Sorry for the delay

I'll let you know the final word as soon as I hear it. The pastors are out of town and i'm headed to austin for the weekend so i'm thinking it will be early next week that we'll hear.

Hope this doesn't inconvienience anybody.

connie

status of conversation series?

does anybody know the status of the phily series? or if theres anything showable in it?

transporting artwork

once the show is curated (Tuesday the 18th) we'll know which pieces need to be transported.

so to our philly artists, we'll come to that question then, but a couple things to keep in mind. consider if you have access to a truck (family? friend?) or somebody that already makes a regular trip from philly to MD. i'll be coming up to philly on May 5-6 so i'll try to borrow a van or something from here so i can coordinate a pick up with you.

once the artwork is safely in Maryland, we have reserved place for it on a truck thats going to Louisville.

Conniej

oh! and dimensions!!

please add on to the attachement you send me:

4. dimensions of your artwork, length by height & width of canvas too, or how its framed.

I'll email this to everybody in case folks arent checking the blog. so sorry in advance if you read it twice.

enjoy the crunch time before the deadline!

-connie

weeping cherry blossoms

standing under a weeping cherry blossom tree just now taking in all the color, i was reminded of a quote Bill gave me once from Chromophobia by David Batchelor :

"to fall into color is to fall out of words."

there is a certain part of 65th avenue near my house where yellow flowers, green buds, and the brightest pink blossoms fall in a row. it is sensory overload: especially with all the sun.

i couldn't take my eyes off of the tree -- the pink blossoms swaying in the wind, the sharp contrast of deep brown bark against pink, the height of the thing. i thought of how we will see Jesus in heaven : we won't be able to take our eyes off of Him. (& this is how we are called to live now too). there will be so many facets to see : His eyes, His wounds, His smile . . . so,

"to fall into Jesus is to fall out of words."

Info re: deadline

Hey guys, here's the scoop. For a piece of artwork to be considered for the Na art show, please email the following to Connie by Easter:

1. Digital pic of the artwork as a whole. If you'd like to send additional details or multiple views, thats cool too.
2. Digital pic of yourself next to the artwork so we can see scale. (and those silly faces)
3. A 100 word or less explanation of your artwork. We want these to be displayed next to your piece. So tell us about regeneration and whatever you think in helpful for the viewer: your process? symbolism? how your concept developed? help non-art folks to look closer at your art.

let me know if you have more Q's.
-conniej

transporting artwork

Hey Connie,
when and where and how are we gonna all get our artwork down to New attitude?
I was thinking that I need to get a penske truck to transport my stuff to our church and then from there? We need these done by Easter Sunday, April 16th?
Any ideas?
Thanks
Rob

i who have died am alive again today,

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

~e.e. cummings

this is the poem i'm using in a poster for the show. bill explicated it for us to think about it in terms of Jesus being the first person, speaking "i who have died am alive again today" -- i think this is so beautiful, and it completely shifts my view of this poem. this could be a portrait of the Son speaking to the Father of "this most amazing day", His death on the Cross as atonement for our sins. (!)

at covenant, the series called 'the gospel song' is radically shifting my view of Jesus & the gospel. i am so grateful for the pastors who were led to preach these messages!!

post-rome art.

made this after my trip to rome in summer 04. this is close to what i'm doing for the show. dead leaves from autumn + leaves / buds in bloom now are what is really inspiring me : looking to wonderfully simplistic nature to answer my questions about death and life, and then mixing that with the Word.

i'm really excited to see what everyone else is doing. peace.

B+W finally

Hey everybody, I finally got the b+w images to work, let me know what you think. They're in backwards order from how I talked about them I think.

still here

hey all...

yeah, so it's been awhile since I've blogged on...

julia, i love those pictures.

I can't give details right now, but i am working. I haven't been trying to fade out gradually :) ... promise.

wow, one month... oh boy! By God's grace...

more later~

Julia's buds

wow, keep us updated.

color

The other two abstract paintings might not seem to go along with the look of the other ones, but I’ve been thinking and reading about color and I think that there is a really wonderful connection that color has to the issue of new life. A book I’ve been reading is called Chromophobia, its all about the fear of color in culture, secular, but a lot of neat connections to redemption and biblical themes, particularly with an idea of ‘falling into color’ and how that idea within culture is often connected to both a kind of fall into sin as well as kind of fall into grace and joy: “There are many stories of the world made color, or colorless, and their lessons are often contradictory and confusing. Color is both a fall into nature, which may in turn be a fall from grace or a fall into grace, and against nature, which may result in a corruption of nature or freedom from its corrupting forces. Color is a lapse into decadence and a recovery of innocence.” There is also a very interesting quote of Paul Cezanne: “Shut your eyes, wait, think of nothing. Now, open them… One sees nothing but a great colored undulation. What then? An irradiation and glory of color. This is what a picture should give us… an abyss in which the eye is lost, a secret germination, a colored state of grace… lose consciousness. Descend with the painter into the dim tangled roots of things, and rise again from them in colors, be steeped in the light of them”. I really love those quotes and their relation to new life, with just the idea of being steeped in a glory of newness from God. The reason I thought about including the abstract paintings is because being all color they sort of picture the idea of being steeped in color, which in turn is a picture of God steeping us in new life.

