 |
| It was windy too. Hooray for binder clips! |
 |
| South Natick Dam with ducks and snow charcoal, watercolor Jan 27, 2015 |
 |
| charcoal, watercolor Jan. 27, 2015 |
 |
| I skied to the dam this morning and did a couple of snowy views of the river. |
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
A Snowy Day
Sunday, January 25, 2015
1 - 2 - 3
 |
| Sacred Heart Church charcoal 25 January 2015 |
 |
| Pleasant Street Bridge ink, charcoal, lithographic tusche 25 January 2015 |
 |
| Pleasant Street Bridge charcoal, ink 25 January 2015 |
Sometimes I get tired of drawing and I wonder when things will dry up and I have to figure out what to draw next. I need to be interested in what I'm doing. Sometimes my attention or pleasure wanes but so far, nothing to actually stop the motif from calling to me.
But those gaps, those "writer's blocks" are perversely essential and need to be endured. Then I burrow in deeper or approach things from a different angle or hold the pencil in my toes left-handed, whatever. Just keep the dialogue going whatever the cost.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Freezing Time
I'd taken a walk into town for coffee and to work on a couple of books. The path goes through forest and around a frozen lake. It was beautiful (and very cold!). But my mind kept tripping over photographs I'd seen earlier of a man being pushed off a minaret to his death.
The man doing the hurling/pushing, the executioner, wore a mask over his face. Why a mask? Why masks on the Kouachi brothers? God sees past the mask right? Are the killers afraid of men? Is it to spare the populace so they won't see the truth that one of their own has just murdered one of their own? Maybe a mask makes the soldier braver. My head spins and twists at the insanity of killing like this.
I almost went down to the river this afternoon just to get away from my imagination for a little while. I just wanted the white noise and the needs of the drawing in front of me. And my freezing fingers and the urgency and clarity of the moment. The moment that drowns out the crazy world and replaces it with the simple fact of my consciousness struggling peacefully with itself and Creation. AND NOT HURTING ANYONE!
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Seeing God
 |
| "La Quinta" charcoal 10 January 2015 |
So here you see a banal image of a banal scene: a hotel lobby at 6:00 in the morning. I try to approach this with the same open mind and care that I have when I draw the river back in South Natick. Because I am a seeing and scribing instrument, the subject doesn't really matter. What matters is the time spent and the attitude during those moments of attention. Some call it prayer. Some call it listening. I call it Art.
Art shows us a facet of the place where our minds meet whatever is outside of the mind. God is in that place and therefore God is in this lamp and in this banality. Since God is there, the moment is sacred and Life is sacred and Life is an Art of recognizing sacredness (unlike the murderers in Paris). The questioning mind is a seeking, scribing instrument used by Creation to find language to create and praise itself. In this way, "blasphemy" could be seen as an form of Love and engagement. It could suggest an ultimate and intimate cry to God to descend from a human-created throne to dwell among a marvelous, many-faceted and intelligent Creation.
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Different & The Same
SOME VARIABLES
depth: foreground, background and the space in-between
horizontal elements: the dam, the bridge
mark-making: ink, charcoal lines & smudges, tangles, black blobs. colored pencil
Don't think, just draw what's in front. Now.
 |
| 12-26-14 |
 |
| 1-2-15 |
 |
| 12-28-14 |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
I saw a few mountains when I was out in Jackson, Wyoming a few weeks ago. I could draw there for weeks on end. The scenery is spectacular a... -
I can't say I've ever seen three Red Tail Hawks perching together. Usually they are solo. Occasionally a pair perch or soar around ...