Mural Art Portrait

LOVE THESE! When we travel I’m sure to find my way to art.  Here we’re standing in front of a mural by Kelsey Montague in Nashville.

I think if I decide to start a band I’ll use this pic as the cover.

Our time in Nashville was delicious.  Nashville, I never knew!  You are so lovely in so many ways!

Self Portrait (of sorts!)

Okay, a candid photo.  We went to the Dove Awards so I put my hair up.  When we got back to the hotel, my hair didn’t want to go DOWN again.  Hair DOES have a mind and will of its own, that’s for sure!

Truth.

Meet the Artist of This Blog!

Meet the artist of this crazy feed! Here I am waiting for a show in Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, the only building in the city that is permitted to have a thatched roof, for obvious reasons.  We enjoyed two peerless shows whilst there.

 I’m in one of the balconies but you can look down to see that people still crowd around the stage, lean on the stage and stand shoulder to shoulder for the entire length of the show!  What a place.  

I also notice my gold earring(s). I lost one on that trip.  Came back Stateside and found a different sized gold hoop and wore them as a mismatched pair.  I’ve always felt that ‘life is short, you might as well mix up your jewelry!’ The next time we went to Europe I lost my last hoop! Maybe the next time we go I’ll find a pair, huh? :) 

Man, I miss those earrings.  Dang.

Portrait of an Artist

There are many ways to do a self-portrait.  The important part is that you reveal something of yourself. This photo, shot by my friend Stephanie, is a telling portrait of me.

How would you do a portrait of yourself?

An Artist’s Self Portrait

As I have my students do self portraits it’s only right I do them as well.  This one stemmed from our show, Cinderella.  I got the entire orchestra to Sharpie a mustache onto a finger, and, as we sat at the foot of the stage would ‘mustache’ the actors when we weren’t playing to try to get them to break character.  Never worked but it was fun to try.  I also teach that portraits should reveal things about the person; in the background you can see words of some of my favorite things. :)

An Artist’s Hair

Artists.  The ones with the weird hair.  So nice to see you today, @lydia_grayce ! You look adorable! Break a leg in Seven Brides; so glad you loved Newsies! 

Seriously, our bodies and hair are really just more canvas to cover.  So... I guess if you want to have a painting commissioned, chase down someone with crazy-colored hair. The odds will be that they can do it for you.

Self-Portrait through Books, Part SIX the Last!

One more time, this is the sixth installment of my self portrait, find my earlier five posts all created in this month, July of 2018.  I’ve saved two books for the last.  Here’s the picture one more time!

Okay, I have been working my way from top to bottom and have worked my way to the last two titles, which are hanging around in the middle.  The white one, Chinese Calligraphy first.

I remember years ago going to the bookstore all excited that I had decided to learn Chinese.  I just happened to meet a Chinese friend there and told him of my plans.  He laughed at me and said, “Have fun with that, even the Chinese don’t knowChinese!”  Not letting him dampen my spirits, I purchased this book and have been glad for years that I did.  

Have I learned Chinese?  Well, technically, no.  BUT, I have learned a lot about the development of the Chinese language from pictograms to characters and have an understanding of how they have changed.  I can look at many characters and see the root of the word and why the characters are written the way they are.  I can read VERY FEW words, but can identify the language from other oriental languages and appreciate the rich heritage. The way they write their characters is a very high art in itself and it has enriched my life studying and learning the character formation and give me a deep appreciation for those masters.  What a beautiful language.

All this to give a nod to my Chinese friend, and a wink admitting he was right.  Oh, but I am glad I tried!

I saved my Bible for the last, because it is ever so much the most important one of all!!!  I’ve been using a bilingual Bible because of my constant love of learning and languages.  It’s also been fascinating because many times the Spanish is more clear in its interpretation than the English, and many times I’ve found that the words chosen in Spanish have more impact for me, and sometimes enhance the passage even more.

But the reason I saved this for last is because this is the ONE BOOK that has changed my life. It tells the story of man’s fall, the mess we’ve made of ourselves, and the fact that we are all sinners.  It tells the story of God coming to earth to become a man, Jesus, to purposefully die that our sins can be forgiven.  It tells the story of how we, as sinful people, can reach out to Jesus for forgiveness and ask him in to our lives.  It tells the story of beauty and redemption and the full, rich life possible for each one of us. 

