Another Fencepost adventure

I'm headed back to the farm for the weekend!

Can't wait to see my family...hug my pa, and walk the fence line. (mixed media in sketchbook)

My secret garden

Serving others all day is the cost for the evening moments when I can cuddle up under the lamp with a new book.

And Saturdays, without a rude waking alarm, can be heavenly! Artwork on my wall by Mark Ziobro top left, and Hoda Kashiha and bottom Jackie Gopie.

wings and many prayers

sketchbook page

A colleague of mine had open heart surgery today. He's been waiting nervously in the hospital for over a week now and I know his family is exhausted. I pray they find the energy and the sustenance to pull through. My life is blessed by proximity to unsung heroes. This man certainly is a special hero one to many of the kids and faculty on campus.

Making something, like a drawing in my sketchbook, helps me focus my energies, and calm my nerves. While drawing and painting this image I prayed for my friend, for angels help and God's love.

Miami Basel in sight on horizon

The Guernica seen through carnival fun mirrors is ...like the Miami Basel hype. There is a rumble through the artist studios. Where is the work? Who has the work? What is to be said? How much time do we have? Who has the money? When? And of course... though many try not to ask it, Why?

Hand it to my Senior artists

Using linoleum carving, printing and collage these young artists made a statement about their hands. Each work is a personal reflection of who they are. Each one is marvelous!

Call me "Pictor Celerrimus"

Me painting Wings

One of my talents is that I can paint fast. I have always wanted to try one of the "1, 2, 3,draw" type of contests and, with that in mind, I have entered a talent show later this week where I will have 3 minutes to paint a portrait. My subject will be singing a song that will last the time I need to create a suitable likeness of him. It should be a real lark!
In my research of Lucas Cranach as my ancestral grandfather and artistic muse, I was delighted to find out that he was also talented with a speedy brush. Called "Pictor Celerrimus" or "fast brush", Lucas Cranach was granted a crest in 1508 by the Saxon Elector Friedrich The Wise that was emblematic of his speed- a winged serpent! Cranach used the winged serpent to sign his paintings, prints, and public works that were created from his workshop. After his 24 year old eldest son Hans died in 1537, the workshop, carried on by the second son, Lucas the Younger, altered  the wings of the serpent from a wide spread to softly folded back. 

Ever prolific, and living into his 80's, fifteen hundred paintings exist that can be traced to his workshop! In addition Cranach had one of the earliest printing presses and printed millions of illustrated pamphlets during the Reformation.

Severed heads and the pretty picture

 Lucas Cranach and his 15th century workshop cranked out dozens upon dozens of variations of the Biblical story of Judith and Holofernes. The ladies may vary, but they consistently depict the heroine as an absentminded or smug 15th century lady of nobility. His models were ladies ranking from high society. They wore their best outfits to pose for him. He painted them, and his journeymen copied them over and over again for the open market.
Cranach was a collaborator with Martin Luther, supporting the Protestant reformation. The story of Judith struck a chord with the Protestant reformers, since it described the courage of a small nation (such as Saxony) resisting a tyrant from outside who sought to impose his own beliefs about God on them, (such as the Pope).  Some historians, like Steven Ozment in The Serpent and the Lamb (Yale Press 2011), say that Cranach was championing the female in society by calling out her wily wits and upper hand over the dreamy drunken sex-obsessed males. They conclude that the Cranach workshop's obsessive manufacture of Judith paintings are proof of a contemporary belief in the superior intelligence, courage and social equality of women.
There was definitely an attempt at this time to balance the classic focus of male heroes in Christian tradition with biblical heroines who could be role models of particular virtues. Judith is the sober beauty who sacrifices her body to a rapist in order to disarm the enemy and save her city. Am I the only one to find the conjectured historical analysis of this series of paintings to be a little blind? She has just slain a man! None of this is a message of equality or virtue. It is more like a threat...and a warning.

Are two heads better than one?

Why not three?

After Cranach