I'm an artist

So here's a free verse poem that I wrote. It's just some thoughts I have about what it means to be an artist, and an attempt to describe how that feels to me. The punctuation is random, only there to help you understand better how to read it. 


I'm an artist
I think.
I make art,
I dip brushes in paint,
I mix colors on a canvas.
Does that make me an artist?
That is part of it
I think.
But there's more to it.
I see things
others may not see.
Red leaves
against a blue sky
and something swells within me.
Is that normal?
Seeing,
smelling, feeling, hearing
more.
Richly.
Do others want to dance
and sing
when the warmth of the sun
touches
gently, their face?
I do.
Do others notice with every sense awake
the smell 
the feel
of the change of seasons?
I'm an artist
I think.
That's what it is called 
to have ears
for every bird's song.
Eyes
for every color.
Love
for every texture 
and touch.
I make art.
I dip brushes in paint
I sketch and build
but who I am
is more than that.
I'm an artist.

Here's my heart

     I was listening to my music today and heard the song that this piece is based on. I was able to spend some time thinking about it again, and wanted to write some of that out to share some of the meaning that it has in it for me. I  hope that at the very least it will cause you understand better the images, and also that you might look closely at the words of this hymn. There is so much beauty in the words that its writer penned as a prayer to his God...to our God!

     

     There are some times when a phrase will bring to mind a very vivid image, usually in my mind an illustration or picture of the phrase. One example of this led my making of this piece, which was one of the last assignments in my drawing 2 class this past semester. I do a lot of thinking and processing in my journals and sometimes that includes a writing out a song that absolutely speaks to the subject, or making a sketch...or sometimes both. 

     I remember a few years back, I was listening to a Chris Rice hymns CD while writing, and the song "Come Thou Font of Every Blessing" came on. I don't recall what I was experiencing at the time or what I was writing, but I remember really hearing for the first time the line in the last verse that goes: 

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

prone to leave the God I love;

Here's my heart, oh take and seal it,

seal it for thy courts above.

     "Here's my heart." Very vividly in my mind I pictured hands holding a heart, but open, reaching out and offering it. "Here's my heart Lord." I remember drawing that picture in my journal that morning...and so many times since in order to remind myself of the posture that I need to have at all times toward my God. My heart is weak and changing, it is prone to wander, prone to leave my God and instead seek fulfillment elsewhere. It sets up things of this world as idols, it is selfish and proud. My only hope is to allow God to capture it and to offer it completely to Him. To give it over to His care and to beg Him to place His mark upon it. 

     To Come back to this semester, we were given the assignment to make a triptych--three separate pieces that work together as a whole. Usually the center piece is the focal point and the pieces to either side compliment, enhance and lead into it. As I considered subjects for my drawing, my mind came back to the "Here's my heart" drawing, and I began to sketch, working out how I could make it into three pieces. In the end, I placed the "Here's my heart" in the center, flanked on either side with pictures of the condition of the heart before and after it is given wholly to God.

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   The first panel is "Prone to wander." It shows the heart caught under a net. It is a picture of how, when our heart is wandering, we must always be chasing it down and recapturing it. But notice, while the heart is "freely" doing whatever it feels like doing, it is under the net. It is not truly free.

   

     The second, and center panel, again, is the picture that I feel is a perfect illustration of surrender, the giving up and turning over to God of the heart. The human hands still hold the heart, but they are open, letting go, not clinging to it. "Here's my heart."

      The third panel is "Take and seal it", and it shows the heart no longer in the human hands, but sealed by God, stamped with His signet ring. It is free, with nothing holding it, but it carries the mark of God upon it. It belongs fully to Him. The stamp that is on the seal is the Hebrew for the words "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine."

Come thou fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount
I'm fixed upon it
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer,
Here by Thy great help I've come.
And I hope by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God.
He to rescue me from danger
Interposed His precious blood

Oh that day when freed from sinning
I shall see Thy lovely face.
Clothe it then in blood washed linen
How I'll sing thy sovereign grace.
Come my Lord no longer tarry
Take my ransom soul away.
Send Thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless days.

Oh to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constraint to be!
Let Thy goodness like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here's my heart
Oh take and seal it.
Seal it for thy courts above.

1.   What can be more beautiful than to stand in a congregation, surrounded by believers with voices joined in joyous song to celebrate the great hope and victory that is ours!
   
   
   My hope is built on nothing less
   Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
   I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
   But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
   • On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
     All other ground is sinking sand,
     All other ground is sinking sand.
2. When darkness veils His lovely face,
   I rest on His unchanging grace;
   In every high and stormy gale,
   My anchor holds within the veil.
   
   

   On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;

   All other ground is sinking sand,

   All other ground is sinking sand.
3. His oath, His covenant, His blood
   Support me in the whelming flood;
   When all around my soul gives way,
   He then is all my hope and stay.
   
   
   On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;

   All other ground is sinking sand,

   All other ground is sinking sand.
4. When He shall come with trumpet sound,
   Oh, may I then in Him be found;
   Dressed in His righteousness alone,
   Faultless to stand before the throne.
   
   
   On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;

   All other ground is sinking sand,

   All other ground is sinking sand.

Painting Pietà

      I couldn't sleep last night. At all. What that looks like for me is, I sit in the dark eyes closed, brain racing one hundred miles per hour. It is frustrating when all I want is a peaceful sleep, but it is often in times like this that I have my best ideas and greatest inspiration. Last night was no exception.