It tells the story of my life, a mess, turned around by Jesus.  I have hope.  I have a future.  I have freedom.  I have no fear.  That is a lot to say in this dark world! The reason I put this book in the center is because it holds everything else up.  There would be nothing else for me or for anyone without the God of this book.  Thank you, Jesus, for changing MY life and filling me with hope and beauty!!

Self Portrait, Part Five (see previous posts for others)

All right, could it be that we have only four books to go? This is the continuation of my self portrait.  I have chosen this little company of books to represent myself; they are a distillation of the, oh, I don’t know... 1,000, 2,000? books in our home.

Again, here’s the picture:

We’ve done all the books in my previous July, 2018 posts, and now have only the four standing on the left to finish us up.

The Art of Peter Max.  I LOVE Peter Max! His fresh vibrancy in everything he does inspires me.  And, did you know that one of the artists that formed and inspired him was actually Bouguereau? Go figure, huh? Kind of funny, because his work is nothing like Bouguereau, nor is mine, but he can inspire us all.  And a nod to you, Peter, for being reliably bright and fun.

Next to that is The Creators by Daniel Boorstin.  If you haven’t read any Boorstin, ANYTHING he has written is worthy! His history is fabulous and I also love his American history.  THIS book, however, has well moved in and secured its place in our home.  For one thing, this is my second copy as I completely wore out my other copy and finally threw it away in about 20 pieces. It’s just a beautiful and informative book about creators.  All kinds of creators through history: musicians, writers, sculptors, inventors, painters.  Love it!

Although is a descriptive self portrait created with BOOKS, there’s something else in this picture worthy of mention.  You see these books surrounded by mark makers (in lots of colors), two of my paintings, and a glorious outside garden.  These three are a very apt part of my portrait.

All right! Two books down, two to go!  You will see me finish up my self portrait in my next installation, part six!  See you then. ;)

Self Portrait, Part the Fourth

Well, here we go again! Find my three previous posts down below this within the past few days.  I’m continuing my self portrait, as described by this stack of books. Oops... I chose the wrong pic - me and my son... and it’s too good to delete, so... this picture is of me and my son! We just finished having lunch at the BIGGEST RESTAURANT IN TEXAS, The Oasis, on beautiful Lake Travis. :)

Now, back to the self portrait... let’s see if I can do better ...

Here we are. All right, I’m moving my way downward, and have arrived at Bernini. Oh, Bernini, how I love you! I was so excited to meet your work in person when we were in Roma, and my love for you has not dimmed! Michelangelo did a great work.  You built upon that work. You took the idea of his gorgeous figures further by adding emotion and muscle tension. Your sculptures are alive with emotion and feeling, right down to their very toes! I love this book as well because, well, it’s a Phaidon book, and Phaidon knows how to do things right.  You can count on Phaidon to produce beautiful stuff.  It even smells good.  Don’t you just love a book that smells good?  Also, I use this book almost every year in my art classes.  Soo handy for so many reasons.

The Complete Van Gogh.  I love his work. I sympathize with his lot in life, which, try as he would he could not seem to improve.  That he could create such beauty - it’s just a wonderful thing.  Also he’s Dutch.  So am I. We Dutch artists have to stick together.  Visiting the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, home of MY PEOPLE is a memory that I cherish.

Down on the far right you see a little Latin dictionary.  I know I already covered Latin earlier, but Latin is really just so important to me, that it’s an ongoing thing. Just today I was reading semi-historical fiction about 14th century Norway, and so much Latin comes up in it.  It’s everywhere, and nice to understand it when it comes along.

Enough for this post! We are getting there! I believe I now have four books and a wooden toad left to explain.  See ya in Part the Fifth!

Self Portrait, Part the Third

All right, this is the third post in my self-portrait reveal.  Last time I ended with James Herriot, so we begin with the next book:

Latin Roots you say? Stupor Mundi! Yes! I have long been fascinated with languages and done serious study before each of our European travels. Wherever we went, I always had learned enough to get directions, exchange money, read signs, get to the right airport gate and essentially live and thrive.  But Latin, oh how I love thee! For years I studied and taught our three oldest kids (those weird homeschoolers, you know) Latin. Our oldest says it was the best thing he learned in high school and it has ever so greatly enriched our lives.  As the base of our language it will never be dead - but even so, its boundaries are far beyond that.  Not to mention the fact that it made learning any other language easy! I also chose this book because it’s representative of our 26 years of homeschooling our four kids.

