Colours do not fade but rather are
obstructed by blocked inkjet nozzles,
killed by camera sensor dust,
muted by tone curves,
amped by ambition.

Veils of history aside
I do intend to trust 580 as
the count of nanometres where
Orange will run out to meet Lemon
regardless of the present century.

And these same wavelengths will remain
as diligently honest as the mirror
with respect to cosmetics, not withstanding
the lines on your back and
the pimples on my cheek.

I’ve been working with Tom Smith at SML Solutions to produce my digital tapestries in a new display format. The artwork begins as a satin inkjet print, and is then sandwiched between sheets of aluminum and acryllic. "U-channels" fixed to the backside enable both a convenient hanging workflow, as well as an elegant floating appearance on the wall. At Move: AN UPWARDS JOURNEY I had an opportunity to showcase the fantastic possibilities offered by this approach. I’m particularly excited about the 6-foot tall Lipo Osteo, although a lot of people in the Christian community seemed to gravitate towards Communio – perhaps because on the surface it appears to be more hopeful and accessible?

The show got me thinking in a new way about the contrast between permanence and the ephemeral. I like to celebrate the way in which my sculptures often blow away, or are playfully vandalized by children on the beach. And yet, in order to share their poignant fragility, I must immortalize them between layers of synthetic human-made ingenuity. Is monumentality a necessary evil? Are there environmental considerations in the use of aluminum and acrylic that war against my concept? What negative side effects are there whenever we (in artmaking, or in other disciplines) work to carve out (for ourselves) a place?

oh conniving incubator
direct your brooding
righteous anger
to devise an assassination plot
for greed

See Also: Zoomable Hatch

"The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation."

Excerpt from T.S. Eliot, "The Dry Salvages" (No. 3 of "Four Quartets")

Text: The Dry Salvages
Audio: T. S. Eliot reading: The Dry Salvages
See Also: Zoomable Salvage Something

Flesh Word straddles the interface between idea and action. It’s a kind of language game. In my head and heart are heavy, violent, dark things, as well as hopeful things. And to explain/express them, I’m limited when I resort to frameworks of language. But the free-flowing advantages of digital tapestry extend also to written work. I can be both honest and open-ended, when meanings flow like this: connected ambigiuously, but placed in stark playful juxtaposition. It may not be accurate in every sense, but when I metaphor-mesh in word and (pixel) flesh, the results challenge and surprise me every time.

Of course there’s an analytical element. "Flesh word" is a derivative of the typical incarnation story "Word became Flesh". These meandering reflections owe whatever stability they have to that story as it’s traditionally told. So when I follow the story into another space altogether… when I see the dance between matter and spirit going onward, beyond the embodiment of God into human form… when I see our actions, our flesh, in turn become the raw materials for our ideas: our theology, our philosophy, our headspace, our heartspace … then I need Jesus to bring all that heaven back down to earth.

When violence permeates both our words and actions, I find irony and hope in discovering the language of a "Mooring Point" on the fuselage of a fighterplane at the airshow, along with a "Refueling"… It’s disconcerting to have to refuel (even spiritually) if the whole process is geared towards enabling a bombing mission. It is, of course, possible that there are legitimate targets / wars / enemies. I’d rather not have to invent their justification. And yet my own heart (engaging with its place and tradition) has managed plenty such inventions. By putting it all out there, I hope I can focus on the the light, on the solution, even the cosmic humour of it all.

Christmas reminds me of a kind of letting go. The Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world. The the veil of the drama involving oversized stars and sheep keepers, we’ve got a little glint of green amid the metal and flesh, the word and the flesh, the flesh wound beneath the gleam of gold-leaf. Flesh Word.

Zoomable Flesh Word

Coordinates: 27.818124,-15.767749

This beach lies just to the west of the harbour in Mogán in Grand Canaria. The image, its composition, and the relationships within it, offer me an opportunity to reflect on a more human arrangement of space and form.

I am a fragment of seaworthiness, robbed of my watery context, denied the opportunity to flourish. I bear the burden of emptiness, carrying precisely zero fishermen. I’m guessing someone had a communications strategy for the sign-space between those two poles… but the wind had a strategy of its own.

And that sphere — is it some kind of anchor? Or a floating buoy? Maybe one of us will leave an educated guess in the comments below. But for the moment the ambiguity resonates with me. Sinking and swimming are playground pals, having learned to take turns.

And yet: is there a hint (in these hollows) of hope?

Could those posts be a soccer net? This sphere an autumn moon? This fading paint a affirmation of an enduring dance between primary and secondary hues?

It is what it is. But it is also what you make of it.

Pivoting around this throbbing heart of metal, we hear the groans and scrapes of a weary but joyful past, now given a time to rest and repose, and to serve as a new a kind of (spiritual) vessel.

