Water Color Art

I painted a picture for Jenissa as a birthday/Christmas gift. It was the first time I experimented with water color; I loved it. I'm also quite pleased by the way it turned out.

original photograph

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pencil outline

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However, my phone's camera doesn't bring out the color well. I like the b + w version better. 

Have a great week. :) 

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The Glass Castle: Memoir of A Woman Much Stronger Than Glass

It's now the dead of summer. With summer follows a bit of space in our schedules (we hope, anyway). If you're looking for a good summer read, consider The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.

For me, the book provided more than mere entertainment. Jeannette's is a story we could all learn from. Growing up far below the poverty line, she learned how to become self-efficient, smart, and resilient to whatever life threw her way; and let me tell you, life chucked her some pretty nasty dirt.

Here's a short summary from Goodreads, you can find the rest at: Goodreads.com/The Glass Castle

Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn’t stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an “excitement addict.” Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever. More

While turning through the memories of Jeannette's childhood, I couldn't help my jealous thoughts. Perhaps, never having lived in poverty, I'm like the anxious house cat trying to sneak its way out the back door, oblivious to the harsh realities of the wild.

Nevertheless, the pages of Jeannette's story stirred me deeply, as all good books should. Her memoir led me to a simple fact: security isn't everything.

Security is favorable, it's what we are conditioned to desire. It's practical, too. Nobody likes falling out of a car zooming down the highway and waiting for hours with a bloody nose and gravel-torn skin, debating whether daddy will actually stop and turn around for you (one of Jeannette's memories).

Yet, with too much security, something within our human soul suffers, I'm convicted of it. People become bored, and as a result, boring.

With that being said, life is not a matter of what we do, but how we think. Living is entirely a mindset.

You can be as poor as dirt, never have a real place to call home, or new clothes, or consistent meals, or reliable parents, or friends, and still feel content and okay about life. That might seem like a stretch, but it's Jeannette's story.

Her childhood goes to show that some of the richest, most brilliant experiences of life can still came from a life in complete poverty.

We all need to remember that.

As we work hours and hours at our nine to five jobs, remember. Remember that happiness and fulfillment have little connection to the zeros behind our paychecks. As we save and save for that new car, bigger house, better school, remember. Providing for a family consists of more than a roof and a weekly grocery list and the latest technology.

More importantly, providing for a family means investing in their souls. It means taking your children outside and looking up at the stars together, explaining the names and stories behind the constellations and asking each one of those excited little faces to pick out their favorite, because Christmas presents will come and go but stars will last for lightyears.

Providing for a family means showing your children they don't need the weight of possessions, the confirmation of other's approval, or the comfort of a really nice home. Instead, providing for them means showing (not just telling) them life has a lot more to offer. It means challenging their thinking, inspiring them with the way you choose to live, and truly believing in the potential that they can only reach on their own; this is the rutty, more authentic beauty of provision.

I wouldn't suggest becoming an alcoholic, or losing yourself in your own dreams, or refusing to work, or neglecting to feed your children. I wouldn't suggest running from the police, or laying in bed for days, or stealing your kid's grocery money, or leaving and never saying when or if you'll come back.

Rather, I would suggest, no matter who you are, what you do, or the stage of life your family is in, to intentionally be aware of the way you think. The truest forms of joy and fulfillment lie just above your shoulders, a little behind your eyes, and squarely between your ears. Dear Reader, it's the simple, little things in life that produce life's fullness; things like intimacy, love, and peace. All things, I will modestly point out, that have nothing to do with your social or financial status, or the quality of your lawn.

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Jeannette Walls

Jeanette Walls - BIOGRAPHY

Jeannette Walls was born in Phoenix, Arizona. Her parents moved the family around the southwest before settling for a time in Welch, West Virginia. It was in West Virginia, as she entered her teens, that she was often mistreated. At age 17 she moved to New York City. With the help of part-time jobs, she eventually entered Columbia University’s Barnard College, where she graduated with honors.

She had come to love journalism while working on her high school newspaper so she tried working as a gopher for New York Magazine while she attended college. She eventually moved to the business section and ended up a news reporter for USA Today. Her first gossip column was written once again at New York Magazine. She moved on to Esquire Magazine’s gossip column and worked at MSNBC as an online columnist and television segment reporter for eight years (leaving in 2007), before deciding to turn her full attention to writing books. She now lives in Virginia and is married to another writer, John Taylor. 