black and white

Yo folks, wanted to post about a couple of the paintings that I’m thinking about putting in the show so I can get some of your thoughts. Something screwy is going on with the posting of images so I have to wait and leave the writing on by itself for now. This’ll be long, so I’m splitting it into two posts. Hope the images show alright—they’re all about 6x7 foot, give or take a foot, so you’ll have to imagine it I guess. I’ve been doing my student teaching this semester, so creating through my students rather than directly, so my contribution to the show will have to be previous work. I’m posting 5 images, so I’m just looking for a couple thoughts on which work most with the theme of new life.

The black and white and gold images are an aesthetic approach that I enjoy because it involves both drawing and photography. The first two images are art historical ‘redo’s’—Rembrandt’s Three Crosses and Brueghel’s Way of the Cross. Obviously being about the cross they have to do with new life, but more than that, drawing on top of an image that looks sort of like a photographic blur is like how we ‘draw’ on top of reality—we think things about reality and sometimes that distorts reality (sinful and/or weak human thoughts) but it also is necessary because we have to respond to what is revealed and work to honor what God gives us. The black and white aesthetic is sort of a dark and depressing look which relates to how things are prior to new life, like the murky waters in Genesis 1. The third image is an image I’ve titled ‘Abortion 8 weeks’. I initially did it because I wanted to do a big issue painting, but as I’ve thought of the issue of new life, I thought about how abortion is as far opposite of the idea of new life as we can think because it is such precious life that is destroyed, often a creation incredibly small and not fully formed, as new as new life can be but just as it starts to live its killed. The image I did the painting from is a little strange, mostly because I didn’t want the image to be what you necessarily expect—the photographer used a quarter for scale, and moved the dead baby’s limbs. I realize its gruesome, but art is often about the business of making us notice things about the world (usually more attractive and beautiful things) that we wouldn’t otherwise notice, and so challenge our typical experience of life, so I hope that by looking at a painting of something so bad, our knowledge of the beauty and importance of new life is jolted out of laziness.

in response to julia

Hey Julia. that observation is absolutely correct about spring. I read a book called the "Message of the cross" - excellent. I recommend it to everyone. But they talked about how the passover took place in spring - because of new life the corn growing - or whatever - not sure. But how it would be this visual that God used to remind them of freedom, life and new beginnings. No accidents in times, seasons or events in Scripture. every verse unlocks and is packed with revelation into the mind of God Himself.
excellent point Julia.

I am almost done Connie. Due to my increasingly busy schedule, i don't think I will be able to do the light swith idea. I would love to, but would need lots of help. wink wink hint hint....
I have one painting 5' x 6', one drawing - 4' x 5', the conversation series squares (2) and I am currently working on a drawing.

Hows everyone else?
Rob

one month reminder

ahh, deadlines are good for us aren't they.

well i have plenty of painting ahead of me. how are those conversation series going? Jeff?? And Drew, how are your photo concepts coming?

okay, well I'll email all the artists about a week or so before our deadline, Easter, with instructions for sending me pics and info for your work.

Hope you're all well. Drop us a line here and let us know how your progress is coming.

warmly,
connie

'church marketing sucks' & other thoughts

this is a website i found - i'm interested to hear other's thoughts on it.
www.churchmarketingsucks.com

interesting premise, although it's hard to find examples of what they think 'doesn't suck' - it just seems like a lot of blogging to me, but if you beg to differ, please say so.

life starts: it's spring soon!

has anyone ever thought about how Easter and Spring happen at the same time? new life in nature, new life in Christ being resurrected... or am i light years behind everyone else?

the magnolia tree outside my window is SO close to blooming
buds that were brown all winter are now slowly turning gorgeous pink.

'all around us we observe a pregnant creation . . . ' - romans 8, the Message.

a little progress

currently: printing big type, crinkling it up, and then scanning it back in. this is in the vein of what i'll be making for NA. thoughts? using this texture in the e.e. magazine.