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.

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

Creating a Picasso Still Life

art, brain plasticity, Cezanne, change, Creativity, Habits, Healing, Imagination, inspiration, Painting, perspective, picasso, purpose, renewal, Spirituality, vision, war

Einstein never said, “If we do the same thing every time, but expect a different result, this is the definition of insanity.” So why do artists return over and over to the still life? For that matter, why do preachers repeatedly use the same scripture texts for their sermons? Some of my former congregation members might have said I was overly fond of certain verses. The scalawags among them might have thought I did not get my point across the first five times I preached a version of the sermon text. As Jesus was wont to say in Luke 14:34-35 about Salt:

Picasso: Self Portrait, 1907, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Prague

“Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste,

how can its saltiness be restored?

It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile;

they throw it away.

Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”

I always kept my sermon notes just in case I had a difficult week and might need a backup sermon, but I never used these notes. I wrote each of those sermons for a time and a place, but they were never useful for the current time or the present location. Likewise, an artist brings their emotions and experiences of the present time to each working session in the studio. Sometimes an artist is chock full of energy and power, full of joy and life. Their paintings or works exude these same emotions. At other times, the cares and chaos of the world intrude into the otherwise peaceful precincts of the artist’s workplace. These emotions and troubles will also be visible in their work, for artists are in tune with their times.

Picasso: Still Life with Dead Pigeon, oil on canvas, 1941, Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum

This year in the adult art class I’m teaching at Oaklawn UMC, the students are getting lessons not only on how to paint, but on awakening their individual creative voice. These lessons are part art history and part “thinking like an artist” by painting in another artist’s style. The week before, we worked on a typical still life painting. For this session, we worked on what we saw in front of us, but tried to make an emotional connection with the objects. When most of our energy is going to getting proportions in proper order, shadows cast in the right direction, following the shape of the objects, and the colors correct, putting our emotions into the work comes in a distant fifth or last.

Morandi still life: he painted the same vessels so often, they became as friends who shared their innermost secret thoughts with him.

To be sure, our class is still analyzing the containers as physical objects more than feeling or experiencing the vessels as objects with personality. We have not yet become friends with the objects, or really gotten to know them on a deep and intimate level. This is also a problem in our society today. We are not willing to know others too deeply, and we aren’t likely to let many others know us too deeply either.

This isn’t a problem confined to older people. For my own demographic, meeting new people seems a mite risky these days in the online world because we never know who is behind that chatbot or Facebook account who seems so charming. For younger people, who sometimes never seem to come up for air from the online world, this online reality can seem more real than the three-dimensional world in which we live. (I was today old years when I learned the latest online AI fad is personalizing your own chatbot companion. I wonder if these chatbots have Asimov’s 3 Laws of Robotics ingrained in their program guardrails.)

Having empathy with inanimate objects is difficult. Artists bring into their own studio the objects which interest them. A teacher brings in objects her students can approach, given their skill level. I will blow that concept out of the water this Friday with some crazy Halloween pumpkins but, if the subject matter is consistently too difficult, many students will give up if the challenge is too far out of reach.

Picasso Still Life, oil on canvas, 1937, private collection.

In the second session when our class saw these same liturgical vessels, we chatted about Picasso and cubism. Cubism had several different forms of expression, but we focused on synthetic cubism, a later phase of the cubist style dating from about 1912 to 1914. It had simpler shapes and brighter colors. Synthetic cubist works also often include collaged real elements such as newspapers and cardboard. These works have interesting designs, such as multiple points of view (perspective), overlapping shapes which make their own patterns, and linear outlines. This style is an outgrowth of the work of Cézanne, who said: “A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.”

Gail S. took a cubist vision to our same three pots

If you’ve ever tried to put on your socks in the morning beginning with a different foot than normal, you can begin to appreciate how difficult it is to imagine how to create an artwork in a fresh style. If we were to ever have a stroke or a traumatic brain injury, relearning how to do simple tasks is much the same.

Tim’s first effort. He was one week out from surgery. His body was devoted to recovery, not to thinking about cubism.

Our brains can handle the rebuilding project, but we will feel strange doing it! This is because we are building new neural circuits and pathways in our brains. Going to work or the grocery store by taking a different route also feels strange, as does a golfer trying to reconstruct their swing pattern.

Tim took a second week to elaborate on his still life. It’s a better solution! Amazing what happens when our bodies have extra energy to give to creative projects.

As a comparison, we can look at the great hurricane which came through North Carolina recently and took out the big interstate highway that runs through the mountains and valleys. The sooner the highway construction engineers can come inspect the ground, the better. They must decide if the land is safe for rebuilding and then check the infrastructure also. They may need to redesign the road to current standards and also the underlying roadbed. When the great 1900 hurricane hit Galveston, rebuilding the city took twelve years. People were still living there, and life was going on, but the city began a process of raising the land levels and building a sea wall that took that extensive time.

