Doing God's work

(From an article at http://www.cny.org/)

Ed Alonzo, a 26-year-old student at Iowa State University, said, "One of the things that I like is that (the sisters) understand how work betters human beings." The project provides him and the other volunteers a chance to work on virtues, doing things out of love and working together, he said.

"It's also creative, and people want to be creative," he said. "There's an innate desire to create—so being able to create, you get to mirror the image of God and you feel good about making something that glorifies God."

India...

I miss India so much... the people, the pollution, the pain, the sickness... I was sitting on the porch of one of the studios tonight thinking of how beautiful it is here, but yet how much more beautiful India is. Living there life was so hard, but so purposeful. You woke up every morning knowing that if you didn't... well... you got up and knew that you had to start your day with Christ, because of the terrors ahead. Because you knew without Him, you couldnt stand or help.

It was hell to live in India, and I truly hated the discomfort I had to go through. But beyond the torture, there was a real meaning to my work. A meaning so real, it makes everything else I've done (save building the church) seem so artificial, so unnatural, so unimportant and so piddly. I touched Christ a thousand times each day in India.

A thousand times I had to overcome my disgust, and my aversions. And a thousand times someone would feel their dignity restored.

I miss India. I miss living that radical life of Love.

Untitled

These two I did yesterday...



And this is from before dinner today...

I'm finding I really like all these odd pieces of wood that I find in the sculpture trash... they're nice and seem to give me a bit more freedom in feeling like I can just "waste" it...

Paintings series two...

So these are the paintings I painted a few days ago... the day that I cleared out my studio.




And these are from yesterday...



And this is from today when I was at the river. It was such an amazing day to go swimming and then relax on the pebbled beach!

Michelle's Birthday!

Michelle's Birthday was Saturday, so she came up and I gave her two paintings, a bouquet of wildflowers (i.e., beautiful day lillies and an asiatic lily mixed with real wildflowers) These are the paintings below and some photos from her birthday... She's fantastic and drove all the way up to Vermont to visit me on her birthday!









Michelle at Breakfast/Lunch... right after she arrived... we then went to my studio for a short bit before we decided we all needed naps (she drove 8 hours the night before, partly because she passed up her hotel and 2 hours that morning.)



Michelle and her roommate Michelle, who came along for her birthday.

Continued... from yesterday.

These are three post-studies of the "pink wheat" painting...






Some painting practice...

A lion by Leonardo Drew... (Sculptor who is in the MET, MOMA and Hirshorn, and resides in San Antonio but was up here for critiques).


A charcoal drawing...

New Beginnings.

(written yesterday, posted today... you get the idea)
So I've come to the point where I've decided to move on. I've taken down the paintings in my studio, and decided to start anew. I don't know what about them was causing me to stagnate, nor do I know if I'll ever revisit them. But I've decided that it's time to start afresh. To seek that elemental vision that joins all humans in a mutual appreciation of beauty.

I went with Michelle to a ballet on her birthday, and during the ballet I began to probe what Art is. And essentially I've come to the conclusion that it's VISUAL COMMUNICATION. Art can be a compilation of Impressive visuals that move a person to say wow that's enjoyable to look at. Or art can be communication, conveying emotion and thought. But Art needs to aspire to being both at one time. If it fails in visuals, it fails to reach potential, if it fails to communicate, it fails to reach its potential, only when it both creates appealing visuals and conveys something greater, can it be called good art. If it does one to the neglect of the other, it is simply an aspirant whimper that ultimately fails.

Art can also be transparent or opaque in communication, being obvious to the vast majority, to being only understood by each individual viewer. And good art reaches the masses and touches each individual uniquely. And good art is that art which upon cursory and subsequently more in depth examinations touches the viewer and communicates a greatness beyond simple words and images.

Now the question for me and all artists is how do we communicate what we want to communicate?
(le fin)

These are the paintings as they've evolved...




There's more that I want to post but the web is not cooperating with my uploads.

Days 7, 8, and 9

So the last few days have been good... steady at least. Yesterday was exciting as I was able for the first time to wake up for breakfast... but today was unfortunate to some degree that I couldn't.

My first two oil painting starts:

Continued work....

The last four from the other day...

Day 3, 4, 5 (and part of 6)

so today is day six. And I'm heading into the studio later to attack some new and some old. paintings.


These are the paintings as of the end of day 3...
This one is a memory from when I worked in New Orleans after the hurricane... it has a lot to do with Subtext and is tentatively called "N.O. Subtext"

Two Icons I'm working on...



More progress on this painting...

These are the paintings as of the end of day 4...



These are the paintings as of the end of day 5...


There are four more photos I want to put up... but I've got to run...

And now I'm off to a fiction reading and then off to paint!

Day two/two point five

I saw a duck yesterday right before lunch... he looked gainly and awkward... yet somehow that just made me want to eat it all the more... But instead I just admired it's white plumage and persistence in upstream swimming.


So yesterday I was working on one painting... and today I'm still staring at it and working on it...

I'm also working now on four more paintings... and by working I mean I have two paintings gessoed (aka. primed) and ready for this evening, and I've already started on two panels... I really want to work on a fifth painting, but the store closed and I'll have to wait until tomorrow...

Here is the painting I'm still working on from yesterday... Base layer...
Sketches...
Some filler...
Flipped over and ready for more work.

After dinner yesterday there was a live bluegrass band playing on the lawn near my house...

and there were tons of hippies... which felt very homey for me and reminded me of Austin... oh I miss Austin.