writing

Apr

26

Just For You

Music  Posted by

Whatever you do, do your work from the soul, as for the Lord, rather than for men. – Colossians 3:23 (NASB)

If we were to play the “find something in your purse that tells us who you are” icebreaker, I would most certainly whip out my 4 color pen emblazoned with Thomas Jefferson’s words, “ I cannot live without books.” I’ve had a lifelong love affair with both novels and nonfiction, and I’m never more than an arms-length from the written word other than when I’m swimming in the ocean. And even then, there’s a paperback waiting for me in my beach bag.

I also confess to an inordinate desire for writing implements, and I’m constantly engaged in a quest for the perfect pen. As a child I longed for stamp pads and colored pencils, I begged my grandfather for his delicious new legal pads, and when my mom took us to the store I would always choose a treat from the stationery aisle rather than the toy department.

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May

13

The Size of Your Canvas

Journal  Posted by
(First of all, let me say that I prefer dogs to cats by a factor of about fifty, but this watercolor of a blue-eyed cat by my friend Linda Mullen almost makes me want to switch sides. I have no talent in the visual arts, so I am completely dazzled by her ability to use just a little paint and water and paper to recreate a cat that looks like it wants to hop right into your lap and meow. Linda is an artist who deserves a wider audience and so I’m taking this opportunity to share her work, lindamullen.com, and gallery, Ballast Point Gallery, with you. )

The Size of Your Canvas: Reflections on Art and Audience

Some paintings are so big that they are best seen from a great distance.

In Rome I wanted nothing more than for the guards to just go away and leave us alone so that I could lie on my back and gaze up for hours at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Instead, craning my neck in the midst of a hot and sweaty crowd of hundreds of others, I had to grab what I could in the frustratingly short 15 minutes they allowed us to view the frescoes we’d crossed an ocean and waited hours to see.

Other paintings are smaller in size, but no less powerful. At the Louvre in Paris, we were in a similar herd of tourists filing past the Mona Lisa, which turned out to be not a commanding painting at all, if size were the measure. Little more than life size, the drably colored canvas could only be viewed by few people at once. There was an optimal viewing distance, and it was much closer than that of Michaelangelo’s frescoes.

Both are masterpieces.

Last Friday night, Jeff and I happened upon on art show in San Diego featuring a Spanish artist, Royo. His paintings were grand scale expressionistic works of young beauties with downcast eyes, clad in gauzy garments and holding baskets of

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Dec

11

Little Giants, Going Down!

CrossWise Living  Posted by

After an hour of sorting through the overstuffed iPhoto folders clogging my computer, I accomplished some necessary deletion and some happy recollection of the wonderful places and people I’ve seen in the past year. And I will admit it freely— if I found a picture where my actual weight and/or age were undeniably obvious, I hit delete. If you were standing next to me and looked fabulous, I’m very sorry.

As the year draws to a close, it’s good to spend some time taking inward inventory, reflecting on goals attained and accomplishments that should be celebrated. Today as I perused a year’s worth of pictures, what took shape for me was a list of things you probably wouldn’t have guessed I’ve battled this year. Since I am a musician, a teacher, and a writer, you might assume I do these things with complete ease. Not so. I call them Little Giants, and I am naming them because I want to acknowledge that God has continued his work in my life this year, helping me win some small but significant victories over various forms of fear.

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Nov

23

Stitching a Work of Art

CrossWise Living  Posted by
Stitching a Work of Art

When I say I’ve been a quilter, I mean I’ve enjoyed the social aspects of meeting together with other women in the church basement, learning how to turn old scraps into something warm and useful. During the years when I was home with small children, I enthusiastically churned out a succession of amateurish patchwork quilts­ for friends and relatives.  I loved doing it—I just never got good at it.

My husband and I still cuddle up under a now-ragged patchwork quilt I made nearly 20 years ago. It was never flawless enough to be mounted and displayed, but its blunt and unmatched points never prevented it from keeping us warm and cozy. They say Amish women would deliberately sew a mistake into their quilts as a reminder that God alone is perfect. I never had to be that intentional about it.

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