Cornelia’s overlapping shapes and shifting perspectives

Change doesn’t happen overnight. Every sales or leadership training session I’ve been in has emphasized the idea “Three weeks are necessary to build a habit.” The origin of this myth has nothing to do with habit formation. Instead it comes from a 1960 self-help book Psycho-Cybernetics, in which plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz wrote how his patients took about 21 days to become used to their new appearance after surgery.

He did no double blind, peer reviewed study to verify this, but his book applied this 21-day timeline to many other wide-ranging aspects of self-transformation in life. He also believed three weeks was the time people needed to adapt to a new house or change their mind about their beliefs. (He also didn’t live with a preteen girl child who enjoyed rearranging the living room every night just to see how her mom negotiated a new obstacle pattern in the dark when she came home from a sales call.)

If artists want to make paintings which are technically proficient and resemble the objects they see, they are only halfway to creating a good painting. They must also bring who they are and allow the voice of God to speak through their hand to make a masterpiece. In this way we separate artists into the good and the great, the ordinary and the masters. Not all of us will be prophets who listen to God’s word, but all of us can and should silence our hearts and minds of the world’s chatter and claims so the word of God can pierce our hearts.

Picasso: Guernica, 1937, 11’ x 25.5’,
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Madrid, Spain

Rabbi Nahum Ward-Lev describes how the ancient prophets listened for God’s liberating word:

“At its heart, the prophetic witness was a way of listening, listening beyond the social norms of the day, listening to the word of the liberating God. The prophets urged the people to listen to God’s word because the discourse of the king, princes, and wealthy landowners was too narrow and was limited to the interests of these elites. This conversation did not include the voices of suffering people. The prophets, in God’s name, offered a much broader discourse, a conversation that listened to and addressed the needs of the poor and the disadvantaged….

The prophetic listening tradition is alive today to inspire people to listen beyond the established conversation. The prophetic tradition challenges us to listen especially to the cries of those who suffer and to listen to the voice of alternative possibility, to the voice of God.”

Picasso: Still Life—fruits and pitcher, oil and enamel on canvas, 10 3/4 x 16 1/8 inches, Guggenheim Art Museum, NYC.

Making a painting is quite different from making a work of art. This is why house painters aren’t called artists. They may cover a surface with color and not make a mess, but their heart and soul isn’t in their work. Learning to risk our vulnerability and emotional expression is also part of art class, just as much as learning what colors to mix to make orange or green. Picasso, quoted in Alfred H. Barr Jr.’s Picasso: Fifty Years of his Art (1946), understood this:

“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.”

We have these same experiences also, but we don’t realize these are part of the artist’s toolbox. These ordinary moments of life are also the extraordinary means of God speaking to us, if only we have ears to hear and a heart and hands ready to be used by God for God’s good purposes.

Joy, peace, and prophecy,

Cornelia

Quote Origin: Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results—Quote Investigator®. The origin of the quote is misattributed to Albert Einstein, but it originated in the 12-Step Anonymous groups in the 1980’s.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/

Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics”:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

https://webhome.auburn.edu/~vestmon/robotics.html#:~:text=A%20robot%20may%20not

How Long Does It Really Take to Form a Habit? | Scientific American

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-does-it-really-take-to-form-a-habit/

Nahum Ward-Lev, The Liberating Path of the Hebrew Prophets: Then and Now (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2019), 133, 134, 135–136.

https://cac.org/daily-meditations/living-presence-liberating-journey/

Meet My AI Friends, by Kevin Roose, NYTimes gift article

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/09/technology/meet-my-ai-friends.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Uk4.9sLW.VYS9bW4dc3ib&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Pablo Picasso – Oxford Reference
https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-

Lifetime of Learning

adult learning, art, Cezanne, cognitive decline, Habits, John Ruskin, Transfer of Learning

“Transfer of Learning” is a concept in which anything learned in one situation or environment can be applied in another. When I taught art, I would have my students use mathematics and fractions when they cut mats to present their work for exhibition. “Why do we have to use math in art?” they whined, “We’re never going to use it in our lives again.”

“Are you going to buy a house, a car, or shop for clothes or groceries? How will you know you’re getting a good deal?” They got out their pencils and rulers, even though they hated fractions.

This was decades ago, before “Train for Today’s Workplaces” became a mantra among some politicians. The only problem with training for today is the ever-changing nature of the modern workplace, which can make skills obsolete in a mere two years. Executives believe nearly half of the skills that exist in today’s workforce won’t be relevant just two years from now, thanks to artificial intelligence. However, human creativity will always be needed to guide AI. Folks who want white collar jobs today will need to buy into continuous learning, since the current job market will require ever changing skills.

Step 2: add some thin washes to build up the solid surfaces

We’ve all heard the saying, “Jack of All Trades vs Master of None,” but this might be the best possible scenario for our modern world. In our highly professionalized society, we all want the best physician and the top-notch lawyer on our case. Not everyone has the goods to acquire their services. We get the best we can afford. This is the capitalist society in which we live. In a utopian society, the poorest among us would get the same high quality medical care as the President of the United States.

