships are those in which each partner lifts the other to a higher possession of their own being.” As a teacher, I try to help each person find their own creative voice, rather than trying to copy an idea of what “good art should look like.” Beginners in tennis don’t get to play on the same courts as Wimbledon or the US Open, or at least not at the same time as those who claimed the trophies! As Picasso once said, “It took me my whole life to learn to draw like a child.”

I consider this first class a success for each student. First, I got to hear some of their stories, which helps to build relationships. I got to hear their fears about not being perfect—none of us are perfect, but as United Methodists we are all going on to perfection in love by God’s grace and that’s the only perfection we concern ourselves with in art class. Can we love ourselves and give ourselves the grace to come up short? As the great Leonardo da Vinci said, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

I look forward to next week when we mix colors for the color wheel for the first time students. The returning students will get a lesson that uses geometry and mixed colors also. The more seasoned students project is a step up because they have more experience, so they have a greater challenge.

The one room art schoolhouse meets at 10 am on Friday mornings. It’s never to late to join.

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

Never surrender!

Altars, art, Carl Jung, Creativity, crucifixion, Easter, Easter, Faith, Garden of Gethsemane, Good Friday, Healing, Holy Spirit, Holy Thursday, incarnation, inspiration, Ministry, Painting, suffering

“Never give up! Never surrender!”

This is my favorite quote from the 1999 sci-fi parody film Galaxy Quest. As a fan of Star Trek, I love the heroics of the storylines and the movie’s devoted fans. What sets this spoof story apart is how an alien culture has modeled its entire identity on the “historical documents,” or the weekly tv series videos. The aliens arrive on earth and spirit away the crew to fight against their enemies. The actors protest, but discover their true selves through this challenging situation. They not only play heroes, but they become heroes. They have to surrender to their former false selves to become the best and the truest of who others have known them to be.

We are not a people who believe in surrender. If our back is against the wall, our inclination is to fight all the more. Most of us believe in climbing upwards, not in moving downward. Taking a lateral move is just as bad as a demotion for most people’s egos. If you talk to any clergy person during appointment season, many are hoping for a church with a bigger steeple. While if you talk to their congregations, they’re hoping for preachers who wants to stay for a while. Obviously between moving and staying, someone is going to be disappointed. Someone will need to surrender to a greater plan.

I remember in my early days I got my nose bent out of shape because my church asked for a new pastor. My bishop at the time was frank with me: “I don’t have anyone to send here. You need to suck up your feelings and make sure this church is ready for next year!” Elders vow to be ready to pray, preach, move, or die at a moment’s notice in the United Methodist Church. We also vow to stay if necessary. I didn’t want to surrender to my bishop’s authority, but I decided to make sure when appointment season rolled around again, she could send any average pastor in my place.

I also knew other experienced clergy had thought I’d been “over appointed” straight out of seminary. They had told my superintendent they “deserved that appointment” where I was. My answer was often on some days, “I’ll trade you straight across, no question.” Those were the suffering days, but then would come the days of joy and grace, and I’d forget my rash willingness to hand over my charge to another sight unseen. I was truly glad for the nearby presence of an older, more experienced clergy person who would buy me a coffee and doughnut. He helped me keep the perspective of the long view, rather than the immediate moment.

In this Holy Week—the time between joys of Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday—we find the events of Holy Thursday’s foot washing, Good Friday’s Crucifixion, Holy Saturday’s Vigil, and Easter Sunday’s Resurrection. In between Thursday and Friday, we find the stories of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter’s denials, and other tales of suffering.

Modern folks don’t usually like suffering. We want to treat a slight cold virus with an antibiotic, even though antibiotics only work against bacterial infections. All we end up doing is causing more suffering by creating antibiotic resistance. In worship services, “to save time,” we omit the third verse of the old hymns, which most often contain the sacrifice and blood of Jesus on the cross. People who visit churches on the Sundays during Holy Week go from the Palms proclamation of Jesus as messiah to the risen Christ on Easter. They avoid all the turmoil, suffering and drama of the week in between.

In real life, because we avoid dealing with our dark sides and personal brokenness, we often project those same bad qualities onto others, which we then “other and marginalize.” All the “isms” of the world have scapegoats that represent their own dark side. The work of “identifying and accepting one’s shadow” is the process of assimilating “the thing a person has no wish to be” [Collected Works of Carl Jung: CW16, para 470].

Jung saw quite clearly that failure to recognize, acknowledge and deal with shadow elements is often the root of problems between individuals and within groups and organizations. It is also what fuels prejudice between minority groups or countries and can spark off anything between an interpersonal row and a major war. This certainly speaks to the time in which we now live.

I recently had anterior cervical fusion surgery on my neck due to a herniated disc that was causing numbness in my arm and fingers. It also was causing pain, but I wasn’t aware of how much pain I was experiencing. The story of boiling a frog by gradually turning up the water it’s in is true. If your pain gradually increases by fractions, you think it’s just a 3 on the 10-point scale. However, I was having difficulty doing my ordinary work, exercising, and making decisions. Writing, which was once easy, became a chore. A concrete brain full of pain signals effectively blocked my ability to think creatively. I was trying to think through a sludge of cold molasses.

My scar is healing nicely 25 days post surgery.

The good news is after surgery I have my former brain back, such as it was. I also have a set of plates and screws in my neck, so I hope I don’t set off the TSA scanners in the airport the next time I fly somewhere. I also have a scar on my neck, so I guess I’ll trade in my Wonder Woman costume for a pirate costume for Halloween. At least I’ll have an authentic scar for the day.

