Surrounded By Beauty

I am convinced that surrounding yourself with beautiful handmade objects betters your life.  If in every moment your life is aided by the functions of a beautifully created work then your moments are enliven, made more, become more meaningful and in that, your moments are more sacred.  By choosing this way you are choosing life, to purposefully live and, in a simple way, choosing to; “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”

Big Days Call For Big Thank Yous

Big days.  Days that hold great promise or great regret.  Days that begin with great hope but the end cannot be known.  Being an artist makes every day a big day.   You can make art but there is always a very real possibility that you will just make stuff.  The world has enough stuff; that’s why the storage business is so big, our houses can’t hold all our stuff so we rent stuffing space.  But art, oh art, there is so very little of it and every full moon, every smooth river stones, every kiss of our lover demands we attempt art.  It is one of the few sincere ways we can say, “thank You!”  Big days require big thank You’s!

in my studio

Not For All The Soul's On Earth

There is an emotional toll for sacrifice.  Imagine if you had a first born son, which I do, and if he were your beloved, which he is, and that you found great delight in him, which I do, and that he was worthy, which he is.  Now imagine sacrificing him for others and those others rejecting him.  I can unequivocally say that there would be an emotional toll that would have a physical response, I would tear something up, something would bear the brunt of my feelings.  I once had a studio mate in graduate school that had contracted cancer as a teenager.  He said when he got the news he went out into the woods and chopped down a tree as a release for his hurt and anger. 

It’s a wonder the cosmos survived God’s sacrifice! 

Not For All The Soul's On Earth

There is an emotional toll for sacrifice.  Imagine if you had a first born son, which I do, and if he were your beloved, which he is, and that you found great delight in him, which I do, and that he was worthy, which he is.  Now imagine sacrificing him for others and those others rejecting him.  I can unequivocally say that there would be an emotional toll that would have a physical response, I would tear something up, something would bear the brunt of my feelings.  I once had a studio mate in graduate school that had contracted cancer as a teenager.  He said when he got the news he went out into the woods and chopped down a tree as a release for his hurt and anger. 

It’s a wonder the cosmos survived God’s sacrifice! 

A Single Sacred Act

On the back roads of East Tennessee Betty and I have passed this sculpture several times.  I find in it one of the most sincere redemptive acts I have ever witnessed.  Someone Completely Good has put in the human heart the compulsion toward the creative act called art making.  I believe it to be universal and that its urges often occur in the most random places.  I also believe that when we act on those urges we are acting Sacredly and participating with The Devine.  Again I find such sincere redemption in this one act of sculpture making.  I hope this sculpture, this single redemptive act, encourages you as much as it does me.