Step 3: add details once surface is dry enough the paint won’t bleed. Doing background while waiting for objects to dry allows you to tighten up the edges of the objects.

“Those who can’t, teach” is a misconception, similar to the Jack of All Trades. Art Teachers can’t stick only to their specialty, but also must offer the gamut of skills from drawing to painting, paper cutting to plaster sculpture, clay pottery to cloth dyeing, and even more multimedia experiences. They have to be able to reach students with a wide range of talents, interests, and expertise, as well as encourage those who are ashamed of their work. Plus, they need to convince the talented to work and improve so they fulfill their promise.

This background discussion brings me to our class’s second experience in watercolor. I noted some instances of Transfer of Learning I can point out when we meet again.

When we paint a house, we dip our brush in a bucket of paint, apply it to the wall in one stroke, and then go back to the bucket for another dip. We don’t keep wiping the same spot on the wall over and over trying to make this one spot look better. In fact, the damp brush is just picking up the paint off the wall! Move along and cover the wall.

Don’t take your eye off the ball. If you want to catch a ball in any sport, you have to track it into your hands or the mitt. I noticed the ones who looked up, drew, looked, drew, checked, drew again, adjusted, and drew some more, had closer proportions in their drawings.

Measure twice, cut once. This is similar to the above sports metaphor. I learned it in the art school wood shop when I was cutting wood for my stretcher strips. Using the thumb or a brush to note the proportions of the still life objects and comparing them to the proportions of your own work helps get an accurate drawing. Check once, measure, check again, measure, and then cut. Air drawing or visualization helps to imagine the proportions before drawing the lines. Drawing lightly so you can draw over the less appropriate shape is an example of measuring twice, and cutting once.

Sheep will eat the grass down to the roots, but goats will move on. Actually, I have zero experience with sheep and goats. My shepherd experience is limited to leading a congregation, none of whom could be accused of being either sheep or goats. I only know this fact from Bible Study lessons, and no one rents out sheep to clear a pasture of weeds, but they use goats because goats are smart enough to move on. In art, we need to take a lesson from the goats and move on to another section of our painting to let our colors dry, so we can avoid our colors running into each other.

Our group isn’t training for a new occupation, but keeping a challenge on our plates is a good idea for anyone of any age. Whether you’re trying new recipes or learning to play an instrument or taking up an exercise routine, whatever change you make in your life is important. Doing creative writing or crafts or arts is especially crucial for keeping our brains healthy, for these activities build new pathways in our brains. As we age, having redundant brain pathways is important to keep our minds healthy.

Participation in arts interventions have been linked with improving cognitive function and memory, general self-esteem and well-being, as well as reducing stress and other common symptoms of dementia, such as aggression, agitation, and apathy. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, the interventions which promote social interaction, have multiple psychosocial benefits. While none of our group are experiencing these effects, participation also staves off the same symptoms. Researchers found visual arts programs reduced depression, improved socializing, and increased self-esteem among participants.

Expressive arts activities also help individuals relax, provide a sense of control, reduce depression and anxiety, encourage playfulness and a sense of humor, as well as improve cognition and self-esteem. Making art also nurtures spirituality and reduces boredom. Art also can reflect the emotional and cognitive condition of the artist.

Watercolor with Prang Oval 8 Student Palettes

In the classes I teach, I encourage each person finding their own voice, rather than copying my style. In the art education classes I took in college, the goals of teaching were for students to recreate the closest replica of the teacher’s model, as they followed the instructional steps to the letter.

I’m thankful I never had those teachers growing up, but by the 1980’s, regimented lesson plans were all the vogue. When I began to teach, I gave certain boundaries or requirements for each lesson, such as the use of certain color schemes or coiling verses slab built in clay sculpture, but the rest was left up to each student’s creative interpretation.

My principals were always surprised by the lack of discipline problems in my class, but when young people are given an opportunity to develop their imagination in a positive direction, rather than use it in negative behaviors, life is good. They especially liked the “hand-mouth pop quizzes” I would occasionally make them take, especially when they discovered cookies or chewing gum were involved.

Years later when I went to seminary, I constantly heard the refrain, “Will I be able to put this in my toolbox and use it in the local church?”

As a person who was preparing to be a fifth career pastor, I could only roll my eyes in silence. Every job I’d ever had prepared me for the ministry: renovating old apartments, teaching, preparing lesson plans, selling insurance, studying art history and painting, and learning how to renew and retrain my old skills for a new career. The idea of having a single toolbox that would never need new tools never crossed my mind. Seminary was where my skills to be a lifelong learner were reinforced.

I was writing this on My Daddy’s birthday. He would have been 105 if he’d lived so long. He always maintained an interest in archaeology until Parkinson’s and dementia robbed him in his late 70’s of his memories and his brilliance. He would take us on arrowhead hunting field trips on Saturdays when we were children. Armed with a cooler of lemonade and sandwiches from home, we’d go out to the countryside to walk in a farmer’s newly plowed field, with his permission of course.