The prophet Isaiah reminds us Jesus is the suffering servant,

“He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” (53:3-5)

The Jewish people hoped for a messiah king, who would be a warrior hero in the style of King David. They hoped to restore the independence of Israel as a nation faithful to God and free from outside rule. Jesus was an unlikely messiah, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 21:22-24–

“For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

Even today this apparent weakness in the face of power is a message popular society doesn’t grasp. Even the people closest to Jesus, the early disciples first sought power and status in the coming kingdom, until Jesus disabused them of that notion and said,

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3-4)

The best example of suffering in Holy Week is Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. There under the twisted trunks of olive trees, Jesus wrestled with his will and his mission. Being fully human, he would not choose to die on the cross. Being fully divine, he could only fulfill his Father’s purpose. Perhaps in this struggle he thought back to his wilderness experience before he set off to preach good news to the poor and release to the captives:

“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.” (Matthew 4:8-11)

Our temptations come in many forms, but mostly we can sort them into three general categories: money, sex, and power. I personally think power is the overriding category and the others are mere subsets. Anything that knocks us off kilter or disrupts our sense of security is a threat to our feeling of power and control. This is likely why Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday are popular attendance days, while Good Friday doesn’t seem very “good” to the average person’s mind.

Matthias Grünewald, *Isenheim Altarpiece* (closed), c. 1512–16, oil and tempera on limewood panels, 376 x 668 cm (Unterlinden Museum, Colmar, France; formerly in a monastery hospital treating skin diseases).

As the apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians (2:5-11):

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Grunewald: Isenheim Altarpiece, 1512-1515, Resurrection of Christ—part of the same altar.

May your Easter season be blessed and you find ways to meet Christ in the poor among us,

Cornelia

Can Antibiotics Treat My Cold

https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/antibiotics-colds

The Jungian Shadow – Society of Analytical Psychology

The Jungian Shadow

Learning, Growing and Thriving

adult learning, art, Athanasius, brain plasticity, Christmas, Civil War, cognitive decline, Creativity, crucifixion, Faith, Imagination, incarnation, john wesley, Love, mystery, nature, renewal, Spirituality, St. Athanasius, United Methodist Church, Valentine’s Day, Valentine’s Day

In most adults, learning and thinking plateaus and then begins to decline after age 30 or 40. The old adage, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty” takes on new meaning in regards to creativity. People after this age start to perform worse in tests of cognitive abilities such as processing speed, the rate at which someone does a mental task. The slide becomes even steeper after 60 years of age. We also notice a similar learning decline in children after summer vacation, which results in the fall semester becoming a “reteaching opportunity.”

As one who is also “growing long in tooth,” I have passed this yardstick by a mile. I notice I have a “slower processing speed” in my creative writing. I don’t consider it a reason to quit, but a reason to better organize my other time-wasting behaviors (social media, newsletters, newspapers, etc.). I can always ignore cleaning the condominium! Creativity before housework, is my motto.

We often think older adults are on a downward slope with unrecoverable loss. “Use it or lose it,” the saying goes. Recent research suggests we need to apply a more hopeful mindset and vocabulary when discussing older people—much like that used for childhood or early adulthood. Decline, as we so often see it, may not be inevitable. In fact, learning a new skill and practicing it for three months has shown benefits beyond the the practice time.

Adults often have limited time or resources, so if we encourage learning a new skill, this may help them step out of their comfort zones. In people’s later years, many personal and societal changes—such as moving out of state to be closer to family members, switching jobs or coping with physical distance from loved ones—make learning new skills necessary to adapt and succeed.

For example, taking a class to improve technological skills could aid seniors’ success in an increasingly digital world, such as helping them use Telehealth or online banking platforms. Learning new skills in an art class allows a person to express their feelings and solve problems in creative ways. Each person can find their own path to success in artistic practice.

Potholder Loom, just like the one I had back in the day.

Our art class is trying a new thing: weaving. We have been painting for quite a while, so this is really a hands-on project. Some of us had the benefit of making woven potholders as children, or weaving newspaper “sit-upons” at summer camp. The technique isn’t unknown, but making a creative design interpretation is how we take our basic skill forward into a stimulating and creative brain challenge.

DeLee: Woven Paper on a Stick (Earth and Sky)

We could just repeat what we already know, but this doesn’t build us new neurons in our brains. If we keep the same old paths and don’t create new ones, we aren’t flexible when we meet new situations. Since we live in a rapidly changing world, building a brain capable of rapidly adapting is important to live independently and vibrantly for as long as possible.

I remember how my Daddy could only use the old tv remote to change the channel for the original non cable stations. When “Murder, She Wrote” came on the cable channel, my Mother had to use the cable remote to change the station for him. His Alzheimer’s disease prevented him from learning new skills, but he remembered all of his previous medical training and could diagnose his condition and boss the emergency room doctors when he was admitted to the hospital for a fall. Our brains are a mystery indeed.

Mike jumped the gun on Valentine’s Day and created a woven heart. These were big in the Danish and German communities and very popular in the 19th century in America. During the Civil War, soldiers made many of these in elaborate forms to send to their loved ones back home.

The brain is a fantastic and mysterious organ. If we make a habit of learning something new every day, of whatever interests us, we have the opportunity to keep our lucidity for a longer time. We also we meet the quickening changes of modern life with a steadfast heart and mind. We stress less when we know we can adapt and change in our own lives. We don’t have to be the people who say, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” We can teach and we can learn, but we might need to be more patient with the old dog. In some corners, we call that “grace.”

I watched my Granddaughter’s Daddy Daughter Dance

Our group was in and out during the several weeks devoted to this project. One of us was sick, one was grieving the death of a beloved pet, another had pressing work issues, and the teacher went to Florida to see her granddaughter get married. Amazingly, life goes on. People dropped in for spiritual support, which is a side benefit of the community of art class. I managed to get mine mostly done, and Gail S. finished hers completely. Sometimes life interrupts our best intentions and we move on. We will learn new lessons on the next project.

