unfinished -work in progress

I had a teacher who said the first six strokes and the last six strokes on a painting are the most important. It helps to see it on the computer screen. I see a couple of little tweaks that need to be done. If you know my work you probably see a similarity between this one and Prayer for Beruit, http://vwieringa.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_vwieringa_archive.html

LIVING THE QUESTIONS #22

LIVING THE QUESTIONS #15

This has been an incredibly intense week. Wednesday I hung 28 pieces of art at First (Park) Congregational Church in Grand Rapids. I'll attend a service next Sunday for 'meet and greet the artist'.

Wednesday evening was also a preconference opening at Eyekons for the Calvin Worship Institute Worship Symposium at Calvin College. This is a yearly conference and a great chance to worship and learn with many other people and participants from 32 countries. The theme of the conference this year was GLORY. It was three days packed with really good stuff. My head is swimming. I need to take time and look over my notes and remember all the ideas and good people. I praise God for the opportunity to be there.

I have a wall of work at Eyekons and I'm hanging alongside some really gifted artists. Linda Henke was a conference presenter and I'm looking forward to searching her website www.lindahenke.com Also there was a woman who has studied the book of Revelations and written a study guide and done images to go with it in a very childlike and engaging style. www.paintingrevelation.com

LIVING THE QUESTIONS #11

This is actually one of my favorites of the series. I like the nonobjective composition.
Just enough symbols to suggest some meaning.

LIVING THE QUESTIONS #14

LIVING THE QUESTIONS #12

LIVING THE QUESTIONS #7

LIVING THE QUESTIONS #9

LIVING THE QUESTIONS #8

Yes, these will not be posted sequentially- another conundrum within an enigma.

LIVING THE QUESTIONS 10

I haven't blogged recently because I have been busy in the studio. This is one of the recent pieces. It's 81/2 by 11. There are 22 in the series. This is inspired by reflections on a writing by
Rainer Maria Rilke. I bought a magnet for my fridge at an art museum with these words of Rilke's on it:

"I beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try and love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything, live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer..."

To read more about Rilke, go to http://clicks.robertgenn.com/letters-artist.php where serendipitously Robert Genn wrote about and quoted Rilke the day after I'd read and bought that quote. (If you've never been to Painter's Keys, click on the icon on the right of the blog where his picture is. Good stuff. Great resources.)

HODEGETRIA

This icon of the Hodegetria or she who shows the way, joins the Virgin of the Sign which I did in a workshop with Diane Hamel in November (see November posts in this blog to see the steps of the process). This icon was done entirely on my own following the directions I wrote down and photos I took during the last workshop. It was a nerve wracking but contemplative process.

HIGGAION #2

In the Psalms, Higgaion is a word that means murmuring of the harp, or intrumental interlude, or meditation. That is what abstract and non-objective compositions are to me ~ a place to rest visually while sorting out the day.

Higgaion #1 is posted July7, 2006.

TREES IN THE WASH

I thought this drawing from long ago would fit with this lovely poem I found in a magazine. This is a romanticized version of what the wash in Arizona looked like when we walked there years ago.

This is the gift
that God holds out to us
in this season:
to carry the light,
but also to see in the dark
and to find shapes
of things in the shadows.
~ Jan L. Richardson

WINTER TREE

President Gerald Ford is being buried in Grand Rapids today. Posting this is my tribute to him. He was a good man and our community is proud of him. This tree by the river is a reminder of these verses:

"Blessed are those who trust in the Lord...they shall be like trees planted by water sending out rootby the stream." Jeremiah 17:7-8

"He is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season..." Psalm 1:3

Gerald Ford lived a fruitful life. He was an admirable man.

This image and verses were used on the cover of the liturgy for my father's funeral just about four years ago.

IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER

We are blessed with cool rainy weather suitable for walking outside. Seriously, it was great to travel on New Year's without worrying about the weather and to be able to get our exercise outside on January 1 without worrying about ice! That's a big deal!

This weather makes for quite a monochromatic landscape which reminded me of this piece from long ago. Probablty 2002. This is a reductive drawing with charcoal on watercolor paper - 22x30. The title is Imbroglio which is "an intricate or complicated situation." I initially thought of this like a pieta with the one tree embracing the dead one.

Best wishes for 2007. Thanks for reading my blog.