Art | dual personalities

Yesterday I was back at work full swing and it was one of those days that really tests the soul. Not that anything bad happened or that people were mean or anything like that. It was just non-stop dealing with stuff.

I thought of this quote by C.S. Lewis:

“I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It does not change God. It changes me.”

“Toward Taos” by Eric Sloane

Know what I mean?

3 Comments

December 16, 2015

“Xmas all grown ups sa is the season for the kiddies but this do not prevent them from taking a tot or 2 from the bot and having, it may seme, a better time than us.”*

by chuckofish

Let us pause mid-week and take a deep breath.

“Lady at the tea table” by Mary Cassatt

Yes, it is less than ten days until Christmas, but all will be well.

All will be wonderful.

Maybe not perfect…but perfection, I think, is highly overrated.

(c) Northampton Museums & Art Gallery; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Juriaen van Streeck, Northampton Museums & Art Gallery

Make yourself a cup of tea (or coffee) and take a few minutes to sit by the window and think.

“Woman Sitting by the Window” by Pablo Picasso

Think about those Christmases of long ago.

“Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and it snowed. But here a small boy says: “It snowed last year, too. I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.”**

Feel better now? This is how my brain works.

Have a great Wednesday. Daughter #2 is flying in from the east coast today. Tra la, tra la.

*From How to Be Topp by Geoffrey Willans

**From A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas

3 Comments

November 26, 2015

Giving thanks

by chuckofish

“I have just four words to leave with you. Four words that have spoken volumes of truth into my life.’

He wanted the words to stay in the room, to remain long after he had gone. Though no one wished to hear Paul’s radical injunction, it had to be told.

‘In everything, give thanks.’

This was the lifeboat in any crisis. Over and over again, he had learned this, and over and over again, he had to be reminded.”

–Jan Karon, In This Mountain

Here’s something to read if you’ve forgotten the difference between Pilgrims and Puritans.

And here’s a prayer for the day in case, like me, your plans don’t include church today.

Almighty and gracious Father, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make us, we pray, faithful stewards of your great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

–Thanksgiving Day collect, BCP

[The first painting is by Anna S. Fisher, c. 1922; the second by David Reidel, b. 1956]

6 Comments

November 9, 2015

“Awake, awake, to love and work!”*

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? Mine was quite enjoyably low-key.

On Saturday evening the OM and I went to the members’ preview of the new exhibit “St. Louis Modern” at the SLAM.

Luckily, he found something right away to admire.

As readers of this blog know, my own home is filled with antiques and reproductions. My taste certainly leans toward 18th and 19th century American style. I am, however, a great appreciator of mid-century modern–i.e. the 20th century stuff of my youth. The aforementioned exhibit was full of the contents of some pretty great Bernoudy and Armstrong and Dunn homes and offices and included the design products of Charles Eames, Russel Wright, Eliel Saarinen, et al. It prompted me to look around my own house and find the odds ‘n ends of this period that I love.

I mean who doesn’t love mid-century modern pottery and china?

Church on Sunday was enjoyable–the only blip being when our female assisting priest referred in her sermon to Beethoven’s “Erotica” symphony instead of the “Eroica”. Talk about your Freudian slip! I refrained from correcting her after the service, because I hate people who do that. You know–the ones who look for typos to point out in newsletters etc. Like they’re being helpful. I always say, “I know everyone thinks I’m perfect, but really I’m not!”

Have a good Monday. Learn something new.

*Hymn #9, Geoffrey Anketel Studdert-Kennedy

2 Comments

November 4, 2015

What it is

by chuckofish

“When Van Gogh was a young man in his early twenties, he was in London studying to be a clergyman. He had no thought of being an artist at all. he sat in his cheap little room writing a letter to his younger brother in Holland, whom he loved very much. He looked out his window at a watery twilight, a thin lampost, a star, and he said in his letter something like this: “it is so beautiful I must show you how it looks.” And then on his cheap ruled note paper, he made the most beautiful, tender, little drawing of it.

When I read this letter of Van Gogh’s it comforted me very much and seemed to throw a clear light on the whole road of Art. Before, I thought that to produce a work of painting or literature, you scowled and thought long and ponderously and weighed everything solemnly and learned everything that all artists had ever done aforetime, and what their influences and schools were, and you were extremely careful about “design” and “balance” and getting “interesting planes” into your painting, and avoided, with the most astringent severity, showing the faintest “a” tendency, and were strictly modern. And so on and so on.