Gail S’s “Eye of God” weaving incorporates yarns from two different mop heads, some sticks, and a bird feather. Gail almost always keeps a realist focus in her works, so her eye of God has a bird feather to mark the pupil. The upper field of grey and white mop yarns represent the cloudy sky, while the blue yarn stands for the water and the brown for the land. God watches over all of God’s creation. Gail S’s love of the outdoors and all of nature is evident in all her work.

I also recycled some old paintings and cords which I’d used in the preparatory work of other paintings. In addition, I used some recycled strips of Amazon shipping parcels as well as a wire shape which once belonged to a butterfly wing. In repurposing these items into the weaving along with two old brushes bound together with a God’s eye, I invoke the renewal of life after death.

We people of faith have two opportunities for a renewal of life after death. The first is by our profession of faith in Christ and his life, death, and resurrection on our behalf for our salvation. This gives us a living faith in this world. The second renewal is for the resurrection from death itself. This gives us a life beyond this world. Our faith is worthless if it doesn’t change us for our walk upon this world. If we don’t have the heart and mind of Christ within us, and if we aren’t earnestly seeking to be made perfect in the love of Christ daily, our United Methodist heritage tells us we’ve not yet been converted.

Yet Christ desires to save all, as John records in 12:32, Jesus tells the crowd,

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Not just some people, or only the best, or even just us United Methodists, but ALL people. Most of us aren’t able to understand such a wide ranging love, for we live in a world of tribal loyalties. If we look at creation, which is God’s first work, God loves that which God created. God loves everything God created. We humans are the ones who choose sides and introduce boundaries and hate into God’s singular creation. The world or Kosmos is the creation first and then the people in it.

Today we tend to ascribe “world” to the “culture,” or secular society in general, but its plain meaning is creation and the human presence, for good or ill. The ancient Greeks and Romans divided the world into the material (bad) and the spiritual or mind (good), but the Jewish theology conceived the unity of both as part of God’s gift to humankind.

In the fifty-fourth chapter of On the Incarnation, St. Athanasius of Alexandria wrote a sentence that has echoed down through the centuries even into our own time as a brilliant summary of the Gospel. He wrote this: “God became man so that man might become god” (54:3).

This doctrine is called theosis or acquiring the whole nature of God. We United Methodists call this state Christian Perfection, or “a heart so full of love of God and neighbor that nothing else exists.” Our Wesleyan heritage was influenced by the Wesley brothers’ deep love for the Greek Orthodox fathers of the early church. To focus only on fallen nature is to deny the power of God to redeem us and all creation and to make all things new. We humans and nature aren’t more powerful than God!

If we cut off part of our God given self, we deny the incarnation of Christ, who became human for us that we might become divine. We need to remember what John 3:16 so succinctly states:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Art is a way to open our eyes and hearts to a new way of seeing spiritual truths. Art is also reflective of the artist’s soul and spirit. A sensitive viewer can read the tale of trauma or the struggle for survival in an artist’s body of work. More than this, we can listen for their voices straining to be heard. Most people have been silenced and conformed to the “cause no trouble, don’t get out of step” mantra of the public school system training our youth for the workplace.

In art class, we can lose our fear of being different because being different gets rewarded! Being original gets an attaboy or attagirl. I find such joy helping people find new courage and creativity they didn’t know existed within themselves. My students keep me young too. I feel blessed beyond measure.

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

To Stay Sharp as You Age, Learn New Skills | Scientific American

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/to-stay-sharp-as-you-age-learn-new-skills/

That Man Might Become God — Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/asd/2015/01/22/man-might-become-god/

The Iconography of the Nativity

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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 him to make all things subject to himself.” (Philippians 3:21, alternate translation). Mark has no infancy narrative at all, while John’s gospel speaks of the Greek Logos (Word), who is present with God at creation and as co-creator.

Luke and Matthew both have birth stories. Matthew gives us the ancestry of Jesus, the Wise Men or Magi from the East, and the massacre of the innocents. John the Baptist also figures large in Matthew’s text. Luke brings in the shepherds, the host of angels, and the angel’s annunciation to Mary of her impending birth of a savior.

Luke 2:6-7 notes this point about the birth of the Christ child: “While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

Gail W. painted a simple nativity in one class session.

This bit of text sets the scene for all the artists of every era to exercise their imagination. What does a first century CE manger look like? What animals would be there? Would the visitors come by day or night? Who would visit a woman who got pregnant while she was still “betrothed?” In every age, gossip travels fast, even without the internet. Traveling traders and business people carried news from town to town.

After all, word had spread how Joseph, “being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.” (Matthew 1:19). No wonder there was no room for them at the inn. No respectable place would have them. Or we could be generous to the local folk and say Mary and Joseph travelled slowly because her imminent due date was the cause of frequent stops. A donkey ride might not be the most comfortable ride in one’s late trimester. Either way, if they were late arriving, the rooms may have been booked full already.

The Church of the Nativity, which dates to the 4th CE, was built over the cave in Bethlehem where early Christians believed Christ was born. From Apocryphal sources we learn the traditions of the cave and the stable. The Infancy Gospel of James (chapter 18) also places the Nativity in a cave, but the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew combines the two locations, explaining that on the third day after the birth “Mary went out of the cave and, entering a stable, placed the child in the manger” (chapter 14).

Roman Sarcophagus of Stilicho. It’s found today beneath the pulpit of Sant’Ambrogio basilica in Milan, Italy.

The earliest images of the nativity which currently exist are from 3^rd CE sarcophagus panels. The earliest Nativity scene in art was carved into a sarcophagus lid once thought to be for a Roman general, Stilicho, who died in 408 CE. The ox and the ass and two birds are the only figures that appear in addition to Jesus, swaddled in his manger. Our typical cast of characters, including Mary and Joseph, do not appear may be because this sculpture illustrates a prophecy from the Old Testament. Isaiah 1:3 reads, “The ox knows its master, the donkey its owner’s manger…” This Nativity also has relevance to the Eucharist because believers are nourished by the “fodder” of Christ’s flesh, just as the animals receive their sustenance from the manger’s hay. The animals aren’t mentioned in the New Testament, but from the Apocryphal sources mentioned above.

