Lead in the Sculptor's Hand

Knowing God and being an artist is often like seeing a morning forest and having only a bit of lead to work with.   

Cades Cove with Betty, Cora and Oliver.

Barefoot at the Window

I have quietly returned to my window in our college dorm and to its opening to the morning world, a slight peek into the wonder of the earth.  The earth never seems to release me from seeking solace in his beauty, a game of hide and seek for love of the game.  Beauty is the playmate.  Such a friend, always patiently waiting barefoot on the porch stoop to see if I will come out and play.  He’s a plump friend, overfilled, always willing to play at my aging pace, his abundance never allows hurry; he’s best suited for meandering.  At the window this morning, I again read his invitation;

Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God:

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes;

The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries,

And daub their natural faces unaware

More and more, from the first similitude.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 

Aurora Leigh      

Truly a Dear Girl!

We left our beloved Fair Haven yesterday.  Scrubbed her top to bottom, buttoned up the hatches, tucked away all the loose ends, packed up two months of life sustenance, locked the gates and drove to Jackson.  I always feel as if I am leaving a loved one to fend for herself, no warm fires, no opening of doors, no making the bed or cooking good food, just a long silence as the sun moves the shadows across her floor and the night leaves her dark and hushed.  There is no merry making, no joy of the quiet or praise for the wildness, the acknowledging of every abounding beauty but now only a silent yearning for her two lovers to return.  Foolish fantasy you might think!  But what we have been loaned is a window into the wild earth as it lives, breathes and abounds, a friend that sits quietly as we marvel at God’s goodness in the fallen rawness of Eden past but here a prologue to Eden Coming—truly a dear girl; our loaned Fair Haven.   

  

Life’s Greatest Adventure is a Search

For months Betty and I have been extremely busy.  Tuesday Betty had gotten us off the road and tucked into a tiny cabin away off in the Appalachians.  Yesterday we went hiking and the winter trail, following a mountain stream, left us alone in the woods.  In time we stopped and setting on a small boulder beside the stream we had a small picnic, an orange, a few bites of beef, and good cheese.  There was no sign of humanity.  The earth seemed perfectly in order, the forest winter-bare, boulders, stones, and pebbles all rounded smooth and grey creating borders for the cold stream which rushed white here, lay cold dark there, and curled away in both directions snuggling itself into the Great Smoky Mountains.  Perfection is a great treasure and rarely sought out.  It requires work; but when it is offered great effort should be expended to behold it.  “And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”  All of life, every moment, can be the greatest adventure if you know what or better still, Who you are searching for.   

 

91 Million Miles For A Picnic Gift

Betty and I sat in the cold woods yesterday, out on the point facing westward.  A big blow several weeks ago had taken down several of the trees in our forest and three of them had fallen across our sculpture trail.  We had cleared the trail and had stopped for lunch, oranges, crackers, and cold water.  Betty told me as she had walked through the woods she was silently praising God for our beautiful place and began to hold her gloved hands out in humble worship.  “When I did the sun heated up the dark blue of the palms of my gloves and warmed my hands!” she exclaimed.  We sat silently in the cold woods, the three of us, facing westward in joy.    

trees down

our picnic spot

The New NONES

A lot has been written about the “New None’s”, those individuals who check “None” when the government askes for “religious preference”.  No human is a None.  That is profanity.  This is perhaps the most thoughtless mistake the government has ever made.  None is zero.  None means nothingness.  None means without anything.  It is a word invented by soulless bureaucracies that underscore its soul-less nature.  A better word would be “Wonderer”.  Every human being wonders about Religion, or the mystery of life and death, love and evil, souls and the other side.  It is why we build cathedrals, go to Mars, sing Free Bird and invent Google.  None is above all unkind!  And wonder—above all else—is—;       

KIND. 

A picture from Hubble, another religious
invention by humans Wonders!

Afib for life

The act of living is life-giving.  I am currently looking at rain clouds, black and ripe atop and thinly orange below, race over the top of the Appalachians—but in order to live—I have to look—to see.  But what am I hoping to see?  God Almighty!  In seeing Him, in the longing to see Him is the current by which I am brought to life to live as Him today.  

 

The Great Assent

My family is currently journeying along with our mom as she ascends toward her passage to heaven.  It is a difficult uphill trail rank “strenuous” in the life trail guide!  She has lost most of her memory, mobility, and functions but those impediments are to be expected.  However, we are now in a very difficult stretch of trial as she is becoming increasingly frightened at night.  This too, we have learned, is somewhat common in those who are struggling with memory loss but it is a heinous twist in the trail nonetheless.  When I was younger and often imprisoned by the emotional and physical hades brought on by my own waywardness my mom would always advise me to read the Psalms.  This morning I began to read them and underline the phrases that seemed to most speak toward fear as covenant prayers with God on her behalf.  In her day she was a great trailblazer of faith, her and dad always making the path through the most difficult forests and summits of life navigable for me and my siblings.  I found it a great honor this morning to begin a little trail maintenance on the routes she blazed so many years ago. Oh God Almighty please allow Your courage and strength to be hers in this last great assent of her earthly life.  Amen. 

