Category: Art

Related to visual or fine art.

Art-the universal human language of connection

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=518XP8prwZo]

Art isn’t a segment that involves a certain branch of the population, it is a part of the human spirit itself. Through it, the connection, and language under, deeper than words expresses more than linguistics allows. Without forms of art we seem like mere brutes, animals, or machines, hardly able to get past our own shallowness or insufficiencies. And with it we struggle through the same, and grow into fuller humanness, which is the point.

Ukrainian sand artist, Kseniya Simonova depicts her people and their struggles following WWI and into the Nazi takeover in this awing artistic performance. She gets to the root of the human experience, and in my opinion, the place of greatest need where God always is.

Please, tell me what you think of this video.

Photography

I was visiting the NPR website, and I came across an article about the enchanting artwork of Brigitte Lacombe. She is described as shy, and this is said to help bring out what most photographers cannot in their portraits. I have to admit, I was stunned. Yes, she often photographs celebrities, so often I recognized the faces. It wasn’t who she captured by camera, but it was the way she captured them that was so arresting.

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To be human, and to be caught in that beauty–apart from the cult of whatever celebrity one may or may not have found, is its own glory. It’s not a fading beauty. There is something eternal going on. It points off the map. There is something precious you feel blessed to witness as look gaze at art like this. Lacombe doesn’t snap photos, she’s an artist.

I’m also a huge fan of black and white photography. That makes up the bulk of her work. That medium is pure, and relies on composition and design primarily. When someone does it well, it shows. Lacombe is a creator, and she hits the mark.

You’ll find her inspiring portfolio at her website here.

Creator

 

_andrew_wyeth_paintingWinter, 1945

We’ll soon be making a trip to Chadds Ford, PA, the homestead of artist Andrew Wyeth–great American treasure, and recently deceased. The Brandywine Conservancy features a museum, and several home tours, gardens, artistic exhibitions, and events. 

The ability to create, not out of necessity, (as in a nest, den, or hive) but out of desire, touches on the spiritual side of humanity. It is a portal into the “unreasonable” parts of us–the beautiful mysterious.

For those of us who are creative or artistic, or even for those who can at least appreciate those ventures, there is something that lures us about creative pursuits. They are life-giving, both in the pursuit of them, and in the joys of the new experiences, and successes. It seems expressions of creativity point off the map to an even more solid Reality that transcends time and space, and envelops every culture in its realness.

A completely rational, sensible person would tell you there is no need for art perhaps. That it is a waste of time, effort, or money. Though, in a sense, there really is not enough reason for beauty qua beauty, yet, we see how much so many do care about it, at least in some form. (Film, fine art, sculptor, design, etc.)  See how much it moves us, and speaks to us, in language of its own, like nothing else can.

In every way in which we try to be creators we participate in something spiritual.

A question for you:

What have been your most life-giving creative pursuits?

Photography (art and the spiritual)

I’ve been drawn into visual images recently, both fine art creations such as paintings, drawings, etc. and also photography. Beauty is really a calling from the Divine. God is Beautiful. Also the epitome of beauty and perfection. For all people beauty is one of those eternal ideals we all are drawn to on some other level. Every culture prizes it. It harkens to something more, something off the map. Art may bring us in contact with our longing, and our connection to this great mystery.

I’m going explore it a bit more with photography. Perhaps with nature and portraits. It is not the external, surface of beauty, I will seek, but the essence, really the Socratic form of it.