     It was 11pm and I was just getting started. As my mind flipped from thought to thought, image to image, it rested on something that I have wanted to do for awhile, moved on, then came back. "Every artist should make at least one Pietà," one of my professors had told us last semester. One of my closest friends did, in the course of that class, and it was a beautiful, terrible, wonderful thing to see. From that time on I have wanted to make my own, to work through that image with my heart, my hands and my medium: paint. 
   
  In looking for information about Pietà (plural), I learned a little about the history of these pieces of artwork. Pietà is Italian for pity. These works were used historically as the 13th station in the Stations of the Cross. The image is of Mary Mother of Jesus, cradling the body of the dead Christ, an image of great sorrow. The face of a mother who has watched her son, the Son of promise, die, and the seemingly defeated form of the Christ together are moving beyond words. Typically Pietà are sculptures, but throughout history there have also been a number of paintings done. Many artists have explored the same subject. I wonder what each felt as he depicted the scene? 
     
     What does sorrow look like? How are the shoulders held? The head? What is the facial expression?
     These were questions I asked as I sat in my closet-studio in the garage, sketchbook laying before me. I had turned on my music a moment before, and the first song that played was one my friend had recently listened to: There is a Fountain. 

There is a fountain filled with blood

drawn from Emmanuel's veins

and sinners plunged beneath that flood

loose all their guilty stains

     That is why I am doing this right now. Because of this sorrow, I am made clean! 

     
     O sacred head now wounded. This became a beautiful experience as I worked through the imagery. Drawing sorrow. Death. Pain. My God! My Savior! How great is Your love for me! The time it took to work through the picture was time that I was able to spend thinking about His great steadfast-love and be thankful.

     The painting itself was hard, so hard. I had to work through how to use color, and the nature of watercolor paint to really convey the emotion that I was feeling. I wanted to use blue for Mary for the sake of tradition, but blue also brings to mind sadness. I wanted to emphesize this aspect of it as well as the drippy, watery nature of watercolors, so I added it to Mary's face, shadowing it with blue, allowing the blue to drip like tears, staining her face. Then I came to the Man of Sorrows, Christ, bruised, bleeding, broken. I still am afraid that I did not do a good job on this part. It had been hard in the sketching up to draw a figure that was limp, heavy with the the weight of death, and then to put a face on it...and then to mar that face. "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our  and sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord was laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:4-6) I used red, of course, allowing the mind to read from the color, applied loosely on the form of the Christ figure, the story of his beautiful blood that was spilled as payment. The story of his beautiful life, given in forfeit.

What can wash away my sins?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus

What can make me whole again?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

O Precious is that flow

that made me white as snow

no other fount I know

Nothing but the blood of Jesus

   

Dusty Garage

dusty garage

cobwebbed closet

cluttered shelves

pushing boxes

laying boards

making tables

sweeping floor

upright brushes

rows of paint

sketchbook open

pen uncapped

music plays

squeezing paint

dipping brush

humming harmony

colored canvas

see myself

heart spilled

in colors 

To Walk Blind

It is dark

So dark.

Where am I?

I had been walking

walking on a path

that was lit by the lantern I hold in my hand

but now the light is dim

it barely stands up against the darkness

a darkness that is thicker now, somehow

then it was only a moment ago

heavier, somehow, than it was before

oppressive, threatening

and terrifying.

Dark.

the weak light of my lantern only illuminates a small area

a circle about my feet. 

my motionless feet.

I can't step

I won't step

my next step will be beyond the light

beyond the known

beyond my sight.

I'm scared of this dark.

Only a moment ago my way had been clear

a good path had stretched before me

well lit by the light

I walked in confidence

happy.

I had the order that I love

I knew what lay before me

it was clear

I like that.

But that is gone now

everything is gone

all that is left is the unknown

the pale light

and my still feet.

Desperate, terrified, paralyzed

I call out

can He even hear me here?

why?

why would You take my light?

I walked on Your path

how can I follow it

how can I go where You call me

when I can't see the way?

Trust Me.

I hear the Voice

it is gentle and fatherly

it penetrates the darkness

Trust Me.

Yes you followed My path

but you walked in your own  strength

you needed no help

you needed no Faith.

It is only when you walk blind

when you walk in faith

that your Faith can grow.

Trust me.

I love you daughter

This is a test

a trial to strengthen

a fire to refine

your faith

worth more than gold

Your faith.

continue

on the path

you saw that it was good

it is still there

it is still Mine

Trust Me.

All is still

the Voice is gone

darkness presses in

fear

my old enemy

Fear whispers

binding, freezing

paralyzing.

what if I stray from the way

and get lost?

what if I slip

what if I fall?

The Voice is gone

but I am not alone

there is a Presence

in the dark

Remember.

I remember

George Muller

and the path he walked

thanking God each day 

for a meal 

that he didn't have.

God was faithful.

I remember the woman and her jars of oil

I remember Israel and the Manna from heaven

I remember Jesus and the bread

and the fish that fed the 5,000

I remember the disciples

in the boat

I remember the great storm that came

and threatened

I remember their fear

and I remember Him

and the words he spoke

the rebuke

they didn't trust

He had the power

He calmed the storm

I remember a song

My voice sounds weak in my own ears

but I sing

You are my hiding place

You always fill my heart 

with songs of deliverance

whenever I am afraid

I will trust in You.

A shiver runs over me as I look around

trying, so hard

to penetrate the darkness

I will trust in You.

I look down at the small circle about my feet 

lit by my weak lantern

I will trust in You.

I breath deep

holding my lantern aloft

I step.

One step

into the unknown

into the black

it is so dark

I will trust in You.