No One Else

One of the greatest struggles in art education is to convince young people that rendering likeness is not art but only trained technique and nothing kills art faster than technique.  The difficulty arises because many applaud technique thus the student becomes trained by applause not instruction.  

 Christians can easily slip into the same hole, seeking the approval of all at the expense of instruction.  The instructed truth that all must come to grips with is; “This Jesus is the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone.  There is salvation in no one else…”

Blue Poles by Jackson Pollock was the first
time the despair of contemporary culture built on the irrationality of
two world wars and the slaughter of millions was fully, if not
intentionally, captured.  It also marked the end of the reign of realism as the mark
of great art that began in the Renaissance. 

Being Aroma In That Smell America

As I sat here studying I continually catch the faint hint of the Easter Lilly sitting on our table.  Thinking a lot these days of the courage it takes to follow Christ in America.  I would never have believed the tide of common acceptance of Christ as vitreous would turn so quickly to strong opposition.  At the current rate it is not improbable to believe that Christ following will soon be dangerous in America.  Smell is the greatest memory trigger and the aroma of Christ, though sweet, can often trigger hate.  Reminds me of the old Lynyrd Skynyrd song That Smell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDB-yswOrzc

However, regardless of the consequences, “let's not get tired of doing what is good”, allowing the aroma of Christ to overwhelm That Smell, “For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.”

Lynyrd Skynyrd,
my favorite group when
I was young.

Show Up Monday

The day after!  Ever have a significant event in your life and the next day things seemed, back to normal.  What happened to the fulfilling life of yesterday?  Most of life is lived in the days after.  Easter is much like most of life.  We celebrate it with great sincerity and then Monday comes and has to be lived out.  The artist *Chuck Close said, “Inspiration is for amateurs, the rest of us just show up!”  This is good to remember today, the day after.  The great news this Monday is that when Christ followers show up in the world, Christ shows up.  

“So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, "Come back to God!"”

*This statement by Chuck Close is meaningful when you know that he first came to prominence for his super realist abilities but was rendered a virtual quadriplegic by illness and is now making some of his most profound work ever.  Here are works done of the same subject pre and post illness.  

Two Words Mean One Image

Easter Peace!

Rembrandt's, The Return of the Prodigal Son

The Greatest Hole In History

I have always found that one way to move forward in sculpture is “put a hole in it.”  It sounds absurd but for some reason it always works.  A hole invites investigation and humans are born investigators.  Today we mark a great hole in history, yesterday God was alive and tomorrow He will be alive again but today He is gone, hidden in a hole in stone.  One of the greatest holes of all time shrouded in mystery!

Artist Andy Goldsworthy often
works with the hole.

 

Fixing Our Eyesight

Today we remember Christ in the middle of being savagely murdered.  Our record of His serenity during the process must never cloak the truth that it was violent, brutal and prolonged.  Artists, like Christians, are often tempted to allow the brutality of life to be the story.  Christ didn’t nor did Picasso when he painted his famous work Guernica about the small Spanish village bombed by Hitler as practice for his Luftwaffe and retribution of Franco on his enemies.  In the painting Picasso painted a flower in the lower middle to symbolize the hope of peace. 

Even though we must remember what we did to The Son of God, He allows, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Mandate To Me

Our contemporary minds are so troubled with information.  We live in a state of information agitation pawing for the latest news so we can live disturbed.  This is Easter week.  This is Holy Thursday, Maundy Thursday.  Maundy means mandate referring to Jesus’ new command to “love one another.”  It is also the day we traditionally observe The Lord’s Supper.  Today, with sincerity, love each other and take Communion.   

Easter Shark

Easter realizations have come to me at the oddest times; I suddenly realize this was Christ’s last week of life.  He knew it in some Devine way but He was hoping to avoid it.  “The Physical Impossibility of Death In The Mind Of Someone Living” is one of the greatest art title truths created by Damien Hirst.  I imagine that human life was in many ways more meaningful to Christ than He had humanly imagined and the desire to live a strange phenomenon He had to overcome, thus Easter.  Like Hirst said, we all want to live forever,  “He has also set eternity in the human heart”; but the only way is in Christ through Easter.