Category Archives: hope

synergy

There is so very often in my own practice what feels like a long incubation period before the bursting out into the open. It always takes longer than I expected to see the fruition. And then I hear this in my head “anything worth doing needs time and thought, planning and prep.” We all kind of get that. But here’s my problem: I’m impatient. I have ‘visions of sugar-plums’ or dreams of resolutions planted deeply. I don’t even know how they got there, but they’re there. Actually, I do know how they got there: lots of Bible reading and then lots of active prayer based on the clear promises I see. I get excited when I sense the glimpses. But then comes another corner to go around, another hindrance, and another disappointment. And these are incubators which take time and thought…I think maybe I just summarized my own internal life. You might see this in my work: for both the good and the bad of it all.

I bring this up for two reasons. The painting here happened quickly last month. It was kind of a surprise as I was working up several panels one day. I stood back and thought “hmmm, I may have just seen this pop to a finish. How did that happen?” The long incubators probably had something to do with it.

I was in Israel this month: a surprise trip, which also happened quickly. It was amazing in so many ways: friendships, learning, sensing the blooming going on there, some puzzles I’ve had suddenly clicking together… it was synergistic. I brought my watercolors, paper pads and brushes. They just took up space in my bag as I had not one minute to sit and use them. But oh my cameras were busy. I caught door frames and the wares of spice sellers. I caught the patterns on ancient marbles, and the blooms on a fig tree. My eyes reveled at the mustard yellows on the close hills and the sweet purply dimness on the far mountains –the planted rows of almond trees and date palms, and then had lunch overlooking the very hills where Abraham grazed his flocks. These things are all incubators. The fruition follows.

sign of the Fig Tree

It’s the time of year when buds are emerging. It’s also the time of centuries, long awaited, of Israel’s coming to fruition. The re-born nation is celebrating 70 years back in her land. “Can a nation be built in a day?” exclaimed the royal prophet Isaiah at the very end of his grand vision. I am convinced we are living in the time of Israel’s glorious denouement. The evidence is obviously visible: the land is blooming. Many trees, besides the broad-leafed fig, show the fruit of Israel’s 70 year cultivation of the land on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean. They are back where they started. This monotype is a reflection of that further becoming.

Like mirrors which echo imagery down a long corridor, has the fig tree been a watchword in every age for those who have read the Jewish prophet Jesus. Many have longed to see what we are seeing now with our own eyes. Many prophets promised it, and many more eager for the fruit yet to appear.

Before the Roman devastation of the 2^ndtemple in Jerusalem, Jesus, from the tribe of Judah, used a fig tree as a metaphor for his nation. It was not the time for harvest. And so the “sign of the fig tree” became a sad precursor to the Roman ruin of the Jewish homeland just decades after Jesus. The tree’s unfruitfulness at that time was a prophetic illustration of what was about to come down.

Now that nation is reborn, and fig trees are blooming again. There is reason for anticipation.

The fig is the third tree mentioned in Genesis, after the tree of life, then the forbidden tree (knowledge of good and evil) that was nonetheless sampled by Eve then Adam. The Fig was the fall-back, not for eating at that point, but for the more desperate need for cover-up. Its broad leaves were grasped and stitched together for now there was an instinctive knowing of inadequacy, a need for costume-ing. It was the first masquerade.

But for the gracious kindness of a seeking God, that is not where the whole story ended, though it could have. And that is precisely why this sign interests me. It wasn’t the poor tree’s fault to be a sign of leafy futility. The fig tree that Jesus spoke of remains a metaphor of what was and what is yet coming: Isael’s long term future toward fruitfulness. He finishes everything He began.

Fig trees are blooming again in the land. And the God of Abraham is still walking around. He’s still asking any who want to care the very first question he posed to mankind in another garden: “where are you?”

hidden and plain view

Like me, you’re probably metering out what you’ll make visible, and what you happily keep to yourself. Social media has us all learning and adjusting in this balancing act of exposure vs. privacy. And visible international reach offers so much more exposure too, for good and for ill. I can see the stats on who views this page and it is worldwide. So, here I’ll just say “hello!” to those of you who read this out there in the great beyond.

I highlight today a piece I made several years ago. It’s sister is in a big current show in our University museum. But this is the quieter of that duo and I want her to get some time in the electronic sun as well. For you see, this piece is visualizing something hidden yet promised.

I am digging through the book of Revelation, that last book of the Bible where the recorder is told to write down “the things you’ve seen, the things which are and the things which shall take place”. This book has me and I’m paying particular attention of late to Jesus’ words to the historical church. He has warnings, direct rebuke in specific cases, and words of penetrating comfort in others. Jesus knows the score. He is the coach. And He is about to end the game in time, “I am coming quickly.”

