MOVING SPIRIT 1 installed

Here is what Moving Spirit 1 looks like framed and installed. What a great wall color!

Lowell entry

This piece "Arise and Shine" was accepted into the Lowell Regional.

exciting news

Very encouraging news!I just found out that four of the paintings from the St Mary's Health Care show have sold!! I love it when my work finds a good home! Now I'm scrambling to find some things that would fit into those empty spaces on the wall. Maybe this one..... it's always been a favorite of mine.

Ash Wednesday

This is Ash Wednesday- this year it's more like snow Wednesday. Many services marking the beginning of Lent are canceled. The snow is a heavy blanket across our area. Maybe the sadness we feel under this crush of weather is a good metaphor for the weight of sin before redemption.

praying

This is a poem my wonderful niece Sara has posted in her kitchen. I look forward to reading more by this author.
I need more thoughts like this! Whew!

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

- Mary Oliver

ANASTASIS finished!

The Anastasis banner for Park Church is finished! I'm including an ancient icon that tells the story in a traditional way. On my rendition, I see the entire story of salvation played out. The cross is there, but the cloud of disciples are witnesses to the truth of the resurrection. Christ gleams in triumph over death and invites us to participate in the new day of salvation.

Calvin Worship Symposium

This year's Symposium was just as wonderful as the last two. Awesome worship and amazing presenters. Michael Card, Calvin Seerveld, Shelley Marinus and Dallas Willard were standouts.

In the visual arts, this year I met Jeanne Logan and Mako Fujimura (who are googlable and wonderful). Last year I met Linda Henke (who is very googlable and a wonderful artist) and she has become a friend and mentor. Steve Caton from Grand Haven is also an amazing resource.

I just couldn't say enough good things about my experience this weekend! It was an amazing spiritual experience that will enrich my life and work in the next year.

Celebration!

I just found out that both of my entries into the Celebration show at First United Methodist Church in downtown Grand Rapids were accepted! I've had pieces in the show before but having TWO pieces accepted is a real delight! This is their 35th annual show.

The vertical piece is REDEEMED ONE and the other is JACOB'S LADDER

REEDEEMED ONE is approximately 10"x30" and it's in a frame I 'redeemed'. JACOB'S LADDER is approx. 18"x24"

Sweet Peas

I could blog about the snow piling up around us or how cold it was out moving it around, but this picture of sweet peas came across my screen saver and I thought other people might want a reminder of warmer days and the miracles that bloom from the earth. That magenta color is so brilliant to me in the middle of January!

I've set my computer to use all my photos of flowers as my screensaver and it seems it was a wise move. I've enjoyed the colors and the sight of sun on and through the blooms.

Installation at St. Mary's Health Care

This is the installation of my work at St Mary's Health Care. It's in their main lobby through the end of February. The photos are dark, but you get the idea. What an honor to show there! Last week when I went to straighten name tags and check the show, I had many nice conversations with people passing by.

'Anastasis' in progress

This is the progress of the Easter banner I was commissioned to do . It's hard to get a decent picture of it laying down on my work table. What remains is that it all needs to be attached! I guess I know what I'll be doing in the next few weeks! I have some books on tape and I'm happy to be out of the weather and tucked into my studio.

St Mary's Health Care

My friend Mary Andersen and my wonderful husband Fred Conover helped me for 4 and a half hours yesterday hanging 21 pieces of my work in the lobby of St. Mary's Health Care on Jefferson in GR. The hanging system is a security locking system and quite complex. I'm glad I'm both left and right brained! The show looks good and unfortunately, we learned the hard way not to hang a large painting with a metal frame the way the directions said to hang it! This painting fell off the wall because the frame bowed as we were working on getting a piece onto the wall next to it. The glass broke and fortunately the descent of it was stopped by Mary who was standing right in front of it! (She wasn't hurt- but it prevented the piece from shattering on the floor!) I caught it. The painting wasn't damaged. My friend Deidre is replacing the glass with plexi and my left brain has figured out a way to hang the piece avoiding the edge! Other than that, the show looks good and we got many positive comments while hanging it. It's an honor to have work there and a few pieces are along the route of patients on gurneys on their way to surgery. I hope they are a blessing to them.

old year post

I was looking for one image from my work in 2007 to sum up the year. This is a personal favorite. I love the random and accidental marks and the powerful maze of the cross. For me it's is a good metaphor for 2007 . I thank God for the blessings (and challenges) of this year and I pray for guidance through 2008.

Deck the Halls

At this link, you can scroll down and see links to the holiday decorations of hundreds of bloggers! I got there thanks to my sister who is so good at the internet it's scary!
http://boomama.net/?p=1924

We've used this tree for 24 years. Except now we just use the top half. I love it. It goes into the basement (with the lights still wrapped around it). It gets covered with a sheet and sleeps until we haul it out again the next year. No, we're not a hot chocolate, wander the woods and slaughter some poor pine kinda family. Sorry. It works for us. The good news is, we could have Christmas in July at a moments notice! The Hallmark plastic tree topper w is something we got for 1/2 off the first year we were married- 30 years ago. All the favorite ornaments are on there.