Tim’s Nativity: simplicity rules here—only the lights of the great star, the light of the Christ child, and the minor lights of the heavens.

Nativity with Flight to Egypt in the upper part—from the 4th and 5th centuries, Athens, from before the Middle Ages, and technically “Roman” art. (often referred to as “Early Christian”).

Next added were the shepherds, during the 4th and 5th CE, such as this example from the Palazzo Massimo. We find it on the sarcophagus Marcus Claudianus, on the upper tier, on the left. This dates from around 350 CE, found today in the Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome.

Sarcophagus of Marcus Claudianus (Rome, Italy), Palazzo Massimo: Early Christian art is interesting because it can be hard to spot the stories as you know them. Except it seems, the Nativity, in the upper left corner, 330-335CE.

The sculptor carved the sarcophagus in the style called “continuous frieze” because all the figures line up and their heads are of equal height. The appearance of grape harvest imagery on the lid is ambiguous; it appears on both pagan/secular and Christian sarcophagi with identical elements. From left to right on the lid: nativity scene of Jesus, sacrifice of Isaac, an inscription naming the deceased, an image of the deceased as scholar, and a grape harvest scene.

Carvings on the front of the Marcus Claudianus sarcophagus include: Arrest of Peter, miracle of water and wine (with a possible baptism reference), an orant or praying figure, miracle of loaves, healing a man born blind, prediction of Peter’s denial, resurrection of Lazarus and supplication of Lazarus’ sister.

This stone relief carving depicts the detail of the Nativity from the 4th and 5th centuries from the Palazzo Massimo, on the Sarcophagus of Marcus Claudianus (Rome, Italy).

A Carolingian Era (751-887) Nativity scene from the British Museum

Eastern Orthodox icons retain the cave imagery while the Western art traditions use a stable or ruins of a classical structure in the nativity scenes. The first is according to tradition and the western imagery reminds the viewer the ancient past with its many gods is no longer ascendant.

The one change we see in the 6th century is the inclusion of Mary lying on a mattress type bed. It may have appeared earlier in art, but we have no surviving example to date an earlier occurrence. Later, we see more actors in the drama appearing, but often they don’t arrive all at once. The wise men visit, or the shepherds visit, but not in the same artwork.

Wise Men Visiting the Birth of Christ, 6th CE

A 10th century ivory panel from Trier, still very much following the now 700+ year old Roman models;
things changed much more slowly in the Middle Ages than they do now.

By the time of the 11^th CE, the nativity scene was becoming more elaborate , but was not yet in full flower. By the 13^th CE, the magnificent portal of the St. Lawrence cathedral, in Trogir, Croatia, by the Master Radovan and his associates has a strong narrative of the many parts of the nativity story. The city of Trogir, a World Heritage Site since 1997, is known as one of the best-preserved Romanesque-Gothic cities, the core of which consists of forts, religious and secular buildings, with the Rector’s Palace and the City Loggia standing out. Its Romanesque churches are supplemented with Renaissance and Baroque edifices.

Romanesque style portal of the St. Lawrence cathedral, in Trogir, Croatia, by the Master Radovan and his associates

The detail of the portal is worth a closer look. In the center, in between the curtained “bunkbeds,” the Virgin and Child rest on the upper tier. The animals also look on in this section. Below the manger scene is a ritual bath. In my Christian world view, I called this the “baptism of Jesus.” In his Hebrew life, he would have undergone a ritual cleansing immersion bath before going to the temple for his circumcision. This ritual would mark him as a covenant member of the nation and people of God. The two elderly people on the left of this scene are most likely Simeon and Anna, prophets who speak to the child’s fulfillment of scripture.

Details of Romanesque style Portal of St Lawrence cathedral in Trogir, Croatia.

Above all this at the center top are the star, with the angels on the left and on the right. Filling the space on the left side of the portal are the shepherds and their herds, while the Magi and their steeds occupy the right side. The Magi ride horses, unlike our modern nativities which have camels.

Sixth-century CE mosaic at the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy

In England, the Venerable Bede (d. 735) wrote the Magi were symbols of the three parts of the world—Asia, Africa, and Europe. They signified the three sons of Noah, who fathered the races of these three continents (Genesis, chapter 10). By the late Middle Ages, this idea found expression in art, and artists began to depict one of the kings as a black African. The kings sometimes have their retinues, which include animals from their presumed places of origin: camels, horses, and elephants are the most common. As with the shepherds, the artists often represented the three kings in the various stages of life: young, middle aged, and old age.

Gentile da Fabriano’s Adoration of the Magi, 1423

Artists added more exotic animals to the nativity scenes in the 15^th CE when trade and travel were expanding beyond the continent. Gentile da Fabriano’s Adoration of the Magi (painted in 1423) presents a remarkable range of animals. Alongside the traditional ox, donkey, sheep (and a couple of dogs thrown in for good measure), the chaotic scene includes a camel, cheetah (or leopard), hawks and monkeys.

“Cabinet of Curiosities”
Engraving from Ferrante Imperato, Dell’Historia Naturale (Naples 1599)

The inclusion of animals which were not native to Europe helped Gentile da Fabriano to emphasize the three wise men’s journey from the Far East, but also to impress viewers with its exoticism and visual richness. This would have reflected very well on the painting’s patron, the rich Florentine banker Palla Strozzi, as it reinforced his connections to foreign lands. In this era, many rich citizens had a collection of exotic animals and imported wares, just as wealthy people today have collections of art, yachts, or sports cars to showcase their riches.

Sandro Botticelli, “Mystic Nativity” (1500), oil on canvas, 42.7 × 29.5 inches (108.5 × 74.9 cm) (image via Wikimedia Commons), now in National Gallery of London.