After the rebuke words, there is instruction and promise given to the “overcomers” who hold fast in their particular struggles. Jesus, with eyes of flame, promises in one case to give certain overcomers “some of the hidden manna”. What in the world is manna? Exactly. Manna literally means in its original Hebrew “what is it!?” Manna was a historical miracle of provision for the tribes of Jacob in the wilderness of Exodus. The stuff came down from heaven, landed like dew, and fed them continuously for 40 years. Now, in that case it was a public feeding, everyone went out and gathered it.

In Revelation the manna being promised is hidden, and it is given individually. For Jesus addresses a singular “He who has ears to hear…to him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna”.

This much is clear from both instances of manna’s provision: The stuff is mysterious and it is given to sustain. It comes from God to us. In this later case of Revelation it is a private provision and very precious. The receiver would likely keep it that way.

But I am making this known, by displaying this beckoning visual. Did you know there is such a thing as manna available from God? Here’s the upshot about it from the text in Revelation: such a thing as manna is promised to certain ones. Jesus is the one who promises it. Such a thing is real and on the table; it will be fulfilled by Jesus. And whoever is fed by this will be sustained in the times to come. This is a picture of private assurance.

on art making in a disintegrating time

“Hope is the thing with feathers — that perches in the soul” Emily Dickinson, who penned this sweet line, knew a thing or three about meaningful hope. Hers was a buoyant expression, all the more poignant because she was equally aware of the hardness of her time/place and of her own internal struggle. Her poetry is rich for this reason: real, but outward even as she felt the confines of her tiny upper room.

Any glib optimism about our current cultural future is berated and mocked by reports we hear, and evidence we see daily, hourly. One could go numb, choosing to be unfeeling. One could get frantic with fear (outrage is already exhausted). Or, one could get busy/stay alert doing what speaks to the bigger issues as Emily, and Flannery O’Connor, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, Georges Rouault, and any number of others did in their own disintegrating times. Real honest, counter-cultural artistry comes out of hard ground. Each of theirs was hard, and their work still speaks now.

Real artistry takes the stuff available, even broken stuff, and does something whole with it because there is such a thing as creation and cultivation and hope. We were made for this — under the watch-care of the One who started all this creativity and then got into the dirt with us. (that’s key: He got into the dirt with us). There is real, counter-cultural, reason for hope then.

Taylor Worley, a prof of faith and culture at Trinity Intl. Univ. says “hope does not operate in the abstract. It must reckon with the real material of the disaster. It must start somewhere.” And adds this “We’re reminded once again that hope is dangerous, and yet for that reason immensely prophetic.” The art critic James Romaine remarks “I see art as very similar to prayer. It’s as futile or as powerful as prayer. It all depends on your faith.”

If my faith is in men, or in some idea of political progress or in what I can do with my own hands, I am honestly sunk. But if my faith is cast instead to the One who forms, gives breath, renews real hope and is still at work in this time, in this culture, then I get really energized in spite of what is all around me. What energizes you?

This little 8×10 oil piece is named Tanager, for the flush of color moving from a scavenging but still beautiful bird. It will be for sale at a Holiday event in my town next week.

a prayer from Moses

Psalm 90

Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
²Before the mountains were born
Or You gave birth to the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.

³You turn man back into dust
And say, “Return, O children of men.”
⁴For a thousand years in Your sight
Are like yesterday when it passes by,
Or as a watch in the night.
⁵You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep;
In the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew.
⁶In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew;
Toward evening it fades and withers away.

⁷For we have been consumed by Your anger
And by Your wrath we have been dismayed.
⁸You have placed our iniquities before You,
Our secret sins in the light of Your presence.
⁹For all our days have declined in Your fury;
We have finished our years like a sigh.
¹⁰As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years,
Or if due to strength, eighty years,
Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow;
For soon it is gone and we fly away.
¹¹Who understands the power of Your anger
And Your fury, according to the fear that is due You?
¹²So teach us to number our days,
That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.

¹³Do return, O Lord; how long will it be?
And be sorry for Your servants.
¹⁴O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness,
That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
¹⁵Make us glad according to the days You have afflicted us,
And the years we have seen evil.
¹⁶Let Your work appear to Your servants
And Your majesty to their children.
¹⁷Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;
And confirm for us the work of our hands;
Yes, confirm the work of our hands.

public art

If you are local, this Friday night the Johnson City Public Art committee (JCPA) is holding a “pop up gallery” at ETSU’s Tipton Gallery space downtown on Spring Street.