But the moment I read Van Gogh’s letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others, by drawing it.

And Van Gogh’s little drawing on the cheap note paper was a work of art because he loved the sky and the frail lamppost against it so seriously that he made the drawing with the most exquisite conscientiousness and care. ”

―Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit

It has been awhile since I shared Brenda Ueland with you. I think she is so great. I agree that Art is about Love and sharing what you love with others.

On another subject, but related–I drove a Subaru for years. It was totally against stereotype, but I loved that car . So I thought it was pretty great when the Subaru people worked “Love” into this ad campaign.

Now they are even using a Gregory Alan Isakov song in an ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkX4aOQ_u2I

I hardly watch any television these days with commercials, but I saw this and was pleased. There are still some smart people out there working for the Man.

6 Comments

November 3, 2015

“Color is vulgar, beauty is unimportant, and nature is trivial.”*

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of American photographer Walker Evans (1903-1975). Evans was born in St. Louis and attended Williams College for a year before dropping out and heading to Paris to be a writer.

He took up photography in 1928 after returning to the U.S. In the summer of 1936 he and writer James Agee were sent by Fortune magazine on assignment to Hale County, Alabama for a story the magazine subsequently opted not to run. (I wonder why?)

In 1941 Evans’s photographs and Agee’s text detailing the duo’s stay with three white tenant families in southern Alabama during the Great Depression were published as the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. I remember reading this book in school–I can’t remember when, but it was quite a book.

Anyway, Walker Evans’ photographs surely prove the old adage: A picture is worth a thousand words.

A toast to Walker Evans tonight! And another toast to another birthday boy, Charles Bronson (1921-2003)–actor and all-around cool dude.

On the set of “The Magnificent Seven” with Steve McQueen, 1960

*Walker Evans…The boy said something very similar as a small child once. I asked him why he never used color in his very detailed pencil drawings. He replied, “Color is evil,” which stopped me in my tracks.

5 Comments

October 22, 2015

“It is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.”*

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of Newell Convers Wyeth (October 22, 1882 – October 19, 1945), the great American illustrator and artist who was the patriarch of the Wyeth dynasty of artists.

Self-portrait, 1940

Let’s enjoy some of his famous (and less famous) illustrations.

There are just so many great ones!

And here’s a place I’m adding to my bucket list: the Brandywine River Museum in Chadd’s Ford, PA. After all, it’s just a hop, skip and a jump from Maryland.

*Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

3 Comments

October 21, 2015

What it is

by chuckofish

“When Van Gogh was a young man in his early twenties, he was in London studying to be a clergyman. He had no thought of being an artist at all. he sat in his cheap little room writing a letter to his younger brother in Holland, whom he loved very much. He looked out his window at a watery twilight, a thin lampost, a star, and he said in his letter something like this: “it is so beautiful I must show you how it looks.” And then on his cheap ruled note paper, he made the most beautiful, tender, little drawing of it.

When I read this letter of Van Gogh’s it comforted me very much and seemed to throw a clear light on the whole road of Art. Before, I thought that to produce a work of painting or literature, you scowled and thought long and ponderously and weighed everything solemnly and learned everything that all artists had ever done aforetime, and what their influences and schools were, and you were extremely careful about “design” and “balance” and getting “interesting planes” into your painting, and avoided, with the most astringent severity, showing the faintest “a” tendency, and were strictly modern. And so on and so on.

But the moment I read Van Gogh’s letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others, by drawing it.

And Van Gogh’s little drawing on the cheap note paper was a work of art because he loved the sky and the frail lamppost against it so seriously that he made the drawing with the most exquisite conscientiousness and care. ”

―Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit

It has been awhile since I shared Brenda Ueland with you. I think she is so great. I agree that Art is about Love and sharing what you love with others.

Now they are even using a Gregory Alan Isakov song in an ad:

I hardly watch any television these days with commercials, but I saw this and was pleased. There are still some smart people out there working for the Man.