The next, William Morris. This book is full of his designs.  Pattern, color and texture.  He was a master. And color, pattern and texture are a never ending source of interest to me.

The Musee d-Orsay.  This great, peerless museum lies in the heart of Paris, across from le Louvre.  These two museums nod and smile at each other across the river in understanding, and I adore them both. This book also represents our travels and unquenchable curiousity.

Pucci begins where William Morris left off.  More color, texture and pattern.  Why two books that represent the same idea? I have no idea, but really to me it represents a continuation of the work as time passes into the modern age.

Enough! That’s all we can take for one post!  I’ll be back soon with .... Self Portrait, Part the Fourth.  See you then!

Self Portrait, Part Two

All right, here we go again! It seems that my self-portrait is, well, wordy, and I guess now’s as good a time as any to admit to you that this as well is one of my traits!

To pick up where we left off... my previous post ended after six books, and I’m working my way from top to bottom. 

Next, Designa.  Oh, Designa! A reference of classic design through the centuries, I have gone back to you again and again for years! I have become so rich because of you that each time I see you displayed in a bookstore I give a happy, contented sigh. You’re the best part of that Wooden Book bunch.

Soup for Supper? Yay! A children’s book with delightful illustrations that I’ve read to all our kids. I tried to buy it as we always used library books, but it was out of print.  Our oldest son actually found it - eureka - and gave me this most delightful gift! Now I have been reading it to my art students and this year had them copy some of Phyllis Root’s incredible work. Personally raising up a new generation of Phyllis Root lovers.

Okay, leaning on the stack, just trying to get into the picture, is Color.  Oh how I have loved this book.  When I get my art students busy creating I will often read to them.  Even with my high schoolers, if I say the phrase, “It’s story time!” they will give up a little cheer. Who doesn’t want to know that the color yellow used to be made from the urine of cows fed mango leaves, a beautiful purple or mauve was resultant from the massacre of millions of snails, or that wars were fought over a red made of bugs’ blood? Even today some of your makeup and some of the things you drink contain bugs’ blood.  It’s nice to know you’ve chosen organic.  :) And oh, how dearly I love the groans and horror rising from my students when they learn these wonderful things. Just makes me so happy.

Continuing downward we come to Bouguereau. Bouguereau is one of my favorite artists. Highly favored in his lifetime, his work fell out of favor when he died, and he was actually ‘rediscovered’ fairly recently.  Love, love love his work, and many artists I highly admire have also been inspired by him.

The Rembrandt. Note that it’s in Dutch. I picked this one up when we were in The Netherlands.  It represents several things.  He’s one of my Top Ten artists and he’s also Dutch.  As am I.  Two famous Dutch artists, right? :) I also chose the Dutch version because I love to figure out other languages. Call it a hobby.

A Passion for Colour.  This is one of the newest in my stack, but I cherish it.  I LOVE color!  This woman and I, yep... we’d be good friends.

Picasso Black and White.  A number of years ago the MFA Houston had this exhibit.  I thought, “...ah, Picasso.  But just black and white? They’ll probably have some little pencil drawings and some black crayon and it’ll be boring.” Oh my goodness I was so wrong! I went in planning on spending an hour and going to an appointment I had later on.  I staggered out after four or five hours totally missing my appointment and incredibly inspired! Those black and white paintings have given me a lifetime of inspiration!

Under that, Roger Dean’s Views.  Oh, Roger, Roger, Roger! How I have loved you since I was 16 and bought my first Yes album!  Your work! Your crazy, colorful, otherworldly abstract but totally representative work! Your analogous and complimentary colors.  I have both drooled over and been inspired by your artwork for all these years.  And I am very sorry and angry you didn’t win that lawsuit with the Avatar movie people stealing your inspiration as their own. Seriously. Anybody with brains could see you all over that movie.

Okay, one last book and I will post this so you can take a reading break! We end with James Herriot’s Treasury for Children.  We wore two of these out with our kids and I give this book now as baby gifts.  Anyone that knows anything about James Herriot will understand.

