Cool digital painting of Luther for Reformation Day

HT: Matt Harrison

Easter Joy to You!

Thought this drawing of mine from Matt Harrison's "A Little Book on Joy" was appropriate for this weekend's celebrations.

This is why I changed my major from Graphic Design to Fine Art...too many constraints!

Joyfully illustrating "A Little Book on Joy"

Today our Gospel reading was the story of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15. Seldom am I able to talk about this parable without getting all weepy. Happened today in early service. One church member suggested that for second service, maybe I ought to think about the drawing I did (shown above) for the cover of "A Little Book on Joy." It worked. It didn't stop me from getting emotional, but I was at least able to control myself.

When Matt Harrison first inquired whether I would be interested in illustrating a book he was wrapping up, internally I balked. My art chops, from my perspective, just ain't what they used to be. The confidence I once had (or at least feigned) during my undergrad years (as an art major, Cal State Fullerton '87) was nowhere to be found. But after sending some sketches for him to look at, Pastor Harrison said that my work was just what he was looking for ... something along the lines of Quentin Blake's illustrations for Roald Dahl's books. I did a little research on Quentin Blake on the internet, and started sketching some ideas based on the manuscript that Matt sent to me. I scanned them, sent them via email to the author, and his positive responses were just the encouragement I needed to dive headfirst into the project.

So here we are, a couple of months past publication, and I am so happy with the way things turned out. I tried to draw with my own style that has evolved over the years. I didn't want to copy Blake. Although, one church member said that my drawings remind him of Sergio Aragones' cartoons in Mad magazine. In hindsight, I think he's right. That's what I get for reading Mad during my 7th and 8th grade years.

I've said it before in previous posts, and I'll say it again, it was a great honor to be involved with this book. My doodles are just the pinch of seasoning on the filet mignon of the text by Pastor Harrison. The book is overwhelmingly Gospel-centered (did we expect anything else from him?). "A Little Book on Joy" does not give you "five easy steps to be more joyful" nor is it a law-laden harangue to "be more joyful, since you are a Christian, after all!" Instead, it leads you to true joy through the proper channel, and that is through the cross of Christ.

To order "A Little Book on Joy" click here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sing to the Lord of harvest,

Sing songs of love and praise;

With joyful hearts and voices

Your alleluias raise.

By him the rolling seasons

In fruitful order move;

Sing to the Lord of harvest

A joyous song of love.

God makes the clouds rain goodness,

The deserts bloom and spring,

The hills leap up in gladness,

The valleys laugh and sing.

God fills them with his fullness,

All thing with large increase;

He crowns the year with blessing,

With plenty and with peace.

Bring to this sacred altar

The gifts his goodness gave,

The golden sheaves of harvest,

The souls Christ died to save.

Your hearts lay down before him

When at his feet you fall,

And with your lives adore him

Who gave his life for all.

Lutheran Service Book #893

Image: The Harvest (1888), by Vincent van Gogh

He Qi exhibit at St. Louis seminary

I ran across this fellow's work by chance a few years ago on the internet. I've always found it to be quite extraordinary. Sure wish I could see it in person. I'm jealous of the folks in St. Louis. Click here to read the story about the exhibit.

His online gallery can be viewed at heqigallery.com.

Paper Cut Art

Found this artist's work just by surfing around the other day. Reminded me of some projects I did during my undergrad days, majoring in art and art education at Cal State Fullerton ... back in 19-mumble mumble mumble. ;-) I haven't done a lot of papercutting, but have always found the delicacy of the medium and the necessity of careful planning an interesting challenge.

http://www.petercallesen.com/index/A4PAPERCUT_000.htm

Out of Context

Yesterday I took the Sounder commuter train to Seattle and spent the day there. This day to myself was a gift from my wife for Father's Day (yes, she got one for Mother's Day), and so I finally had the chance to take it. The first half of the day was spent at the Seattle Art Museum. Admission is free the first Thursday of each month, so that was a bonus.