An even more elaborate nativity comes from the hand of Botticelli, who worked in the wealthy merchant city of Florence, Italy, in 1500. Savonarola was a fanatical preacher who aimed to morally reform the city of Florence, which had a global reputation for artistic output and lavish lifestyles. Savonarola condemned secular art and literature, decried the city as a corrupt and vice-ridden place bloated with material wealth, and, after warning of a great scourge approaching, saved the Florentines by convincing the French king and military to deoccupy and recede during the Italian War of 1494–98.

The people thought of him as a prophet and came from miles around just to hear him preach his apocalyptic message. He preached a sermon telling the people of Florence they could become the new Jerusalem “if only its civilians would part with and burn their luxuries, opulent fineries, and give up their pagan or secular iconographies.”

Botticelli fell under Savonarola’s influence during this time, for his art changed from decorative to religious. The 12 angels at the base of the composition each hold a ribbon that the artist inscribed with the 12 privileges or virtues of the Virgin Mary, which came from a sermon Savonarola delivered about a vision he once experienced. Another unusual aspect is that the three kings welcome Jesus empty-handed, rather than with gold, frankincense, and myrrh — influenced by Savonarola’s sermon, though it could be their ultimate gifts are their prayers and devotion.

Mike brought his good humor to class with a Grinch portrait

Sometimes it’s impossible to know whether the artist was inspired by a non-biblical element or by an apocryphal text in a Nativity scene or if the artistic depiction came first. In their book, Art and the Christian Apocrypha, David R. Cartlidge and J. Keith Elliott contend in the making of early Christian art, written and visual sources are interdependent. “The developing consensus is that oral traditions, texts (rhetorical arts) and the pictorial arts all interact so that all the arts demonstrate the church’s ‘thinking out loud’ in both rhetorical and pictorial images” (2001, xv).

Gail W.’s open perspective nativity inspired by the renaissance artists

When we artists imagine the nativity today, we add to the basic scripture text all of the Hollywood movies we’ve seen, the stories we’ve heard around the fireplaces and altars of our instruction, and every Christmas card and artwork we’ve ever seen. Our memories of Christmas are often more important than Christmas itself. This is because we have an idea of how Christmas is supposed to BE, but the birth of Christ wasn’t what either Mary or Joseph thought it was going to be. Just as most of us, they hoped to be at home and near family, not “away in a manger, no crib for a bed.”

Cornelia worked in the geometry of the scene. I might rework the sky.

God brought the Savior of all into our world into a humble setting, not to a royal palace. God brought to the birthplace of Christ strangers from distant lands and marginalized people from their homeland to have the first opportunity to worship the newborn king. God excluded the political rulers because they were out to destroy this unusual king.

We are part of the Christian community now, so we sometimes miss the disruptive nature of Christ’s birth. As part of the in/dominant group today, we might have a tough time reading the Bible’s challenges to self-satisfaction and complacency.

Birth of Alexander the Great, mosaic, Roman villa near Baalbek, Lebanon, 4th CE

We often forget while these depictions of the Nativity were evolving, the segment of the Roman Empire that was still pagan were also representing famous births, that predate the standard depictions of the Nativity of Christ. For example, in a Roman villa near Baalbek, Lebanon a fourth century mosaic of the Birth of Alexander the Great at first sight almost exactly resembles what later became a standard depiction of the Nativity of Christ. This mosaic, today in the National Museum of Beirut, shows the newborn Alexander the Great being bathed in a circular fluted basin by a female figure labelled ‘Nymphe’, while his mother Olympias reclines on a bed watched by an attendant.

Compare this with the icon of the Wise Men Visiting the Birth of Christ, from the 6th CE pictured above. In the lower right corner of this nativity scene, we see a small depiction of the Christ child being bathed, with water being poured over his head. (Obviously a United Methodist, but a precursor since John Wesley wasn’t born yet!) Our Christian iconography is derived from pagan sources. By this I mean we reimagined the pagan iconography and repurposed it for our own spiritual practices and purposes.

One of our other challenges is the calendar. We in the West use the Gregorian calendar, from the 16^th CE, while the Orthodox Church still follows the Julian calendar, which was in use during the time of Christ. This is why the Orthodox community still celebrates Christmas and Easter on different dates than the Western churches. In the Orthodox Church, they celebrate Epiphany as the baptism of Jesus rather than the arrival of the Magi (Three wise men), which the Western Church celebrates on 6 January. On the Gregorian calendar, this Orthodox Epiphany celebration is January 19^th. They celebrate this date as the Baptism of Jesus, rather than the arrival of the wise men. Their Epiphany is located in the baptism rather than the nativity. That’s a whole other theological discussion beyond the iconography of the nativity!

DeLee: The No Room Inn, mixed media, private collection

I mention this fact of the two calendars because I’m always “calendar challenged.” It’s not a senior citizen thing, because this was my problem even when I was in my twenties also. Sometimes I put too many commitments on my calendar, and other times I underestimate the time to complete my tasks. Then again, there’s always the unexpected interruptions. Always the interruptions. I came to understand in my ministry my list of tasks to do were not my actual work, but instead these interruptions were the opportunities which God would bring to me to do God’s chosen ministry.

So, I’m a few days late on the Western calendar for the visit of the Three Kings, having missed January 6^th, and I’m a few days early for the Orthodox calendar. As Goldilocks said, “Not too hot, not too cold, but just right!”

The last art pieces our class made in 2024 before the holidays and the snowstorms were our nativity paintings. I asked each person to use their imagination and to bring the essence of the nativity to their creative process. Some of us quickly realized our images and used our second meeting to do a personal project or another version of the nativity scene. Others of us took both sessions to perfect our one image. I blame the Christmas cookies and our lack of hand and mouth coordination. Sometimes it’s hard to chew and paint at the same time!