In his early retirement, he enjoyed giving tours to school children at the LSUS campus Pioneer Heritage Center and driving the church bus to the food pantry to pick up the monthly food rations for distribution to the neighborhood. Staying active, engaged, and eating a healthy diet are other ways we can keep our minds building new neurons.

One of the interesting research opportunities in art and the brain is the question of whether neurodegenerative brain disorders will show up in an artist’s body of work. The progressive loss of neurons causes changes in the brain, which leads to a number of symptoms, from altered multi-sensory processing to difficulty moving and using one’s body, to subtle changes in mood, emotions, personality, social interactions; to major, disabling cognitive and behavioral impairments. Although we currently only offer art therapy for the elderly, perhaps we ought to be emphasizing the arts from earlier ages and integrate it into all of our studies to help everyone develop limber learning skills to last for our lifetimes.

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

Half Of All Skills Will Be Outdated Within Two Years, Study Suggests

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2023/10/14/half-of-all-skills-will-be-outdated-within-two-years-study-suggests/

National Endowment for the Arts Study: “Research Gaps and Opportunities for Exploring the relationship of the Arts to Health and Well-Being in Older Adults,” Published by the national endowment for the Arts Office of Research & Analysis

Click to access Arts-and-Aging-Building-the-Science.pdf

Pioneer Heritage Center

https://www.lsus.edu/community/pioneer-heritage-center

Can we really ‘read’ art to see the changing brain? A review and empirical assessment of clinical case reports and published artworks for systematic evidence of quality and style changes linked to damage or neurodegenerative disease

Physics of Life Reviews 43 (2022) 32–95

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

adult learning, art, bottles, butterflies, Creativity, Faith, flowers, Icons, Imagination, nature, Painting, pre-diabetes, purpose, risk, Stress

When faced with a complicated task, what’s the first thing we need to do? I usually vote to have a cup of coffee and sit down to think about it. Some may call this procrastination, but I call it contemplation. I need to settle my mind, focus my senses, and discern the most important parts of my task. This is necessary, for if I were cutting off a limb from a tree, I’d sure want to get my body placed on the part of the tree that wasn’t going to fall. Keep the most important thing the first thing in mind is always the best practice.

Once our youth group from church went to the Appalachian Mountains for a mission work project. Most of our kids came from poor homes and we arrived in a single church bus, which for some reason the license plate hadn’t got renewed. The group even let me be the navigator. Only by the grace of God did we arrive, for I’m known to be directionally challenged among all my friends.

The other group who attended this session with us came with another truck, complete with all their own tools. Our children were despondent at first, for they felt they couldn’t “compete.” Our adult team leaders reminded them, “We’re here to do the work God has called us to do. This isn’t a contest. Everyone has value and all our work counts toward the greater good.”

That big, well provisioned group got the job of replacing a front porch and a roof. They divided up into a porch and roof team. The porch team finished first, but then they got mad when the roof team had to destroy their work to put the roof on right. They had failed to talk out an overall plan first. If the roofers had started on the porch end, then the porch team could come behind them and work would progress along properly.

This is called team work in groups. Our small group was experienced in talking out the process before we began working, so we knew the consequences of our actions. “If…then” is always an important consideration, especially in our artistic endeavors.

If we’re familiar with the work of Dr. Stephen R. Covey, he talks about putting first things first by organizing and executing around our most important priorities. We live and are driven by the principles we value most, not by the agendas and forces which surround us. Pleasing others isn’t God’s purpose for us, but to do God’s work of loving all and serving the least of God’s people.

When we look at a landscape, we have to select the primary image to emphasize, and relate the other forms around this important image. In the still life, we might drive ourselves crazy trying to paint every single petal, pistil, and leaf of some flowers in a vase, or we could find the most important shapes, which give us enough visual cues to let the viewer say, “Yes, this is a flower painting.” Not every leaf needs to be given the same attention, since our goal is to make a painting, not a rendering of the subject before us.

Some might ask, “Why do we return to this well worn theme from time to time?” The best answer is we continue to learn from our repeated exposure to this theme. For another, our drawing skills improve over time, so we can see our progress. Also, our ability to handle the paint gets better, so we are more comfortable with mixing our colors and planning our composition. Besides, the great artists over the centuries have found this discipline fruitful, so if it benefited them, most likely we’ll get some good from it also. My nanny’s wisdom comes clear here: “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”

When faced with so many shapes of leaves, a central stem, and a glass vase with ridges and reflections, our untrained brain wants to explode. We have to catch our breath, inhale, and exhale to cleanse our nerves. This is the point we begin our first simplification. If we note the proportions, the leaves are about the same height as the vase, and we can set the vase on a plane (the table) so it has depth. We can mark these off on the bare canvas with light pencil or a light wash of yellow paint. We’ll paint over it later.