Usually when I go to an art museum, I spend my time in the galleries with paintings, in particular work from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. But this day, I was drawn to the scultptures from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Perhaps it was because I just finished those sections in Paul Johnson's book Art: A New History.

I closely inspected a basalt head of what was thought to be Thutmose III. His successor Amenhotep II may very well have been the pharaoh at the time of the Exodus, depending on which scholar you talk to. It was as if I was travelling back in time, imagining the original artist's hands and tools at work, chipping off pieces of stone, scratching a line here, polishing a rough spot there. At the same time, I imagined the plight of the Israelites in the same land and the same time where that piece was created.

I examined all of the fragments in the gallery ... the heads of pharaohs and caesars, portions of funeral steles, the section of a floor mosaic, the miniature votive figures and amulets. I was amazed at the skill and aesthetic sensitivities of the ancient artists.

Each of these fragments were works of art by themselves. In the gallery setting, it was as if this was the way the artist intended them to be viewed, mounted on walls and pedestals, with labels nearby giving you the title and date of the piece. But this was not the way they were originally intended to be viewed. They were all out of context. The majority of them originally served some religious purpose. The funeral steles had carved images of food that was to accompany the dead individual into the afterlife. The images of pharaohs and caesars immortalized and deified the men portrayed. Offerings and prayers were presented before votive figurines of pagan gods. They were indeed each beautiful works of art, but ripped out of their context, they ceased to serve the purposes for which they were intended.

In a similar way, portions of the Bible are often treated that way. Yes, it's all God's Word. Yes, every word and syllable and jot and tittle is inspired by the Holy Spirit. Yes, it's important to study the original languages to find out the exact meaning of the text ... and we might even marvel at, if I may say so, the "artistry" of the author. You can appreciate the poetry of the Psalms or the rhetoric of the Apostle Paul. But when verses are ripped out of context, the danger is that they will be used for purposes other than the way they were intended. It's so important to deal with the context of a verse, both near and far...the verses immediately surrounding the verse and the book in which they are found. Moreover, it's important that we never lose sight of what Jesus himself said of the Scriptures: "It is they that bear witness about me." (John 5:39) The Bible in its entirety is meant to point us to Christ. If it is used for any other purpose - as a book of rules, as a manual for how to improve your life, or like a fortune cookie where you can just open up and find out what God wants you to do in any given situation - then it's being used wrongly.

Yep ... I got all that out of a visit to the art museum.

Word Cloud for Sunday's Sermon

Notes from my "Amen" conference presentation

Here are the websites mentioned in my presentation "Art ... for God's Sake" at the "Amen" Higher Things Conference in Scranton, PA.

Tom Dubois
http://www.triuneart.org/html/welcome.html

David J. Hetland
hetland.com

Kelly Klages
http://www.kellyklages.com/

Confessional Lutheran Ecclesiastical Art Resources
www.kellyklages.com/discussion/

Sarah Hempel Irani
http://www.hempelstudios.com/

Grace Lutheran Church, Albuquerque, New Mexico
http://www.gracelutheran-nm.org/

Center for Liturgical Art, Concordia, Nebraska
http://www.cune.edu/finearts/liturgicalart/

And below are the books that are referenced.

• Art and the Bible, Francis Schaeffer (IVP, 1973)
• Christianity and Contemporary Art Forms, John Newport (Word, 1971)
• Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, H.R. Rookmaaker (IVP, 1970)
• Postmodern Times, Gene Veith (Crossway, 1994)
• State of the Arts: From Bezalel to Mapplethorpe, Gene Veith (Crossway, 1991)
• Culture in Christian Perspective, Leland Ryken (Multnomah, 1986)
• Art for God’s Sake: A Call to Recover the Arts, Philip Graham Ryken (P & R, 2006)
• A Handbook of Symbols in Christian Art, Gertrude Sill (Collier, 1975)
• The Grove Book of Art Writing, eds. Martin Graham and Karen Wright (Grove Press, 1998)
• Dear Theo, ed. Irving Stone (Signet)
• Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Betty Edwards (Souvenir, 1981)