Not sure why I am fascinated with the religious iconography of Catholicism, it may be more the folk shrines and art of Latin American countries I have seen that makes it so interesting to me, but I wanted to try a few ideas and this is the first of that series.  The Catholic devotion, Sacred Heart of Jesus, is the inspiration behind the visual elements, though even after reading up on it some, I can’t say I really understand what is meant by a devotion in this context.  However, the title, while being a play on words, is also drawn from the materials, a heart encircled by barbed wire, while a prisoner of sorts, is also guarded.  Wounded and scarred, a make shift stitch job, still shows an exposed, unhealed wound.  The glory that should show from the heart is instead portrayed from distressed, dirty, fading wood.

Certainly a commentary of the condition of my own heart often, if we’ll brave a conversation, we find we are not alone in our fearful, scarred hearts.

Dictionary, letterpress wood block, pen nibs, antique German black letter page from New Testament (Johannes 1 chapter 3), letter.

A tribute I have planned on doing for Johannes Gutenberg for several years now, it only came together recently, in quite different ways than I imagined at first.

I like it, plan on doing a few more of these.

Started leaving these around town today, in honor of the Day of the Dead coming up in a few days.  They are Corona and Dos Equis bottle caps made into little pins with marigolds and skulls or tombstones.  The text on skulls are obituaries.  The Day of the Dead holiday is more a celebratory and commemorative holiday, honoring and remembering the dead but it is still a kind of memento mori and I like the colors. Not sure if I will do more each year but it was fun to try something new.

Finished this piece recently, part of work for an upcoming small show, more of an arts and craft fair.  It is a concept I happened upon while making a gift for my brother in law for Christmas.  I wrote about the small jar filled with grass and a cutout of a phrenology head drawing,

“The first little jar has the phrenology head you like, sorry I don’t have a spare one I can part with right now, but if I did, you would have it.  But the image is powerful to me because it is a great example of humanity’s attempts to understand ourselves, our behaviors and our souls.  It is a scientific attempt but it ultimately fails.  The jar contains withered grass and a pinch of dust; both from a graveyard, reminders of our mortality and that there is a terminal limit on searching for self knowledge.”

I had not set out to demonstrate anything really, just wanted to incorporate in a small place, the phrenology head image and had learned it’s background as an example of 19th century pseudoscience (however self serving that term is for the modern science establishment) and it’s ernest but misguided attempt to understand ourselves.   But the piece came together and I was very happy with it.  But the image has stuck with me and I have made a few small pieces like it.

I assembled this piece and love it’s simplicity.

I heard also last week of a a man I know of, a young man with a wife and small child and a promising start as a filmmaker, diagnosed with cancer.

It stops me in my tracks and I have been moved to pray for him and he has been on my thoughts through this week.

It seems wrong to make art that seems playful about the idea about our own mortality but it also does focus our attention to the truth that we are mere vapors, our lives short and unpredictable, this man and his family have laid hold of this truth and have come out with the greatest treasure, resting in Christ for their lives and sharing that hope with all they know.

So while it gave me pause to be making this kind of art I take courage that it’s ultimate aim is to point to our need to be prepared for eternity and trust in Christ

I’ve finished three pieces today derived from the Family Curse series, Adam’s Lament, I’m calling it.  It takes the elements of the curse upon the ground and our endeavors and works them into one piece. The character in the picture, Clay I have taken to calling him, is cut from a photograph by JohnVachon, 1941.  He is slumped over in despair or depression, and seems crushed. 

The elements from the curse, the earth, the thorns, thistles, sweat in work and our ultimate death form the background and the little bottle of graveyard dust reminds us that from dust we were formed and to dust we will return. 

Ironically making this piece and smaller collaged works has been a struggle for me as I stress about making art and making a living. Comically thinking about making the work, I reflected very little about my own struggles with work, not until I was finished with them and thinking about writing did I realize how much I chase after the perfect livelihood, that somehow I expect my faith to save me from living out this struggle myself among thorns and thistles.  My faith, the real faith, of course has bearings on my whole life, work included, but as I have been making art and blogging over  a year now, there has been constant questions about if/when I might perhaps make a living by art and the perennial, albeit oft forgotten, resolution to trust God where I am at, keep making work from my heart, get better at it and be thankful for the blessings I have and the grace I enjoy.

So it seems like this is a good place to start making art that I will begin to sell, maybe not make a living at it just yet but at least start funding my artmaking with my own art sells.

I had really expected that I was about done with the family curse series, a series exploring the fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter three, through the lens of hoo doo curses and Great Depression images, playing on the idea that our struggles as individuals is somehow tied to a curse upon our family of origin, only it is a more ancient curse than we realize.

I have a few pieces in process that use the images of the family tree and family curse and ties it back to the tree of knowledge of good and evil that Adam and Eve partook of that brought sin in to the world.  I had hoped to finish finally with the cursed tree, where Christ became a curse for us and removed the curse of sin once and for all, but honestly those are hard images to imagine and execute.

Possibly as a stall, but also as it relates to the cursed roots of our family I am embarking on a series that explores the cursed fruit we see on our lives and the lives of those around us.  I have struggled between depicting the rest of Genesis after the fall and expulsion from the garden and the seven deadly sins, the resolution will reference both as this piece does.  The pride and rebellion of the Tower of Babel seems like a great parallel to pride in general working out in our own lives.

So here is the first piece of the next part of this series, trying to keep with Great Depression era images, I had to in this case reach back a bit further.  Pictured is the iceberg believed to have sunk the Titanic, the colossal of the White Star Line cruise ships. 

I enjoy that without being explained the image is abstract or looks at the Tower of Babel and Pride from a oblique angle, less literal and I like that, it’s joyful in a way I can’t describe.

Old photo of a worker picking cotton, a small vial of sweat and worn bandanna. 

The final piece in the series, though I am working on a few other related pieces.  Thought I would finish up posting these pieces as I am moving and will be sweating quite a bit today myself.

Thistles (or a thistle like species) springing up to frame and threaten the harvest being stacked in the old photo.

A famer plowing the field in a old photograph is surrounded by layers of thorns.

“we see the vivid juxtaposition of thorns surrounding a photograph of a farmer plowing behind a horse. Sharp thorns threaten the framer’s actions and seem to hem him in from all sides, alluding to the difficulty of working the earth.”

Old image of house and land from the Great Depression, Dust Bowl era, and parched earth picture cut and reassmebled on of a duplicate to get cracks in the piece.  Bottle full of graveyard dirt.  Part of the three that will be in a traveling show for CIVA.