The next step of simplification is to get the basic lines and shapes down. These don’t have to be perfect, but give you an idea of where you’re going to paint. If you do this in a pale wash, you can paint over it with the heavier colors in the more exact form. In sculpture, Michelangelo was known for chipping away from the stone everything that didn’t look like his subject. In painting, we add color, tint, and shade until it looks like our subject.

The final stage of simplification is to get the background in. Here you can paint up close to the individual shapes and “clean up the edges.” You can add highlights in places to bring out the foreground shapes, and add a shadow in the background for variety. By this time, the vase ought to be dry enough to put highlights on it also. Notice the leaves aren’t all the same color and they don’t bend the exact same way. Nothing in nature is perfect, for each part grows according to the amount of sun, shade, and nutrients it receives. As one of my old teachers reminded me, “Nature has no straight lines, so you never have to worry about that.”

To show you how sustained effort and intentional looking over time can helps student’s work improve, I offer the following examples from February, 2019, and September, 2020. One was the spider plants and the other the daffodils. I’m not sure who did these, so I won’t identify them.

I merely throw these in here because Gail and Mike have been working with me for several years. If practice hasn’t yet made perfect, it certainly has made improvements, and that’s all anyone can ask for. After all, we’re not asked to be perfect, but to go on to perfection (in love of God and neighbor).

For history buffs a side note. Wild indigo is in the genus Baptisia, which derives from the Greek word, βάπτω, which means “to dip” or “immerse,” just as our baptism (βαπτίζω) does. North American indigenous peoples and early settlers would extract yellow, brown, and green dyes from the leaves and stems of wild indigo, notably blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) and other species. Indigo dye was extracted from yellow wild indigo (Baptisia tinctoria), but it proved to be an inferior source compared to the treasured true indigo (Indigofera species).

For years, wild indigo remained an obscure historical relic, its ornamental and ecological contributions undiscovered and under appreciated. Yet, in the springtime, wild indigo produces tall spikes of pea-like flowers that rise above the gray- to blue-green three-lobed leaves to provide nearly a month long display of color. The flowers sustain bumblebees and other winged pollinators, while the leaves feed the larvae of a variety of butterflies that include the wild indigo duskywing, frosted elfin, eastern tailed-blue, silver-spotted skipper, and various sulphurs. If you want to encourage butterflies in your garden, this is a hardy, drought tolerant, and deer resistant plant.

Gail found the plants with their unique seed heads on a hike last week. This subject matter was received with more joy than my suggestion of apples. Evidently, what was good enough for the great master Cezanne is an acquired taste for my students. I might need to bring apple pie to soften them up. I’m not above bribery for a good cause. Besides, pie would be a great still life. Gail got a very detailed drawing of the leaves, the vase, and the grouping’s placement on the table. She sketched in the counterbalanced stick with its mossy growth. This was the quickest I’ve seen her work, for she’s usually very deliberate in her choices.

We had a full house last Friday, so Mike sat at a different table. He had to paint with the added burden of looking over his shoulder periodically to check his work. He began to paint more from emotions than from sight, which isn’t a bad choice. As long as his work carries enough of the vocabulary of the image to speak its message, he’s good with it. It’s the energy, the experience of painting, and using his mind to solve a problem in his own creative way that engages his interest. So if his painting looks “less real” than Gail’s, it doesn’t mean it’s less successful. He began from a different place, so his destination is also different.

A new member of our group, Sally is experimenting with techniques and tools, as well as the paint itself. This week she came with heavy body Liquitex paints, the professional quality paint, which has more pigment than binder. She was so used to the thin bodied paints, however, she watered down these excellent colors. When she asked why they weren’t working like she thought, I pointed out, “You’re supposed to use them straight out of the tube, thick.” This is why we have a group session, so we can learn together. Sally also had a new fan brush, which she used to make brown decorative marks all over her canvas. “I just wanted to try it!” Now that she knows, maybe she’ll plan ahead. I really like the swaying energies of her leaves. They’re happy and full of life. If this were in bright colors, Matisse would be proud.

Lauralei brought an interesting solution to our subject this past week. The clear vase was a little intimidating, so she, like several others, colored it solid. When we first learn to swim, we want the security of water wings or the proximity of the edge of the pool. We all take small steps before we take bigger steps. She got the stick and fringed moss down and the many leaves of the plant.

Making all these decisions takes a lot of energy. Our brains use about 20% of our calories, so if we’re engaged in a new challenge, our blood sugar can dip if we’re not careful. If we aren’t aware of this, we can run out of energy or make careless choices. As someone who has prediabetes, I get low blood sugar easily. Stress and excitement can cause my blood sugar to dip. I always bring a small snack as well as eat a good breakfast with whole grain complex carbohydrates, like old fashioned oats. That snack is important, since I test my blood sugar before I drive home.

I’ve learned the hard way if my blood glucose reading is under 80, it’s falling and my driving skills will be going south too. I usually know I’m having trouble, for I can’t string two thoughts together and I begin to overwork my painting. I can’t make the good decision to stop while I’m ahead. Not everyone has this problem, but learning to recognize when you’re tired or just painting with no purpose in mind, is also an acquired skill. Taking care of our bodies so we can fully enjoy exploring a new adventure is a gift we can give ourselves. We only have one body in which to live out God’s purpose for our lives.

