Blog
Here I Am
This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed, cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The GOD of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, GOD will answer.
You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, “Here I am.”
Isaiah 58 6-9a
I usually need help making it throught the day without stepping in my own slop. Sometimes I wonder how to best talk to God. Tonight I sat in the hot tub, looking up at the stars with a fresh cigar in hand wondering what tomorrow will bring. The winds were again beginning to blow. The moon is new, the stars are bright, and I felt as if I were at the edge of the world. For me, chatting with the creator is often stirred by seeing His creation. It is a reminder that He is as close as the heart that beats within me. His love stretches beyond those stars I saw.
I love Isaiah chapter 58 in the Bible. Isaiah saw a people that was religious. They had a form of godliness, but denied its power ( 2 Timothy 3:5 ). There is a lot of that going on in the church today. I sometimes see it in myself. I really want to take a stand as live the life I say I believe (“doing over believing”). Isaiah records a conversation he had with the Lord. God told him what he wanted to see him do. I think that even today, the church needs to rise up and open our homes (and churches) to the poor, the needy, the disenfranchised, the ragamuffins, the fringe, the houseless, the beautiful ugly people in our streets. But we are too scared to let them into our churches, so why would we bring them to share a meal in our own house? The church says “It is not safe to let them near our children”. “All they want is money”. “They are loosers”. If you want the Lord to hear our cries for help… re-read Isaiah 58 and judge for yourself why it seems our prayers are bouncing off the celing.
Unthinkable
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It is truly unthinkable to take a human life. Unthinkable to consider, for even a moment, taking the life of your own child, the promised son on which the future of a nation rested.
In Genesis 22, Abraham found himself wrestling with this. God said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” There is really something wonderful about hearing from the Lord. This was a tough thing to hear.
When I was asked to do this painting, I was wondering what to focus on. I considered the strength of Abraham. The “halt” from the angel, and the provision of the ram in the bushes, but it was the son lying on the pyre that intrigued me. It was Isaac’s willingness to provide himself, knowingly for this act, that I wanted to be the focal point. As the story of sacrifice was told — the unthinkable offering of the only son that he loved — the painting was started, with in an hour it would be done.
At first I struggled with the structure of the painting, but then I got a flow, a rhythm of motion that allowed the picture to develop into something that resembled what I intended. Once I got the main figure of Isaac in place, I painted in the arm of Abraham, with bold colors of his intent. He was ready to do the thing. What he must have been feeling is indescribable. He was fully committed, and only then was the hand of God moved to stop this act and he sent in his angel with a message of relief. When I got to this part of the image, something remarkable was happening. I painted with such intent, with purpose, that the hand of the angel simply showed up at the end of my brush, literally in 90 seconds. What a wonder it was to see it appear in front of my eyes. I then added a few more strokes beyond the knee of Isaac and a ram was ready for the dagger.
I am looking forward to the next time I can share a story in paint.
Iconography
Panailidis Sotirios – Iconography
This is one of the coolest websites I have seen in a very long time. This guy is from Greece and has a real love of “writing” icons. A very mis-understood artform, but one with the intention to draw the viewer into the deeper depths of a mystical view of our spiritual selves. Some day, I intend to write my very own icons. It is a discipline that I would like to pursue soon.
Changes
Sometimes you expect the things that occur on the path that the day brings. Then there often comes a thing or a series of occurrences that makes the path seem a bit more precarious than you expected. The path I have been on this week is different than I was expecting when I started on it.
Today, a wonderful friend died from complications during heart surgery this week. Wendy was the most gracious lover of God and his people. For me, her end came in the form of a prayer request via email sent from many miles away in the Midwest. I was stunned and simply went along with the business of the evening — which was to spend the final bible study as youth pastor with a group of students that I have been loving for the past year and a half. The fact that Wendy’s life ended and my ministry life was coming to an end in the same moment seemed strangely odd to say the least.
I had a plan to commission and charge the students with the admonition of Jesus to “Go and Love” His commission was to go to all the world and love their neighbors as they would love themselves, and to love God with every resource the have at their disposal. So I went through with the plan thinking of the ministry times and life shared with Wendy and her family. Wendy’s life was a reflection of her faith in her creator. Her journey was not easy so her resolve to overcome trials was even that more resolved. I greave today as I miss her tender love for my girls — her comfort during trials — her smile in all circumstances.
Then, tonight I was hit hard again with the surprise that Tim Garrety entered eternity as a result of an accident on his motorcycle. I was planning a trip to Tahoe with him and others in a few weeks. 10 of us were to ride into the Sierras for 5 days. I only met him last Fall, but was fascinated by his generous spirit and creative heart. I will only know ABOUT him now.
I pray for the families and friends which I know intimately in both of these passings. I also pray that through this, God would reveal to me and my family the temporary nature of life. I want to pause tonight to see life as an occurrence that happens only once and to make the best of all of it. Every part of life has greatness available. Beauty shows up in the most peculiar places. Look everywhere for it. Look on purpose.
Below Deck
Below Deck (16 x 20 – on canvas) – 1.5.2003 $650
The amazing thing about living here in So Cal is the weather. Today it was over 80 degrees and we went to the beach again. Tomorrow will be in the upper 80′s and it is the first week of January!