Our first class of 2025 was an instance of “calendar challenge”—I thought we were having it, but the group didn’t. The next week, a major snow storm canceled class every where for everyone. Friday, January 17, should be a good day to begin a new project! We’re going to do some mixed media, along with weaving projects in the days and weeks to come. You don’t need skills, but a willingness to try.

Joy, peace, and a hope for better weather!

Cornelia

The Magi and the Manger: Imaging Christmas in Ancient Art and Ritual

The Magi and the Manger: Imaging Christmas in Ancient Art and Ritual – The Yale ISM Review

The Nativity Tympanum on the Sarcophagus of Stilicho

https://www.christianiconography.info/Wikimedia%20Commons/nativitySarcophagusStilicho.html

UNESCO monuments in the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Glyptotheque

https://gliptoteka.hazu.hr/unesco/en/trogir.html

The Apocryphal Gospels—PseudoMatthew—has Latin text and translation
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Apocryphal_Gospels/Cmbtm4ZZXF0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=M.+Berthold+has+argued+that+Pseudo-Matthew&pg=PA75&printsec=frontcover

The Infancy Gospel of James (2nd century) |http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf08.vii.iv.html

The Arabic Infancy Gospel (5th-6th century) http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf08.vii.xi.html

The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (8th or 9^th century) http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf08.vii.v.i.html

Web Gallery of Art, searchable fine arts image database

https://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/support/zearly/1/1sculptu/sarcopha/1/9claudi2.html

Nativity – Visual Elements in the Nativity — Glencairn Museum

https://www.glencairnmuseum.org/nativity-visualelements

Johann International: Search results for Nativity http://johanninternational.blogspot.com/search?q=Nativity

Revisiting Botticelli’s Evocative “Mystic Nativity” https://hyperallergic.com/978201/revisiting-botticelli-evocative-mystic-nativity/

ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY THEN AND NOW: Origins of the Icon of the Nativity of Christ
https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2018/12/origins-of-icon-of-nativity-of-christ.html

Picasso’s African Masks and Inner Mysteries

adult learning, art, Creativity, cubism, elections, Imagination, inspiration, Painting, picasso, renewal, The Lord of The Rings, Thomas Merton, vision

What is the key to open the door to the hidden mysteries? For Frodo and his fellow travelers in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, they needed to know the elvish answer to the riddle, “Speak friend and enter.” Gandalf knows this language, so they enter with ease. For years, the Egyptian hieroglyphics were unintelligible because we had no living person who knew the ancient language. After the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in Egypt with its three languages depicting the same text, the race was on to translate the pictographic writing.

In art school my fellow students and I worked in our shared studio classes daily, but sometimes we never made any progress. Then the day would come when the light bulb clicked on in one of our brains. When we took a break, instead of giving everyone’s work a cursory glance before going out for a snack, we would linger and take in the special magic of a unique vision. Where does this special insight come from? Is it a visitation from above? Or a piercing of the soul by divine artistic insight? Sometimes I think the rare and the strange shock us out of our ease and complacency.

Picasso: Self Portrait, oil on canvas, 1907.

Art historians divide Picasso’s early periods into his Blue Period (1901-1904), the Rose Period (1905-1907), the African-influenced Period (1908-1909), and Cubism (1909-1919). Some art historians call Picasso’s African Period his “Proto-Cubist” or primitive period. It lasted from 1907 to 1909. Picasso was 24 years old when he saw an exhibit of African art at the ethnographic museum at Palais du Trocadéro. He experienced a “revelation” and began to explore African art further. African masks and sculptures strongly influenced Picasso’s art for several years, when he began to paint in sculptural forms, earth tones, and in flattened sharpened shapes.

*Pablo Picasso in his Montmartre Studio,*1908, via The Guardian

Picasso had first seen an African mask at Gertrude Stein’s home. Recalling his visit to the Trocadéro Museum of Ethnology (now the Musée de l’Homme), Picasso said of the museum:

“A smell of mould and neglect caught me by the throat. I was so depressed that I would have chosen to leave immediately. But I forced myself to stay, to examine these masks, all these objects that people had created with a sacred, magical purpose, to serve as intermediaries between them and the unknown, hostile forces surrounding them, trying in that way to overcome their fears by giving them color and form. And then I understood what painting really meant. It’s not an aesthetic process; it’s a form of magic that interposes itself between us and the hostile universe, a means of seizing power by imposing a form on our terrors as well as on our desires. The day I understood this, I had found my path.”

That path led Picasso to what he called his “periode nègre” (black period) or African period. It lasted only a few years, to 1909, but it turned Picasso into an avid collector of African art, masks, and sculptures that inspired him for the rest of his career.

Picasso: Woman with joined hands, 1907, Paris.

In our art class we chatted about how these masks inspired Picasso. Picasso used a palette of earthy tones, overlapping browns, and yellows with dark reds. By using Cubism, he explored a simplified geometry and the redefinition of perspectives. He tried to reveal objects from a different vantage point—from the mind, not only how the eyes perceive them. His Les Demoiselles d’Avignon signified a radical break from the naturalism that had defined Western art since the Renaissance, derailing former notions of what art was supposed to look like.

Picasso: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), oil on canvas.

People criticized Picasso’s two-dimensional women as unfeminine, for their confrontational demeanor was a complete departure from the traditional depiction of female beauty. Artists and critics alike received the work negatively and saw its menacing sex workers as promiscuous and unfit for Paris salons. Picasso rolled up the canvas, considered scandalous even amongst his innermost circle, and stored it in his studio for years to come. Yet this groundbreaking painting influenced his future works.

