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Megiddo at the Crossroads of History
On a visit to the Holy Land, I walked in the ruins of Tell Megiddo and also climbed the hills above the Jezerell valley. From this vantage point, I could imagine the great battles of nations warring to conquer land and control trading routes. Megiddo lies at the crossroads and therefore in the crosshairs of…
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Texture Paintings
I don’t do wine painting classes. Since I teach in a United Methodist Church, our Wesleyan temperance tradition holds sway: we serve no alcohol. However, out in the world beyond there are classes where everyone drinks wine and paints the same image. They’re out for fellowship purposes more than for art, but these classes serve…
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Megiddo: Marks and Memories
My most recent studio work explores my memories of my pilgrimage to the ancient ruins of Tel Megiddo. Why am I interested enough to make an entire series of drawings and paintings of this site, which I visited over two decades ago? First, the city was continuously occupied from the 7th or 6th millennium BCE,…
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I See the Icon—The Icon Sees Me
The icons of Christ radiate a sense of calm, a spiritual experience created countless times by various artists over the ages. Each one channels the spiritual force which lies outside of language, mystery, and mysticism. Over the years, we’ve come to understand the icon serves as a window into the world beyond our own. In…
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THE FLAGS OF MEMORIAL DAY
Our next to last art class before summer break was right before Memorial Day. I had my last cataract surgery on the Tuesday before, so Mike gave me a lift into class. I wasn’t quite ready to drive yet. I thought we’d be finishing the work we began last week, but that wasn’t on the…
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New Eyes, New Visions
This week as I recovered from cataract surgery, a memory from my childhood finally surfaced. In the late 1950’s in my hometown, I had met an artist who could barely see to paint anymore because of her vision loss due to cataracts. Doctors hadn’t yet invented the modern replacement lenses and use of small incisions…
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Pears and Apples
Aristotle said in his Poetics, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance, and this, and not the external manner and detail, is true reality.” He spoke mainly about poetry, which was the highest art of his age, but his words also apply to the fine…
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Chaos and the Order of the Day
Morse Peckham, author of Man’s Rage for Chaos, believed “Order is humanity’s freedom; but the rage for order creates its own limits on that freedom.” Art, he maintained, enabled the artist to fight that rage, which destroys what it would create. Only the rage for chaos can balance the rage for order. As one who…
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The Mosaic Christ
The Body of Christ represents the perfection of all humanity as the image of God. The body of Christ we know as the church is made of many individuals, just as a mosaic design is constructed of many pieces to make a whole. I think of these as the “two bodies of Christ,” even though…
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Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to July
Are we the United States of America or the Un-Tied States of America? One of the apocryphal sayings misattributed to the great Benjamin Franklin is “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Many are the words of wisdom from those who can’t speak up for themselves anymore, but especially numerous…
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