This was an interesting painting adventure. It began about a month ago and was started from a photograph. There was a really intense sunset that I photographed, and I wanted to paint it. Then when I started to put the brush to the canvas, I got “stuck”. It just did not work for me. I hated the strong contrast that was captured in the photo, but I wanted to make something more like what I saw when I was there. So today, I once again packed up the family and took them on site to capture the scene plein air. The truly hardest part was there was NO light from me to see my palette or canvas. The sun was so bright in my eyes that when I looked at the scene to see what to paint, I was blinded and then I could not see much on the canvas. I knew where the colors were, and I just mixed them from the location on the palette. I used a lot of white and since I was painting over the previous painting, there was already a dark “ground” or under painting that comes through. This painting was over in less than two hours, and the kids were ready for cold showers.
Walk this Way
Walk This Way (16 x 20 – on canvas) – 12.31.2002 $650
I made it to San Onofre this morning. We got there just as the tide was going back out and the surf was getting slightly bigger. I had a lot of fun meeting a lot of the locals today. I had one lady walk up with her pre-teen son and ask “are you somebody famous?” I just smiled and said “soon.” There was a professional surfing photographer that stopped by for a while too. Bob Foster has a dad who was an animator with all of the studios in LA. I asked him if his dad was Walter, and he said that he was his GRAND-father. Pretty cool. Walter Foster helped me in my early days by supplying me with some great starter drawing books. In a big way, those Walter Foster books got me started. What a cool full circle meeting I had today with Bob.
Each day I paint, I am learning more. Today’s big revelation was painting the trunks of palm trees. I was reading about how Monet, Seuart, Van Gogh and the rest, were able to mix color not with the brush, but by putting a red spot next to a blue spot. The result is an “optical blend” of purple. I experimented with more of the brush-work that they used to create this effect. The colors I used however, were simply mixed on my palette.
Last night was the first Thursday of the month so I went to Laguna Beach’s Art Walk. I met many artists and saw a lot of paintings that I was inspired by. I was introduced to some folks that form the Southern California Plein Air Painters Association as well as the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association and I am thinking about joining both. The So Cal group goes out every Friday and paints and has monthly outings and potlucks. Sounds like a fun group to be with. The Laguna group has some much more well known artists, and do not meet so often, but they host an invitational in Laguna Beach that I want to be part of this summer. Many painters are members of both, so I think I will be too
Back to San Onofre today. I saw a few of the same locals I met last week. This set of palm trees sit near the south end of the parking strip. They are this lone clump of palms that have always been watching the surf here. Their spent palm frawns have never been removed from the trunks, so they look like they have these long ZZ Top beards. This is my first beach scene with no beach in it. The ocean lies just to the left of the parked cars. I am really enjoying the simple palette that Ken Auster showed me. It contains Cad Yellow, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue. Also Carbon Black and Titanium White. Most of my greens are made from black and yellow. Sometimes there is a touch of blue to cool down the shadows. I met John Eagle at Art Walk and he uses a very bright color palette. I want to do some workshops with him also to get a bit bolder with my colors and spread my wings a little.
South Laguna
My friend Billy and I went out today to go to the beach. The plan was to go to trestles at 7am so he could get his longboard in the water, I was going to be painting while he surfed. So when I woke up I was ready to go, but it was such a flat surf that we just went for a drive. It was a nice drive.
When we got back home, I still wanted to paint, so my daughter Lucy and I went for our own drive and took our painting gear along. I am so glad that she went along. The time we had painting together was priceless and will always be remembered as the first day she did plein air painting. We both took on the same view and she did great.
Flat Wave Day (18 x 22 on board) – 12.28.2002
This view of this cove is somewhere in South Laguna Beach. I am sure that I will someday know the name of it, but we just stumbled on it and I did not take note of the beach sign that lead us down the long concrete stairway to the beach. The entire time we painted, the sun was obscured by a light layer of clouds so the lighting was mostly flat. Once in a while the clouds would thin out and the blue/green water would sparkle. It was a special time for Lucy and I. She was proud to hear the kudos from passers-by. It was getting dark, so we began to clean-up when all of a sudden, something really unexpected happened. The sun was low and peeked through the window of sky at the horizon between the clouds and the water-line. BAM! The sky was on fire. A lady with her adolescent kids stopped by to talk about our paintings and I told her that we had come here from being in WA state for 8 years. “The best part of moving back”, I told her, “is right behind you — Look at THAT!” The sky got brighter than before and the sun glimmered off of the ripples on the ocean. What a way to end a perfect day of painting with my girl. (CAO Criollo)
Trestles Diptych
Trestles Diptych (16 x 40) – 11.27.2002 NFS
This scene is one of the favorite surf spots on the California coast. Trestles is noted for a consistent good surf either at uppers (north side) or lowers (south side) because of the sweeping curve to the coast. Depending on which way the tide is coming from. There is an old section of pacific coast highway that you take that is along the top of the hills overlooking the shoreline at San Onofre. Way in the background, you can see the San Onofre nuclear power plant.
Irises After Vincent
Irises after Vincent (14 x 16) – 6.20.2001 NFS
I have been painting in water colours most of my life. I have also created many commercial art-works digitally “painting” them on the computer. Above is one of my first oil paintings. It was done in the summer of 2001. It is a loose copy of one of my favorite Vincent Van Gogh paintings “Irises.” I have always loved this painting. It reminds me of Jesus teaching his disciples. The purple irises seem to be leaning toward the single white iris, as the red faced pharisees stand in the background talking amongst themselves plotting the end of his life. I love the bold lines Vincent used. I wanted to use this “copy” to break out of my tight, frustrated attempts at oil painting that I started during the prior weeks. Those attempts all ended up half-started and later tossed. The freedom that found me during this painting, brought out a part of my creative self that had been hidden for many, many years. It took moving back to California to start painting again, but the process was sparked with this Van Gogh piece. Thank you Vincent!