Dusty concentrates well and gets a good shape on his canvas before he sets out to paint. I can’t read his mind, but it seems as he draws, the steps he needs to paint his image come into his mind. This is contemplating at a deep level. It’s not surface thinking, but an inner, deep knowledge that percolates up from within. I mention it’s an icon, for the tablecloth is tipped upward as if it were a background, not a flat plane on which the vase sits. This isn’t something he did by choice, since we haven’t done a lesson on perspective together. In the language of icons, the four cornered shape represents the world and its cardinal directions, or all creation. So we have one plant and all creation, as Paul said to the Romans (8:19-21):

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

We’ll take Friday, February 4, off due to the frozen roads. On February 11, we’ll do paper Valentine collages. Y’all stay warm and safe. Eat hearty soups and enjoy the beauty of the snow.

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

Manet: Chrysanthemums and Clematis in a Crystal Vase, 1882, oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®: Habit 3 – FranklinCovey
https://www.franklincovey.com/habit-3/

Wild or False Indigo | Home & Garden Information Center
https://hgic.clemson.edu/wild-or-false-indigo/

Still Life with Bottles

adult learning, apples, art, bottles, Creativity, Faith, Ministry, Painting, picasso, renewal, shadows

One of the best genres of painting is still life: it doesn’t move, it never gets tired, and it never fusses about sitting in one place for a longtime. It’s only drawback is it might rot if you take too long to do your art work. Most of us won’t have this problem, since we’ll either take a photo of the piece or go on to paint something else before that happens.

Jan Davidsz de Heem: Still Life in Glass Vase

Still life painting as an independent genre or specialty first flourished in the Netherlands during the early 1600s, even though parts of earlier paintings paid detailed attention to flowers or fruit within the whole. The rise of still life painting in the Northern and Spanish Netherlands, mainly in the large city trade centers, reflected the increasing urbanization of Dutch and Flemish society, which brought with it an emphasis on the home and personal possessions, commerce, trade, learning—all the aspects and diversions of everyday life. These still lifes featured imported flowers and fruits plus expensive objects such as Chinese porcelain, Venetian glassware, and silver-gilt cups and trays, all of which were usually rendered in a glistening light and with a velvety atmosphere.

A noted Flemish master of the 17th century, Jan Davidsz de Heem, enjoyed combining multiple flowers from different seasons along with ears of corn, a spider, a ladybird, ants, and butterflies in a glass vase on a slate ledge with red currents, a violet, a snail, and a caterpillar. Photorealistic paintings like this were in vogue then, but as the years rolled on, modern artists began to explore other directions. Cezanne retains the luxurious drapery of earlier still life paintings, but simplifies the forms of everyday objects. He’s the father of the cubist painters, represented by Picasso’s bottle still life.

Another artist shows us how to handle the reflection of the background in a glass vessel. Matisse freely paints the colors and shapes of the plants, the window, and the bright goldfish plus all the highlights from the light sources. He even lets some of the white of the unpainted canvas show throughout his work to add to the feeling of airiness.

A current painting from Pinterest is a quieter and more sedate rendering of the goldfish theme. The overall drawing is good, but it lacks energy. There’s no vibrancy in the light coming through the window and the shadows on the goldfish are too dark. Muting the values of the colors toward grey and brown will decrease the “pop” of a painting every time.

We also looked at a painting of a clear bottle with lemons in the background. Objects behind a glass will often be displaced by the surface, just as water also shifts the position of anything underwater. We’ve tried bottles and jars before, but this is the first time we’ve focused on them entirely. As a collector of ancient and odd things, these are old beer and soda bottles I’ve found over the years. They aren’t THAT old, with the oldest being about 1905. They’re all mould blown and have distinctive air bubbles and seam lines.

One is from the bottling company of my hometown, the Star Bottling Company, which first produced the Uncle Joe and Aunt Ida soft drinks, before becoming part of the Coca Cola bottling family in 1904. Before the Coca Cola Company created a line of flavored drinks, most of the bottlers created their own brands, with orange, root beer, strawberry, grape and fruit-flavored drinks. Because they weren’t allowed to put them in bottles with the “Coca-Cola” script, the bottlers developed their own “flavor bottles.”

The writing on many of these bottles indicated they were property of the local Coca Cola bottling company. Collectors can find an enormous variety in flavor bottles, and most are very inexpensive to collect. Mine are of the nondescript, ordinary variety, but I have fond memories of the experience of finding them. Plus the excitement of a field trip to the bottling plant, which both got us out of school for a morning and introduced us to the wonders of industry.