As Thomas Merton wrote in No Man Is an Island:

“In an aesthetic experience, in the creation or the contemplation of a work of art, the psychological conscience is able to attain some of its highest and most perfect fulfillments. Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

Picasso broke through the accepted boundaries of Western culture and discovered his true spirit in through the voices of the ancestors speaking from the African past. He met the other and found himself. By bringing the African masks into his studio, Picasso lived out the message of Hebrews 13:2—

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

As artists today, who seek to find their own true self and unique voice, we must both find ourselves and lose ourselves. We must lose our preconceived notions of who we should be and discover our true selves. Some artists use this as license to be caricatures of an artist, but actual artists have work ethics because they have obligations to galleries and clients. Looking like an artist and being an artist are two different things. Finding our true selves is not only a task for creatives, but also a lifetime journey for all people engaged in spiritual growth. We all can recover the image of God, which is our true self, by both God’s grace and our cooperation in doing good to all.

We artists are not here to make pretty pictures, but to break down the boundaries between our walls that keep us estranged from God and neighbor. We are not as bold as Picasso! Most of us are not risk takers. Willingness to leap out in faith is what marks a famous artist. That same riskiness is what marks the prophets of the Bible. Prophets never praise the status quo, but remind the people of the nature of their God:

“For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.” (Deuteronomy 10:17-18)

Isaiah 1:17 reminded the people of his day, “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow.” Jesus will pick up this same voice in Matthew 25:40, “And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’”

So how will we find our unique voice and creative expression today? The more we steep our heart and mind in the great spiritual writings of the ages, particularly those of whom have come through great suffering or difficulties, the closer we will come to understanding our own challenges in life. These hardships are not hurdles or barriers to our progress, but refiners of any weakness that needed to be strengthened.

As my teachers always said, “We test you, not to see how ignorant you are, but to see what we failed to teach well.”

I always liked their attitude better! I did not feel so dumb when I missed the right answer on their tests. I always liked art better, for more than one answer could be correct. If we work within the parameters of the assignment, we can interpret the art with our own vision and style.

Our recent class with the African masks was a big diversion from our usual method of working. First, the masks are from a different culture. They are as much of a culture shock to us as they were to Picasso. He had the privilege of buying them in the Parisian curio shops, so they sat around in his environment. We only had images. The mystery of these objects might not connect to us as they did to him.

Mike brought several masks from his home collection. He decided to paint one that spoke to him. Like Picasso, he had an emotional connection to this mask. He made a successful rendering of the object before him. Unfinished, he would bring it back to the next class.

Tim worked on a mask representing his wife. He first painted his background with a dark wash, then began drawing a lighter design on top of it. The contrast of the dark and light without the middle tone was difficult for me to look at, but he seemed to be enjoying getting the big shapes down. I often let people work without jumping into change their activity. I figure they will learn more from going down a dead-end road by themselves than if I stop them before they go there. They will ask about this, and we will talk about it. They will not do it again. A little suffering leads to learning if we do no harm to the body.

Gail S. understood the concept of simplifying the faces into a mask. She chose a photo of herself and her granddaughter. With two mask shapes, she had multiple decisions to make. As with the others, her work was unfinished at the end of class.

This was a difficult and challenging lesson for everyone. Asking students to make an emotional connection and render the object also was aspirational. It also gave me an opportunity to see where they were on this learning journey. I will not issue this sort of challenge again for a while. I was afraid I had been boring them, but maybe not. I may need to bring brownies next Friday to make up to them. For some, they may be “grief snacks,” while for others, they will be “encouragement food.” If my bunged-up shoulder permits, I will indulge in grief baking. Otherwise, I will just eat the chocolate ice cream in my freezer, and ask for understanding.

I painted a Trump mask to get my emotions out and not have them bottled up inside. If we dislike an attribute in another person, it is because we have that attribute in our own life. I can get incredibly angry, but I bottle it up and it hurts me. I do not often let anyone else see it, so it can make me sick from holding it in. Whenever someone calls you a name, I remember the old song my parents taught me when I was a child:

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

Anger is a difficult emotion for many people, especially for women. It is a “culturally unacceptable behavior,” for we have always expected strong emotions from men, but this expectation is changing over the generations. Proverbs 14:29 reminds all of us,

“Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but one who has a hasty temper exalts folly.”

The Old Testament often speaks of God’s anger, but this is because God’s people keep finding other gods to worship instead of the one true God. Psalms 145:8-9 reminds us of God’s true nature:

“The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.”

The hidden mystery is in plain sight. It is the word of hope we hear: We are not sinners in the hand of an angry God. We are all beloved and God’s everlasting grace is redeeming us always. When things fall apart, God works to reframe and renew, even if we have difficulty recognizing God’s new creation or wanting to take part in God’s plans for the new heaven and the new earth.

Joy, peace, and recovery,

Cornelia

Historical Influence of African Art in the Modern Art Movement – ARTDEX

Historical Influence of African Art in the Modern Art Movement

Pablo Picasso – Artists – Mnuchin Gallery

https://www.mnuchingallery.com/artists/pablo-picasso#:~:text=Picasso’s%20early%20work%20can%20be,Cubism%20(1909%2D1919)

Stealing beauty | Art | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/mar/15/art

Historical Influence of African Art in the Modern Art Movement – ARTDEX

Historical Influence of African Art in the Modern Art Movement

Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones – Meaning & Origin of The Phrase

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/sticks-and-stones-may-break-my-bones.html

Pumpkins and Gourds

adult learning, art, Creativity, Faith, generosity, inspiration, Ministry, nature, Painting, picasso, pumpkins, shadows, Spirituality, suffering, Winston Churchill

Sometimes I can work for hours and end up with nothing to show for it. In grammar school, I could use the excuse, “The dog ate my diorama.” Today my primary reason is “The latest iOS upgrade sent my file into the far realms of the cloud and smashed it to smithereens while it was traveling to some unknown destination.” I can be thankful at least my mind only goes on occasional jaunts to Pluto, but it returns after those excursions after a time. And no worse for wear, not that anyone would ever notice.