All right, that’s it for now.  You will find me working through the stack in my next post which will be Self Portrait, Part the Third.  See ya!

Bookish Self Portrait

Well, I decided to do another self portrait, this one with books.  I walked around the house for a couple days and gathered the books that have been so important to me that they have come to represent me, and this gathering is actually a pretty telling portrait.  How shall we begin? How about top to bottom?

Nature in Winter. Ahh.... all the field guides we have used over the years, beginning when I was a child feeding and identifying birds, progressing to teaching our own children about everything under the sun.  The guides are pretty much all gone now, but this one is too beautiful and special.  I love it.

Wicked Plants. Noah gave me this one for Christmas and it is a plethora of creepy, delightful information about plants that KILL and TORTURE. I have an intimate relationship and deep working interest in plants and this one is just plain fun.  

Next to that is Dragon’s Fat Cat by Dav Pilkey. Oh, Dav, how I do love thee and your quirky, colorful Dragon books! I agree with your admiration of VanGogh and your continual nods to him in your children’s books! I have read them to my own children and to scores of students over the years.

The Heart of the Artist.  This is a sweet and inspiring book.  God has given us gifts, artist friends.  So must we use them.

Good Poems by my dear friend (although he doesn’t know it) Garrison Keillor.  For ... oh, how long was he on the air with Prairie Home Companion anyway? 30 years?  I can count my listening time back to 198...4?  His shows and work have given me great laugh-out-loud joy for many years.  He also had a program that was literally maybe three minutes long where he would read and discuss one poem.  Just found this book and I’m loving it.  But although it’s new, it represents a long history, and also represents my love of both reading and writing poetry.

One more book, and then I’ll post this, or my writing will be too long and put you to sleep!  The next - How Should We Then Live? This one is deep.  I’ve read it many times over the years and glean new gems with each re-reading. It has helped me to form and solidify my philosophy on how we should view, understand, produce and discuss art, and how to live our lives in relationship to art.  It’s a really beautiful, beautiful and timeless reference.

There is a marked difference in this last picture, in fact, I forgot something extremely important to my personhood. In fact, it was so important to me that I had to add it in and redo the photo shoot the next day.  Can you see what it is? See if you can figure it out before you look at my answer UNDER it at the bottom of this article. :)

Yep.  Musica.  That sheet of music at the bottom is not a book, but represents hundreds of music books I have laying around the house holding little impromptu jam sessions when no one is looking. I have long loved and played piano, flute and piccolo in every imaginable situation. Words cannot express how music has enriched my life.

They say that music itself is a language, and I am certain of that! So, I am extremely fluent in two languages, and pretty good and downright dangerous in several others. :)

Now, I’m going to post this and continue with my ramblings in the next post!  See you!

An Artist’s Self Portrait

As an artist, I consider my body another canvas upon which to work, and what I wear often reflects who I am.  A self portrait. Because it’s easy for me to get a little crazy, I sometimes wear black to tame it down a bit. 

Here my leather and pearl necklace remind me of the nice time Noah and I had at the science museum. The crazy leaf scarf came from a great trip Gary and I took to Florida. My Packman earring I got at the Mall of America in St. Paul (biggest mall in the States) and the feather earring connects me to our daughter, who wears its mate. The gold band is from my dad who found it metal detecting - very special. My black bracelet was at a dollar bin at Goodwill, where we love to kick around for good deals. You would notice the many-stoned ring - that’s my paternal grandma’s mother’s ring.  She had NINE kids!! The mother’s ring has may purple and green stones; I got the topaz (the big one) because it has purple and green and blue in it and matches my grandma’s ring so beautifully.  Plus, I love anything big and sparkly.

If you look closely, you will see the big gouge in my left arm - a reminder of my melanoma and how precious life is - a gift from God. I don’t mind the scar as it reminds me of this. One more detail in this self-portrait - I got caught in the rain today, so I cut off the top so you wouldn’t see my frizzy wet hair! 

Does what you wear reflect you?

Oh... and... here’s more of my self portrait - I do my best to surround myself with flowers inside and outside the house.

And the best flowers of all, peonies.  Yummy!

Now my self-portrait is much more complete. :)