This is a first time event and already there are over 100 pieces of 5×5 inch originals from regional artists. Drawings, sculptures, photography, oil paint: the pieces are varied in media and expertise, each framed and ready to be shown.

Excitement is building but best to arrive right at the opening (5:55 PM) for what you’ll view there will only be on sale that night, and each piece is only $25! These small beauties were created for this event alone as a donation to both the Public Art Committee and also the Boys and Girl’s club of JC. We’re accomplishing exposure for the artists, excitement in the community, and funds to do more. So, come on down, the red “sold” stickers will be flying!

Speaking of Public Art, here is a blog post I recently submitted for our community organization, which offers more on why Public Art exists in our town and in other creative municipalities. The arts make visible what has been seeded in the soil.

one year out

Today is the 1^st year anniversary of my book: published and seeing the light of day. Pictured here is an analytic that Amazon regularly updates. My little book has a heart beat: alive and doing well. In one search category last week I was #10 among 8 million books! Amazon provides another graphic which shows me where sales are happening. The areas where I’ve lived and know people are best represented, but the surprising thing is that places like New Haven, Minot and Reno (where I know no one) are showing up with sales too. Was the 7 year journey to see this happen worth it? Maybe so.

But books have a short life, I’m told; and marketers keep reminding you of titles because readers have shifting attention spans toward the next jazzy thing. It’s a chasing game, and it can be wearying. I entered this learning curve from its impetus to finished copy for the same reason that I make art: there is something important to get down on paper so others can see. I didn’t write to be a writer. I don’t paint to be a painter. I am a recorder, a responder, a translator of sorts who is hopefully becoming more fluent.

It is an earnest and deep-seated Wonder before the biggest matters that keeps me working. It is needed Humility that keeps me fit. And beyond my own natural chutzpa there is a Courage I count on and ask for from the Spirit who made the world, who made me. Perseverance is the last bit I have to own, and own again. (These 4 aspects–I gleaned out of the Creation account in Genesis–are a sort of working prescription; that’s why they are written big, with growing notes on my studio wall).

When young and spry, I used to be a competitive swimmer and taught lifesaving. Now I’m a grandma with even bigger aspirations. But a lot of days I feel like the water is deep, the shoreline is way out past where I am, and my nose is just above the surface. Am I complaining? No, just taking a tread while I size up my position. Thanks for looking with me.

bookkeeper

Another sketch from my Vox series, here illustrated is one verse from the very last book of the Hebrew collection. The prophet Malachi had some blistering words to say to his hearers, as well as a couple reassuring promises.

Any current assumption that spiritual giants “just need to be nice” are blinding themselves to alot of rich material. Moses, Joshua and Jeremiah were not known for being nice. John the Baptist was a firebrand; Jesus was a spiritual revolutionary and if either of them had just been “nice” we would never have heard of them again.

Piercing words function like an alarm clock to those who need to be jolted awake. Here’s just one example from Malachi’s short treatise: (the prophet speaking for God in chapter 1) “I am honored all over the world. And there are people who know how to worship me all over the world, who honor me by bringing their best to me. They’re saying it everywhere: ‘God is greater, this God-of-the-Angel-Armies.’ All except you. Instead of honoring me, you profane me. You profane me when you say, ‘Worship is not important, and what we bring to worship is of no account,’ and when you say, ‘I’m bored—this doesn’t do anything for me.’ You act so superior, sticking your noses in the air—act superior to me, God-of-the-Angel-Armies! And when you do offer something to me, it’s a hand-me-down, or broken, or useless. Do you think I’m going to accept it? This is God speaking to you!”

I would call that a verbal alarm clock. It sounds like the words of an angry parent. In the next chapter, vs.17 is this critique: “You make God tired with all your talk.”

But the verse in this small 3 chapter book that I selected to illustrate was one of promise toward the end of Malachi’s warnings. That promise melts my wavering heart. Chapter 2 actually sets the context by reminding the listeners (whoever is still listening) that God is a covenant keeper. And what God has promised will stand though others will not stand in the day of His sure appearing. After more warning words, God challenges “Test me… I will defend you.” vs.10-11.

And as if it is a follow through response from that call-out “Then those whose lives honored God got together and talked it over. God saw what they were doing and listened in. A book was opened in God’s presence and minutes were taken of the meeting, with the names of the God-fearers written down, all the names of those who honored God’s name.” (This is the same verse 3:16 that I illustrated in the image, set in a contemporary paraphrase called The Message.)