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“We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.” 
― Immanuel Kant
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{dm}

Art Week

My brother Nate is going to be an art teacher soon. He starts his student teaching this fall. He's excited, and a little apprehensive I think. For some experience, he organized a week-long art class for my little sister Brielle and a few of her friends.

He organized the class in the log cabin my dad built in our back yard. Such a fun environment to learn in! 

I think he really did enjoy preparing for the projects.

Pretty sure this paint is ten years old, it looks familiar. I think I used it when I was Brie's age.

Obviously, Brielle loved the class, and also getting her picture taken.

The girls made several different projects throughout the course of the week.

Today, when I stopped by, they were painting landscapes and sunsets. 

As you can see, my dog has no idea why she's in this picture. 

Success! They loved it. Everyone benefitted. Beautiful. Just beautiful. Look at those smiling faces! Ah! Priceless.

Good luck Nate! Just one more semester. Welcome back to elementary school!

All for now,
{dm}

Art and God

True art captures God--revealing the complexity, creativity and deeply-hidden desire in all of us.

The Hallelujah Song

This song. I was trying to figure out why I like it so much. It's because it speaks the truth about humanity with such a clear, personal perspective. Communication in this way is beautiful. I'm jealous of it. The poem, written by Leonard Cohem, sung here by Jeffrey Buckley, is about a man pouring out his heartache and confusion over a fallen relationship with a woman.

Listen to this song.

I looked up people's various interpretations of the Hallelujah poem. An anonymous writer shared:

Hallelujahs:
The song revolves around the word Hallelujah, which is a Hebrew word which means praise Yah/Jah or the Lord. And through the song, he says that all Hallelujahs are of equal value no matter the circumstance or the cause of the act. Weather it is in complete blissful faith or is from broken desperation, all ways and goals to prise the lord mean the same and are all equal. http://www.lyricinterpretations.com/Leonard-Cohen/Hallelujah

There were two more vital parts in Cohem's poem that Buckley didn't sing:

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

[Chorus]

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

As listeners, we experience the various meanings of the hallelujahs as the song progresses. I'll steal from the thoughts of the same anonymous writer mentioned above, who explained the hallelujahs as spiritual, like David's "secret cord that pleased the lord", sad and desperate, "cold and broken," orgasmic, uncertain, and finally, worship.

This is what I want in my writing. It's ugly, uncertain, compelling. It's the pursuit of fulfillment in human, often erotic ways, followed by utter loneliness and abandonment, the doubt and uncertainty of a greater Love, and finally, confession and faith. It's the redemption story. The best part is you would never know unless you were really searching between the lines. Cohem shows instead of tells his redemption. There's a big difference.

Is the purpose of creativity amusement and pleasure? Should it overflow from our spirit to bring us delight and elation? Or, is creativity something to be strained after. Is true creation found in those endless nights, early mornings, and long days--forcing, searching, crying, aching, at times tedious, even unfulfilling and defeating--until the work is done.

Until it is finished.

Perhaps it is both. Do we believe creativity should be a natural experience of expression and freedom? I do. Yet, it also depends on who you are creating for. Are you creating for your own pleasure? Then create whenever it pleases you, whenever you feel like it. There is value in that. However, to you who create for creation's sake: be willing to get uncomfortable. There are times when creation is difficult, and even worse, mundane. You must create when it does not please you, when you do not feel like investing the time. This is another aspect of genuine creativity. If you want to create from the deepest parts of the soul, you must break your own heart and pour the fragments out in your work. When you give away those vulnerable, buried chambers of your soul, you will reach the self of humankind.

Be effective. Search for a channel, a way to filter yourself to the world. Find it, my friend, whatever it is, and give it away. Creativity is meant to be shared.

Portrait Pencil Drawing

I love to draw. Yet, even more, I love to draw for other people. I took Drawing 1 last semester in the intent to take all the prerequisites for the photography classes. However, I found that it is very difficult to minor in art. It's far too time consuming. I am thankful God has gifted me with a natural ability to create quality art, but I don't intend to make a career out of it. Nonetheless, I will definitely use my ability to bless others. Art is the perfect gift. I love creating and giving away the blessing to others.

Corrine & Maelyn, Christmas 2011^

Creativity is Prayer

“The really creative person is not interested in dominating anybody. He is so utterly rejoicing in life — he wants to create, he wants to participate with God. Creativity is prayer. And whenever you create something, in those moments you are with God, you walk with God, you live.” – Osho

When I look at the work of my hands I am pleased, for I know that it is good. I share a moment with God as the created beholds her own creation. There is something sacred about such knowledge.