ALCHEMY

For want of a better title, ALCHEMY is what this collage will be called. Titling art is difficult. I don't like using 'untitled' because it doesn't give the viewer anyplace to hang their hat. And it would be hard for me to remember which "UNTITLED" was which!!

untitled

I just finished this, cut a mat, was ready to frame it when I thought I'd put a layer of medium over it to even the finish. Turns out some of the marks are watercolr pencil and the many areas melted and discolored the whole piece. Bummer. I've already started a new piece on the back.

Holy Silence finished after 30 hours

After 30 hours of work and much prayer painted into it, here is Holy Silence- an image of the pre-existent Christ. John 1 is a touchstone on this. "In the beginning was the Word..."

It was a great workshop, very contemplative and restful, but I'm relieved not to have to drive anywhere tomorrow.

Holy Silence after 24 hours of work

We finish tomorrow.

Holy Silence

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Monday and Tuesdays part of the process in my icon workshop at the Franciscan Life Process Center.

SUNFLOWER 2009

This was just painted over an old painting of a sunflower. This one is much more satisfying!!

POND

A little 8x10 begun long ago and just finished. Destined for a silver frame and a trip to the gallery.

Holy Silence

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a (human) be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he (or she) dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”

-Thomas Merton, from The Strange Islands: Poems by Thomas Merton

**The icon above is by Father William Hart McNichols at St. Andrei Rublev Icons — Hagia Hesychia or Holy Silence)

Next week I will be writing an icon of Holy Silence at the Franciscan Center. For anyone who knows me, Holy Silence will be a stretch.

LITTLE CREATURES

Just playing around in preparation for a pet collage. It's amazing how seeing sketches on screen points up the mistakes.

step away from the blog!

I haven't posted in a while- we've traveled to Colorado and I've hung shows, this must be a time to lie fallow for a bit. Time to get back into the studio!

In the meantime, our gallery at 219 West Main in Lowell is having a birthday!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

FIRE AND WATER ART!!