        

When Our Life Depended On Making Art

I just happened upon a letter I had written to Betty in December 1984.  I was in my second year of undergrad art school and was making my first dinnerware set for her.  The letter was explaining the detailed process of the creation and was to be tucked in with the set as her Christmas gift that year.  This Christmas was already special.  Aaron was a year old and Betty was six months pregnant with who we would soon know was Mary Elizabeth.  In the middle of the letter, I expressed my understanding that I was fully aware of the precarious nature of my decision to be an artist knowing I was responsible for getting all of us “on our feet.”  Being an artist for me was not only a sincere decision to a calling, laying aside the idea of money and career, but also a casting of my family into a vast unknown; how was I ever to create a warm, safe, abundant and sustained environment for my family by making art?  However in describing the process of making I was affirming to Betty my commitment to the decision.  I was going to study night and day availing myself of all the knowledge of art-making that the university could offer me in the understanding that my commitment to my education was the sure door to our family's future as well as to being a successful sculptor.  Those nine years of study and three degrees have never failed me or my family and have remained my bar for student success and commitment in the two University 3-D programs I have created.   Although none of this would have been possible without God’s sustaining, a university education remains one of my four greatest life experiences.    

P.S.  To you potters out there: I was describing to Betty the process of making a 12-place dinnerware set, even down to creating a new cone 5 salt glaze (years before cone 6 was even heard of much less an industrial created option) that would work, fit and even doing tests to ensure a steak knife would not scratch the glaze and firing a salt kiln.         

Working on my latest sculpture and my 
last show at Union.

 

On Making and Teaching Art

What encourages you to work hard?  What motivates you toward passion for making art?  What animates your physical body to produce work?  What inspires your creativity?  These are questions I often ask my students.  Many times they work to receive a grade that will eventually show up as a miniature letter on a transcript that no one will ever see.  Sometimes they are animate out of fear of failure.  Often they produce out of obligation instead of passion, making work as if jumping through circus hoops.  As a professor, I accept all of these reasons for making work as long as the assigned product gets produced.  At the beginning of one's studies in the visual arts, the reasons for making work are irrelevant because the very act of making is educational enough.  Technical skills are best mastered by the repetition of making.  But none of the above-mentioned motivating factors produce one critical component of art-making and that is “creativity.”  Working, even lots of working does not guarantee creativity.  Creativity is elusive and in no way assured by effort or formula.  It can come slowly over long periods of time or like a lightning bolt, instantly brilliant and immediately gone.  Some artists have it in abundance and some struggle for it throughout their careers. Some have it and lose it, some have it and squander it, some have it and never know it and some never seem to get it at all.  It’s maddingly spiritual like the wind, no one knowing where it comes from, what direction it will take, or where it goes.  It’s the grand prize of art.  There’s one way I’ve found to make it more readily available and an unknown poet in Psalms found it also.  Listen.  “God’s works are so great, worth a lifetime of study—endless enjoyment.”  Psalms 111:2.  Observing and meditating on the works of God, his created world always seems to inspire creativity.  The next time you are struggling, close up your studio and take a hike.  You never know what works of God you will see that will move you to passionate creativity and wholehearted Praise.  “Splendor and beauty mark his craft; His generosity never gives out.”  111:3.  And that’s the good news.  

Thoughts on Psalms 109-114.

Making outdoors is also helpful.

A Good Gift Should Be Played With

There is a bitter cold on; 25°.  It is truly a magnificent gift to feel, to be able to experience the vast differences between piercing cold and deep warmth.  I have walked outside twice this morning just to knowingly feel the cold and then to return and be engulfed in the warmth of the fire in my stove.  My entire body is covered in feelers but I am only conscious of it if I play with the gift.  Who created this gift and why is He so kind to give me one?  God is so very good and we acknowledge His goodness by playing with His gifts.   

One of the images on Hubble's Advent of taken of the side of a spiral galaxy.

  

 

The Who Behind No Snow

I have followed the Holy Star snow icon for days.  It has moved me to wonderful thoughts of warmth and beauty; dreams of exquisite being with my lover in front of warm fires massed against winter's white.  In sincere anticipation, I woke twice in the night to see my dreams coming true.  No snow.  But my hopes were not placed aside as I fell back to sleep.  This morning found no snow.  I made a cup of coffee, banked the coals in my stove, and added a stick or two of wood.  Opened the Most Holy Ancient Text and was once again profoundly moved by the act of hope; “the substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen.”  

“Have you visited the storehouses of the snow…?”  God

Oh, the joy of hope that sets our imaginations flying away on wings of golden fire.

No Snow, Plenty of Hope

 

The Eternal Circle Includes A New Year, Ancient Technology

To have a happy new year is to know that living is the only way of knowing you have a year and certainly the only way of insuring it is happy.  I sat in the deep mountains yesterday mending an Altar, a circle made for the sure hope that our smallest grandchild, Sesame, will one day physically join in our greater family circle.  I did this with my family as we each participated in the mending making.  We were encircled witnessed by the most ancient of trees, a mountain stream, old moss growing on sincere earth.  As we sat upon boulders and rested we spoke of the meaning of making in the midst of exquisite making, of the meaning of being in the earth, it, us, as in the beginning Eden—as being a true way to meaning.  The location invited us to make which in turn encouraged meaningful thoughts and sincere conversation. 

Later as we rang in the new year watching fireworks over the mountains, I realized afresh the gift of time to allow for meaningful living.  Time, a new year, is a precursor to unending time, where days and years will be ancient technology, and we will muse at our infant fascination with them…and I am sure we will do it in eternal mountains with old moss, great trees and families with Sesame, gathered in new circles.  Happy New Year.