Today will be different. I am determined. I am convinced. I am also wearing my Bat Girl costume, so I will not let the powers and principalities of evil defeat me. I will fight against the darkness of the night and bring the light to the hidden places. When we start a new venture, the only way we can gain experience is by failing. In fact, failure is how we learn. The best teachers set up the learning process in structured practices which build upon each prior experience. We also observe our students to note if we need to reteach a lesson from a different point of view to cement their understanding before we move onto the next phase.

Mr. Rogers was still breaking world records in running for his age group at age 100. He died on November 14, 2019, while in hospice care at the age of **101**.

No one learns to lift a huge weight in their first exercise class. They begin to lift progressively heavier weights until they can lift the heaviest weights possible. No one becomes a world class artist in kindergarten, but sensitive teachers guide them from an early age to focus and hone their skills. Later, once they absorb what their masters can teach them, artists begin to find their own personal expressions and style. Art also provides an emotional outlet for people who have no aspirations to become a professional artist. Some people only want to explore their creativity, enjoy playing with the colors, get out of the house, and interact with others. Socialization and challenging our minds are important activities for a healthy life.

Sir Winston Churchill
*Still Life, Fruit*, ca. 1930’s
Heather James Fine Art

“Happy are the painters for they shall not be lonely. Light and color, peace, and hope, will keep them company to the end, or almost to the end, of the day.”

Winston Churchill wrote this in Hobbies in 1925. reflecting on the solace painting had provided him since the death of his daughter Marigold.

Hans Hoffman, The Pumpkin, oil on canvas, 1950, 36” x 48”.

One of the great teaching artists, Hans Hoffman, was known for his quote:

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”

When we see a landscape, a still life, or a face, most of us get overwhelmed with the myriad details. We want to focus first on the details, instead of the bigger shapes. This gets us in trouble every time. What do the time management gurus tell us over and over? Write down your list. Number your biggest priority. Do it first. Always do the biggest, hardest, and nearest in time deadline things first.

This is how we make our basic sketches on our canvas. Get the big shapes on the canvas first. They do not have to be a great outline, but a general gesture that takes up the space of the object, proportionately to the other objects. Often, we treat our marks as if we are chiseling in stone. With paint, we can let it dry and go over it and no one will know the difference.

As we paint big to small, we can paint the darks, the lights, and the middle tones. This allows us to blend the colors together if that is our desire. Sometimes the blank white canvas fills us with trepidation. We may think our first sketch might be somehow “wrong.” There are no wrong marks in art class, but we may make many marks on the way to fulfilling our mind’s ideas in life. Winston Churchill has a remarkable story of his personal experience learning to meet the open maw of the great white canvas. It once terrified him as much as “Jaws” does the modern movie goer.

Picasso Cubist Still Life with Watermelon

This week we approached our seasonal gourd and pumpkins from several different directions. We looked at zen tangle designs, realism, and pumpkin patch photos. We also looked at paintings that focused on the stems and vines. We also looked at Picasso’s still lifes. He was a master of the Cubist patterns and simplification of forms. He did not try to make the objects look real, but made shapes, which were pleasing to the eye.

Michael painted an exuberant pumpkin with a giant green stem and his usual textured background. He enjoys his time in art class and his work shows it.

Gail S. painted a multicolored group of pumpkins attached to a sinuous vine. She brings her knowledge and background in nature as a park ranger to her artwork. She always has an interesting design element to her work.

Gail W. Started with a realist rendering, but ended up with thin layers of paint overlapping at the edges of the pumpkin creases. When she asked what was going on in her painting technique to cause this, I noticed she was using water to thin her paints. “When you thin your paint so it is transparent, then when it overlaps, you get a solid line. Use your paint straight out of the tube next time.” She took her painting home, added another layer of paint straight from the tubes, and decorated the whole with zen tangle designs, using a fine point marker.

I put my gourds in an interior setting, as if they were on a tabletop near a window, which looked out onto a blue sky. I added a tree branch bereft of autumn leaves, as if a cold and rainy day had preceded the day of this painting. The barren landscape outside contrasts with the luscious treatment given the gourds inside. Each gourd has its own personality and spirit. They are more than mere natural objects.

They brim with the reproductive power of nature, as a testimony to the promise of tomorrow’s abundance, even in the face of today’s barrenness. One gourd casts a shadow, while the other does not. A viewer might feel some psychic dissonance because a realistic rendering would have both objects cast a similar shadow. The space is not “real,” but “spiritual” instead.

This is the promise of a faithful God for those who believe in God’s steadfast love and providence. As we hear in Habakkuk 3:17-18, we can have trust and joy during trouble:

“Though the fig tree does not blossom,

and no fruit is on the vines;

though the produce of the olive fails,

and the fields yield no food;

though the flock is cut off from the fold,

and there is no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD;

I will exult in the God of my salvation.”

In a world in which the good often suffer and evil seems to prosper, we always remember God is still at work to fulfill our daily needs, if not all our infinite desires. We will not want. Those who have the heart of God will always share with those who have less. Those who are greedy and don’t share God’s generous nature will stay stingy. This is how we know who is doing the work of God—the people who are loving God and neighbor both. .

Joy, peace, and providence,

Cornelia

SCHEDULE FOR 2024:

November 8—Painting

November 15—No Class—Vacation

November 22—No Class —Vacation

November 29—No Class—Thanksgiving

December 6—Painting

December 13— Painting

December 20— Painting

December 27—TBD —holiday season and school vacation calendar

Painting as a Pastime – International Churchill Society

Painting as a Pastime

When He Wasn’t Making History, Winston Churchill Made Paintings | Artsy
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-making-history-winston-churchill-made-paintings

Hans Hofmann: Quotes

https://www.hanshofmann.net/quotes.html

The Eisenhower Matrix: How to Prioritize Your To-Do List [2024] • Asana
https://asana.com/resources/eisenhower-matrix

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Pumpkins and Gourds

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