The Being behind the aura

Making art keeps the artist in spiritual desperation.  No true artist has ever stood in their studio and believed “I” am up to the task.  All cultures have designated art to the divine realm and rightly so; making art is not like making a Ferrari or even an artificial heart, making art is akin to making—A Heart—and no human can do that.  All artists know the reality of this and will claim a transcendent spiritual aura to their studio practice.  However, it is my firm belief that the most sincere artist, those that are the truest to themselves and their work, secretly or publically acknowledge a being behind the aura, that Being is God, I AM.  Once that threshold of faith has been crossed you are forever transformed and above all else seek His blessings on you and your work.

NOTE: Altar building has become for my family and me the only way to truly and sincerely acknowledge God’s transforming power, Divinely entering, intersecting, and intervening in our lives.    

Visiting Sissy's Healing Altar

     

The Ongoing Learning of Teaching

One of the greatest gifts an art teacher can give themselves is to determine if there's anything worthy of making art about?  The art student is invariably stuck in the celebration of their skill or their story.  These are the two most powerful concepts they have but also the most shallow.  The art teacher’s job is to gently open to them the puzzling ecstasy of God, humans and the cosmos, in that order.  No concept can better carry that responsibility for the teacher and the beginning art student like the elements and principles of design.  

   

Dream Greater Art

There is perhaps no greater gift in life than the do-over.  Every moment that is followed by a moment is one.  Every next day, next week and next year is a chance to change, to do it over, to get it righter, to be better.  Begin today to contemplate the New Year and how you and it can be better than 2018.  This principle is one of the most foundational in the desire to make art. 

“Some men see things as they are and say why.  I dream things that never were and say why not.”

Ted Kennedy’s eulogy for his brother Bobby Kennedy  

God does.  The Butterfly Nebula, the last image of the  Hubble Space Telescope
Advent series by Alan Taylor

      

Please God Let Me Live Again

Day twenty-five—the wait ends.  Good Christmas morning.  As we awake this morning Christ welcomes us, He never slumbers or sleeps.  He welcomes each of us into His Kingdom work and equips us for every good Kingdom deed.  Reminds me of the scene in It’s A Wonderful Life when George Bailey is given his life back and he runs down the street finding joy in everything and everyone he sees.  That is the result of the Advent wait, Christ gives meaning to everyone and every moment of our lives and overwhelms us with gratitude and thanksgiving for A God Who Loves us, takes care of us and will one day come again and get us.  In the meantime, it is His will that we be His ambassadors, representing Him to our world.  Good Christmas morning, now let us all go together imitating Christ because blessed is the servant whose master returns and finds him doing his job—like George Bailey.        

Thank You Sarah Advent

Advent day waiting twenty-four.  We sat together, all of us here to listen to the advent reading, the day was ending, the Sabbath rest of the Sunday before Christmas coming to a close.  The devotional was read, the scripture also and it was time to kneel and pray when our youngest exclaimed, “we forget to light the new candle.”  We had!  One of the greatest rewards of our faith is raising children that want it enough to make it their own.  Not that we pass it own to them but that they see it in us and desire to have the same faith themselves.  Family faith is Biblical faith, not that we share our faith but that we each determine to work at our own faith together.  And the result is what happened last night, each of our faiths encourages the growth and remembrances of our communal faith.  We lit the candle, kneeled and prayed and the sang the ancient Christmas hymns, each of us basking in the glow of the new firelight of our Christ Child, remembered Savior of each of us; individually. 

Trail Tender's Sunday

Advent day waiting twenty-three.  The last Sunday before Christmas, the last gathering of the faithful before The Day, one more opportunity to get our hearts and lives aligned with the mission of God in Christ that begins with His birth.  While we wait we should,

“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God…

“Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness,

make a straight highway for our God in the desert.

Every valley shall be lifted up,

and every mountain and hill made low;

the uneven ground will become smooth,

and the rugged land a plain.

And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,

and all mankind together will see it.

For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Living lives of trail tenders, preparing easier ways for The Baby God Child Arisen Savior to come to others.