My neice made the wreath for me. I painted the icon (called the Hodegetria) and where the quilt is hanging, there's supposed to be an Advent Starry Night. You'll see it on the table next to the icon. I finished the quilt (which was a big learning curve for me). I made it with a Lenten theme. When I hung it up with the Advent stuff just to look at it for a while, it seemed to fit, so here it is! Serendipitous Christmas/Lent combo.

Now I should go help to shovel snow. My Husband probably looks like Nanook of the North by now. we really got walloped overnight.

LOWELL DAWN

Another recent painting 24"x30" and the photo that inspired the sky. This one is heading for the January-February show in the lobby of St Mary's Health Care.

ADVENT STARRY NIGHT

I painted this Advent Starry Night in 1997 in purples, blues and golds. I removed the color on Photoshop for possible reproduction on a Christmas eve liturgy. It's nice to see that the composition holds up in black and white. For me, pondering the mysteries of Christ's birth is what this season is about.

Of course , there is a serious nod here to Vincent Van Gogh.

MOVING SPIRIT 2

The second in a series of morphing non-objective compositions. They are painted intuitively without an advance plan. It's just me and my paint and the moving spirit. It's a fun way to work.

ONEKAMA SNOW

Here are 4 stages of a recent painting from vine charcoal on a warm brown background to the finished product. This is 24x30" and headed for a show at St. Mary's Health Care in January.

AUGUST SUNFLOWERS

I spent many hours on this at the Fire and Water Showroom between customers. I think I've refined it as far as it wants to go! It's an amalgam of pictures I took and experiences I've had in Northern Michigan. It's 30"x40". It's fun to work that large. It will be included in the solo exhibit I'm having in the St. Mary's Health Care lobby in January.

Rilke's birthday

LIVING THE QUESTIONS #10, V. Wieringa

December 4 is the birthday of poet Rainer Maria Rilke, (books by this author) born in Prague (1875), one of his ideas was that human beings are put on earth in order to experience the beauty of ordinary things.

In the Ninth Elegy, Rilke wrote:

"Maybe we're here only to say: house,
bridge, well, gate, jug, olive tree, window —
at most, pillar, tower... but to say them, remember,
oh, to say them in a way that the things themselves
never dreamed of existing so intensely."

I listened ahead to the Writer's Almanac for tomorrow. Rilke said some amazing and interesting things. His quote about "living the questions into the answers" was an inspiration for me for a series of paintings last year.

Mary E. Andersen

My friend Mary is amazing. I've been having her come over and critique some paintings. Her comments are right on! What a blessing to have a compatriot who will help me evaluate my work! See her website on the sidebar of the blog.

New York

This is an excerpt from Tuesday's Writer's Almanac a poem by Edward Field titled New York
"We do God's will whether we know it or not:
where I live the streets end in a river of sunlight."

Beautiful.

I long to go there. I long to go anywhere. All in good time.

Sunflower

This is my favorite stage of painting. This is about 30"x40". The looseness of blocking in an idea and the beginning of laying in color is so exciting. Now I'm knee deep into the greens and golds and fighting my way through. It's all problem solving from here on! You won't see another photo of it until it comes out the other side!

snowflakes

These are snowflakes cut by my daughter, Elizabeth Conover, back in 2001. I think they are exquisite.

paintings in the works

I'm very excited about some new paintings that are underway and a quilt that's midway as well. Some photos of the works in progress will be posted soon- they are in my favorite stage right now, just emerging from the blank canvas.

AH! and during a coffee break I looked out the window to see snowflakes and yellow leaves drifting to the ground at the same time. Beautiful! And my faithful husband is sweeping them with the lawnmower up as fast as they fall. If I was a poet and not a painter, I'd spend the afternoon bending that into a stanza or two.

Thankfulness

I have no profound 'quote of the day' or picture to accompany it. I simply have a thankful heart, today especially. I praise God for all the gifts he's given us in this amazing world, and specifically the gifts he's given me. My life isn't perfect, but I sure appreciate the people and things and nature and physical health I'm enjoying right now.

For a wonderful thankfulness poem, Google Jane Kenyon "Otherwise".

Have you been to the Writer's Almanac? Garrison Keilor reads it every day it 10 AM on one of our stations and I always feel like I'm having a good day when I'm able to listen to it. www.writersalmanac.publicradio.org

First prize

This painting won a first prize (cash award) yesterday in the People's Choice awards at Bishop Hills Retirement Community. Our Rivertown Artist Guild has a show there every fall and the staff and residents vote on their favorites. I won 3rd last year and 2nd the year before that! I saved this particular painting for that show because I knew it was a crowd pleaser. I like it too. Next stop for it is the lobby of St Mary's Health Care in January.

Those folks have pretty good taste! It means a lot to me. This painting didn't make it into the 2007 Festival show in GR so you just never know!

CHRISTMAS ANGEL

Another photo.

INTO THE LIGHT

I've begun to play digitally with more of the 'blurry' photos taken at the Turning Pointe School of Dance recitals in the past. This one is called 'into the light'. It's a pure joy to work on these on Photoshop until just the right color and composition emerge.