This journey ain’t over, people. It’s just getting started.

6-year-old me didn’t need to know the author’s name, although the gold-coloured Newberry medal on the cover intrigued, if only mildly .

What mattered then, to begin with, was the dread of the goblins, the treachery of milk turned sour, and the anguish of villagers.

More recently, the premise of this tale resurfaced in my conscience through such films as "How to Train a Dragon", although this edition was somewhat more redemptive and heartwarming.

In the goblin version, the hero’s wisdom amounts to a betrayal of a raindrop dance.

But today, the sunlight "dances between the raindrops" with a decidedly conciliatory vibrance.

—

ps: I will be fully grateful to the light that will be shone into my soul by the one who can recall the name and author of the story I am here struggling to recall

There’s a particular kind of memento mori that leads one to peaceful acquiescence in feeling and being small. So along with this image from the Luther Marsh, I’d like to share a few thoughts that I’ve gleaned from various artists and theologians. In particular the patient, thoughtful work of Andy Goldworthy is as helpful to me in this respect as is the vision of ultimate sustainability that Christianity calls heaven. (I recommend watching Rivers and Tides as an intro to Goldsworthy’s work.)

Goldsworthy grasps something of "a thousand years are like a day" when placing eons-old stone in conversation with ephemeral leaves, and asking the ocean to converse with driftwood. When he gives his sculture as a gift to the sea, allowing the tide to swallow it, he’s thinking about "things that happen to us in life, that change our lives, that cause upheavals and shock". When we discover along with Goldsworthy that “the very thing that brings the work to life is the thing that will cause its death,” we feel as if we have confronted our own fragility in what is not merely an arrangement of nature: this is a most realistic portrait of fallen humanity.

In giving himself over to these forces beyond him, though, Goldsworthy finds a kind of peace. He calls it a "comeing to terms with the transience of life", and makes it his goal to "not fight that by making permanent things, but to accept and enjoy the transience." It seems likely that Goldsworthy would have shared Yahweh’s disdain for the pride of Babel. Theology notwithstanding, all of this has a more personal twist too. In the moment of a relative’s death, there are tears, to be sure… but for Goldsworthy the moment becomes an opportunity, to dig a hole: to create "a visual entrance into the earth, into the tree, into the stone, the place into which and from which life ebs and flows".

Dust you are and to dust you shall return?

Yes, but there’s a profound hope here, too. There is such a thing as resurrection, as transformation, as rebirth. A window into the earth at the base of a tree may be dark indeed, but "out of that comes growth also".

As an oak leaf, I may cling to the branch that is my mother for a long, long season. Perhaps even hanging on well into the new spring. But if I acquiesce in smallness, I may enjoy the vibrance of being green, but also look forward to being autumnally bright. I may see the peace in this: to be subsumed into the forest floor is an ultimate giving of self towards the flourishing of future foliage, and corresponds to an awareness of the many deaths on which my own life depends. But not in a macabre sort of way… rather in a joyful celebration of living in full self-awareness.

In recognizing these realities for myself, I realise that I could die at any moment. To put it in Davidic terms, I will inevitably go the way of all the earth. But I’m blessed to know such a vast visual language through which to make sense of these of seeds "sown perishable and raised imperishable". Whether I gather these images from God’s word or God’s world, they permeate my theological mind, and I love deeply the God to whose glory they sing.

See Also: Swim
Go Closer: Zoomable Swam

The bit in brackets is not a scripture reference. "Rev. 2" is a designation to indicate that this is the second revision (or waypoint, or landmark, or stopover) of an image on a journey. I’m discovering a new level of process in artmaking. The first instance of Eden, Zion is now more than a year old, and has had time to filter through my head, to become iconic, to gather up mental associations into itself, and to evolve into a kind of visual framework. Having matured in this way, the garden and the city have gained flavour, much like a fine wine, acquiring flavour whilst aging in a barrel, the image is again ready to say something. I can now pull "Eden, Zion" at will from my visual refrigerator, to employ its meaning in the context of, say, a mealtime discussion on postmodern Christianity.

In this instance, I’ve begun to articulate through white overlay, a kind of integration of events and experiences – the resulting story reveals a spiritual dimension coexisting with the material, tactile world. Spirit and thought dance have begun an awkward dance with matter and molecule.

There may, however, be need for facilitation: a dance instructor, perhaps? I’m hoping to add a third layer here – of oil paint between rust and mist – to help these elements-at-odds get along, and maybe even to visually sing.

Stay tuned for Rev 3!

Back in Time: Eden, Zion
See Also: Zoomable Eden, Zion (Rev. 2)

These words herald a story told elsewhere. I’m telling it there because I thought I would be cleaner in its own space.

Take me there!

These words herald a story told elsewhere. I’m telling it there because I thought I would be cleaner in its own space.

Take me there!