September 29, 2015

Like a flash of light*

by chuckofish

Conversion_on_the_Way_to_Damascus-Caravaggio_(c.1600-1)

“And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”

Today is the birthday of the Italian painter Caravaggio (1571–1610). I am not a big fan of his art, but I have always liked his painting of the conversion of Saint Paul. It is realistic and dramatic and the light–wow. Clearly something big is happening to Saul of Tarsus under the hooves of his horse.

Anyway, it gives us an opportunity to think about conversion today. Here is Frederick Buechner on the subject:

There are a number of conversions described in the New Testament. You think of Paul seeing the light on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-19), or the Ethiopian eunuch getting Philip to baptize him on the way from Jerusalem to Gaza (Acts 8:28-40). There is also the apostle Thomas saying, “My Lord and my God!” when he is finally convinced that Jesus is alive and whole again (John 20:26-29), not to mention the Roman centurion who witnessed the crucifixion saying, “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Luke 23:47). All these scenes took place suddenly, dramatically, when they were least expected. They all involved pretty much of an about-face, which is what the word conversion means. We can only imagine that they all were accompanied by a good deal of emotion.

But in this same general connection there are other scenes that we should also remember. There is the young man who, when Jesus told him he should give everything he had to the poor if he really wanted to be perfect as he said he did, walked sorrowfully away because he was a very rich man. There is Nicodemus, who was sufficiently impressed with Jesus to go talk to him under cover of darkness and later to help prepare his body for burial, but who never seems to have actually joined forces with him. There is King Agrippa, who, after hearing Paul’s impassioned defense of his faith, said, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian” (Acts 26:28, KJV). There is even Pontius Pilate, who asked, “What is truth?” (John 18:38) under such circumstances as might lead you to suspect that just possibly, half without knowing it, he really hoped Jesus would be able to give him the answer, maybe even become for him the answer.

Like the conversions, there was a certain amount of drama about these other episodes too and perhaps even a certain amount of emotion, though for the most part unexpressed. But of course in the case of none of them was there any about-face. Presumably all these people kept on facing more or less the same way they had been right along. King Agrippa, for instance, kept on being King Agrippa just as he always had. And yet you can’t help wondering if somewhere inside himself, as somewhere also inside the rest of them, the “almost” continued to live on as at least a sidelong glance down a new road, the faintest itching of the feet for a new direction.

We don’t know much about what happened to any of them after their brief appearance in the pages of Scripture, let alone what happened inside them. We can only pray for them, not to mention also for ourselves, that in the absence of a sudden shattering event, there was a slow underground process that got them to the same place in the end.

–Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words

Discuss among yourselves.

*”Like a flash of light, I realized in what an abyss of errors, in what chaos I was.” (John Calvin)

4 Comments

August 7, 2015

“Into the lap of adamant, And spices, and the dew”*

by chuckofish

American artist John Henry Twachtman died on this day in 1902. He was born on August 4, 1853 in Cincinnati, Ohio where he grew up. He studied painting in Europe before finally returning to America in 1886.

He settled in Connecticut where he was part of the Cos Cob art colony, a group of artists, many of them American Impressionists, who gathered during the summer months in and around Cos Cob, a section of Greenwich, Connecticut, from about 1890 to about 1920.

Today his works are in many museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Gallery, Washington D.C.; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Very nice.

Do you have plans for the weekend? I plan to look at some art.

The Rainbow’s Source (Saint Louis Art Museum)

Have a great weekend!

*Emily Dickinson: XXVIII

2 Comments

dual personalities

Category: Art

January 5, 2016

I pray

by chuckofish

December 16, 2015

“Xmas all grown ups sa is the season for the kiddies but this do not prevent them from taking a tot or 2 from the bot and having, it may seme, a better time than us.”*

by chuckofish

November 26, 2015

Giving thanks

by chuckofish

November 9, 2015

“Awake, awake, to love and work!”*

by chuckofish

November 4, 2015

What it is

by chuckofish

November 3, 2015

“Color is vulgar, beauty is unimportant, and nature is trivial.”*

by chuckofish

October 22, 2015

“It is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.”*

by chuckofish

October 21, 2015

What it is

by chuckofish

September 29, 2015

Like a flash of light*

by chuckofish

August 7, 2015

“Into the lap of adamant, And spices, and the dew”*

by chuckofish