I’ve often thought of that promise when speaking quietly with others. I take His words literally just as I see He does ours. And when we gather and speak of Him, He lets us know that He’s a bookkeeper.

“Look for the Pass”

I am delighted to highlight a piece I made this winter which has been selected along with a small collection of other pieces by Dr. Noland, ETSU’s President, for brightening office spaces on campus.

This was made using a brayer for the initial mark making, then sandwiched through an etching press to facilitate the texture. After the inks dried I enhanced the foreground with pastel worked on top.

Narrow views, whether in vertical or horizontal formats, interest me as a way of beckoning the traveler. It’s as if we’re looking through a clarifying peephole, limiting the extraneous. The horizon is often the real point for me, even while the foreground is captivating. In this case, my idea is of lifting the eyes to where that pass-through lies. Then the steps through the tangly foreground know the way going forward.

images before words

The Hebrew prophets: might you be able to name just one? Starting with Moses, there were at least 17 who asserted warnings then assurances of hope before Jesus showed up. Their persistence, heartfelt passion and vivid imagery has long fascinated me. Their unified story is a gold mine. Yet we live in a time now where fewer and fewer people have even minimal awareness of the ancient messages.

There’s nothing new under the sun and such bible-word cluelessness is not unlike the times when some of the characters like Jeremiah and Micah, Hosea and Isaiah spoke out-loud (each tying back uniquely to what had been written down already). But the listeners were not having it. So, Jeremiah was told to make his own body a visual in some stark ways. Jonah became a walking billboard, and Amos recorded vivid pictures prompted by God: “What do you see, Amos?” He was then to visualize it for others.

One of my first jobs out of college was to design visuals, charts and graphics for historical spiritual ideas. I didn’t know I was good at it, just enjoyed it. I also didn’t know that while there came a long hiatus for me from that kind of work (once babies arrived) that the whole culture was moving away from words and needing images. I just kept reading. And like a soup simmering on my stove, images would waft up like the scent of seasons.

So, fast forward several decades to where people get their news in sound bites promoted by image and grabbed by icons. And Bibles are sold with coloring pages. It is what it is. Visuals have the potential to beckon toward understanding (see last post), but many just stop at the signs, blinking blindly.

Several years ago I did a series of small sketches after reading through every page of my Bible. I picked one verse that jumped out to me from each in the collection of 39 Old Testament and 27 New Testament books. Then I worked quickly at recording a summary image for each of those 66. They were displayed for a month at my church. The series was called “Vox”.

I am highlighting these again now, the more vivid ones at least, on instagram and twitter, paying particular attention to the prophets. For their words still speak and are better than the evening news.

Here’s just one from the tiny book of Haggai, 2nd chapter, verse 5:

visual learning

“First I have the picture” Einstein reportedly said, “then I come up with the math”. Before any of us knew how to decode language, our little eyes trained on images. Even the cones on our retinae respond to color before form is understood. We begin from image impression, but then sometimes the more we “know” what’s in front of us, the less we can wholly grasp.

Educational theory has typed learners into all kinds of styles. Yet painter David Dunlop insists “We’re all visual learners”. He’s done a lot of reading on cognitive studies, some pattern theory, interest in pictographs, and he knows his art history. So, I was entirely engaged in a workshop he led this month. He mentioned that many painters (like Turner, Whistler, Manet, Monet) became more abstract, with distilled and simplified imagery as they grew older (and that later work was more universally evocative). Dunlop’s own work is quite literal and beautifully detailed, but I wasn’t there to copy him.

“We always ‘push off’ from an image in the head, a simple schema that gets us started”, then the magic happens after that as we work out from that impression.

What you see above is a thumbnail sketch out of my notebook. I quickly mapped the shapes, darks and lights from a photo of a magnolia blossom. What was important in translating this into paint was not “this is a magnolia’ but rather more than that, and I needed to take time to consider how. My oil color is carefully selected. But what excites me is the emergent shine, and the impasto lending toward a sense of exuberance. The cropping too was a choice, as if I am just teasing the viewer into only a glimpse. Glimpses for me are key, for if I try to tell the whole story, we’ll all get lost in words. There’s an energy in this translation into color that springs off the canvas. Usually I dive into work from an idea in my head, but to take the time to map it first, if even so simply, is important, and more than I knew. I’ve heard about the necessity of sketchbook planning, but since I’m not much of a draftsman and am also impatient, I’ve often skipped that part. “I see said the blind man”. So this mapping process was a win for me, and it’s informing further practice.

Mary Barton Nees

Conceptual Landscape