The earliest known man made glass date back to around 3500 BCE, with finds in Egypt and Eastern Mesopotamia. Discovery of glassblowing around 1st century BCE was a major breakthrough in glass making. Archaeological findings in Egypt and Eastern Mesopotamia indicate the first manufactured glass dates back to 3000 BCE. The oldest fragments of glass vases found in Mesopotamia date back to the 16th century BCE and represent evidence of the origins of the hollow glass industry. Beside Mesopotamia, hollow glass production was also evolving in the same time in Egypt, in Mycenae (Greece), China and North Tyrol (now part of Austria). The first glassmaking manual from the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (669-626 BCE) dates back to around 650 BCE.

Because glassmaking was slow and costly, it was luxury item and few people could afford it. Around the end of the 1st century BCE, Syrian craftsmen discovered the new technique of “glass blowing.” This revolutionary event made glass production easier, faster and cheaper, so that glass, for the first time, became available to ordinary citizens. The tools and techniques of glass blowing have changed very little over the centuries.

The Romans traded glass across the vast RomanEmpire and beyond. They were the first to use glass for architectural purposes when clear glass was discovered in Alexandria around 100 CE. Venice was the center of the glassmaking craft.

The art of glass making flourished during the Roman Empire and spread across Western Europe and the Mediterranean. Glass was one of the most important items of trade beyond the borders of the Roman Empire. The Romans were the first ones who began to use glass for architectural purposes, when clear glass was discovered in Alexandria around AD 100.

THREE ROMAN GLASS VESSELS
C. 1ST-4TH CENTURY A.D.

Other examples in the image above of the Roman expertise in glass blowing include a pale green bottle, with the four-sided mould-blown body with rounded shoulder and tapering cylindrical neck, the wide strap handle attached to the shoulder and curved under the lip, 5¾ in. (14.5 cm.) high; a pale green jug, the squat spherical body with diagonal ribs, a pinched handle attached to the flaring neck with trailed ring, 4¾ in. (12 cm.) high; and a pale yellow unguentarium, 4 5/8 in. (11.8 cm.) high. These were from an auction lot at Christie’s.

A flourishing glass industry was developed in Europe at the end of the 13th century when the glass industry was established in Venice by the time of the Crusades (1096-1270 CE). Despite the efforts of the Venetian artisans who dominated the glass industry to keep the technology secret, it soon spread around Europe. Eventually all the great gothic cathedrals of Europe would have stained glass curtains or large windows of colored light illuminating their interiors.

Because stained glass is translucent, we see both the color and the light. When we paint with acrylic colors, the light reflects back from the pigments in the binding medium. In watercolor, the white paper adds brightness since the colors are transparent. This means we have to “fool the eye” and use highlights plus color values near to the background colors to give the illusion of clarity.

Gail is getting good at analyzing the shapes and setting them down on a small canvas during our short class period. This still life had both the extra solid apple and the very clear bottles in contrast. It was more challenging than it sounds. How do you balance the heavy with the light, the solid with the transparent, and the cool blues with the warm reds? Adding a strong background color helps tie the two together.

Another way to bring everything together is to ignore the apple all together, as Mike did. This is called artistic license. He included the red in a cloth crossed by another golden fabric. He uses multiple viewpoints, for the base of the bottles are on one plane and the tops are flipped forward. I don’t know if he changed position or just sat up straighter when doing the bases. I also gave him one of my brushes to use in class, since he’s been using the same one forever. He wants to paint a straight line, but is using a round brush. He needs to take a lesson from Tim, the Tool man Taylor, and “use the right tool for the right job.” Of course we all know that means the one with “more power!”

“Here, use this flat edge artist’s brush. I think you’ll like it.”
“Wow, it really paints a smooth edge.”

“Yep, I been suggesting you get a better brush, but you keep using the old one. I finally decided you needed to experience what a real brush feels like in your hand.”

“If I go in the store, do I need a special license to buy a real artist’s brush?”

“They’ll take your money. That’s the only license you need.”

He laughed. I’m glad he has a sense of humor. We’ve been doing this class for about two years now. It takes us a while to learn from each other. We have to learn how to be transparent and open to one another, much as a clear glass bottle is open to light shining through it. The greatest challenge for any of us as adults is accepting any instruction or critique at all. In seminary, I always opened my tests and papers after I repeated my mantra, “I am not my grade.” If I got a good score, I didn’t let it go to my head, but worked even harder on the next effort. If I didn’t score well, I took that grade as an opportunity to define my arenas of insufficient knowledge. I could work on that for the next time.

As we read in the scriptures, the apostle Paul writes:
All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching,
for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient,
equipped for every good work.
~~ 2 Timothy 3:16-17

If we weren’t willing to be transformed, why would we read our Bibles or attend to the teachings of God’s holy word? If we let the good word go in one ear and out the other, and it never makes an impact on our hearts, minds, or lives, we’re dead in our faith. We’re called to have a living faith, one full of hope, and actively bring that same hope to our hurting world.

Johnny Nash, who recently passed away, had the number one song on Billboard’s Hot 100 song list in 1972, called “I can see clearly now.”

I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day

I think I can make it now the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is that rainbow I’ve been praying for
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day

Look all around, there’s nothing but blue skies
Look straight ahead, there’s nothing but blue skies
I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day

It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day

Oh what a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day

I hope you have a bright, bright, sunshiny day,
Cornelia

Johnny Nash
https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/33799733/Johnny+Nash/I+Can+See+Clearly+Now

History of Glass
http://www.nissinkglass.co.uk/info/history-of-glass

Historic Bottle Website
https://sha.org/bottle/

Manufacturer’s Marks and Other Logos on Glass Containers
https://sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/ALogoTable.pdf

Star Bottling Company
https://www.fohbc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/UncleJoBottling.pdf

Body and Mold Seams
https://sha.org/bottle/body.htm

Read about an early bottle filling machine here
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Brewers_Journal_and_Barley_Malt_and.html?id=9hwxAQAAMAAJ

Homage to Morandi

adult learning, art, Children, Creativity, Faith, Love, Ministry, nature, Painting, shadows, Spirituality, trees, United Methodist Church, vision

My students in the art class at the church have shown much progress since we began last year. I’m proud of them for sticking in there and taking this journey down a path less traveled by others. Most art education classes begin with the idea of a model and the students should all try to match it. This is typical of “right answers” in most schoolwork, such as math. Indeed, 2 plus 2 should equal 4, and not 3 or 5. We can’t get creative in our answers in math class, but we can have room for creativity in art class. If we have a still life to render on a page, we should have something that’s recognizable as the objects, but Cubism has taught us the objects don’t have to be painted as Realism. We can paint them different, emotional colors, as in Fauvism, or in a monochromatic scheme, like Georgio Morandi.

Another growth area we have is continuing to observe the subject while we draw and paint. Children draw the idea or symbol of the thing they’re representing. If we’re attempting to render a realistic subject, we need to constantly check back to the objects to notice the negative spaces and the shadows, as well as the forms themselves. This is a matter of discipline, which all artists have to undergo. I spent many an hour in art school drawing models without ever being able to look at my work—this is how you train your brain to connect to your hand. The first efforts are pretty goofy looking, for sure. You have to leave your ego at the door if you want to become an artist.

All beginning artists try to make a shape perfect first and then color it in, much like filling in the black lines of a coloring book. This year we’re working on losing our need to be perfect from the start, and begin to paint from the first. This lets us have more emotion and feeling in our work. We do this by drawing with a brush and a light, yellow wash on the canvas. We can easily paint over it with our thicker paints. If we don’t get it right, we can scribble over it, or use a pale pink wash to make a different line.

About the age of nine, children begin to draw what they see, but still have no real sense of perspective or scale. The most important object is the largest. About the time they become teenagers, they show an interest in realism and the artistic skills needed to produce these tricks of the eye. More precocious children will begin earlier, and others may never show an interest at all. Some naive painters will retain childish forms, but have strong pattern and design elements, such as Grandma Moses, who painted the memories of her childhood.

Last year I started the class on basic perspective. It might have been too difficult for some, or too uninteresting for others. Yet basic perspective is a building block lesson for any art lesson that is more than decorating a flat surface with pretty colors. Likewise, making a shadow study of basic geometric forms is important because all objects in nature can be reduced to a geometric form: tree trunks are cylinders, fir trees are cones, oak trees are spheres, houses and churches are rectangular solids and pyramids, and bridges are rectangular solids supported by piers, which are more of the same. A complex landscape becomes easier to sketch out in block shapes if the artist can identify the basic components of what he or she sees.

People think art is “Just something I can do when I feel like I’ve got nothing else to do.” This is the description for finger painting for kindergarteners, if you think about it. Art is for both thinking and feeling, since both the brain and the heart need to be active at the same time. Some say only the heart needs to be active, but the head is exercising choices and making decisions to limit the red or to add more yellow or to rip a huge black down the side of the canvas. Only the artists who are unintegrated will contend they work only from the mind or from the heart. We actually work with both, even if one is diminished in nature.

If the great commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” means anything in the art life, it’s we aren’t meant to separate any one part of our experience from any other part. In our art expressions, as in our faith expressions, our heart, soul, and mind needs to be fixed on love of God, as well as love of neighbor, for loving our neighbor, in whatever form, fashion, or fix our neighbors find themselves in, is the same as loving the image of God in which they were also made. By loving our neighbors, we love ourselves also. If we hate our neighbors, we hate ourselves. God didn’t mean for us to hate God’s image.

These are the wonderful spiritual truths we learn in art class. It’s more than learning how to mix colors or draw a box in perspective. These are art skills. Life skills are way more important. Take a look at the work from last year and this year. You can still join this class. You aren’t competing with anyone, but you will be working to improve over time. Going onto perfection takes time. Now is a good time to begin!

Artandicon's Blog

Crossroads of art and faith

still life

Four Pears Still Life

Pumpkins and Gourds

Creating a Picasso Still Life

Lifetime of Learning

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

Still Life with Bottles

Homage to Morandi

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: