Hey Paul, just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy your sketches here. The best thing about them is that you actually do them every day . I constantly tell myself I'm going to start up my artwork again and I constantly fail to do it. This bowl, as simple as it is, is one of my favorites. God bless and keep it up.
Thank you, Christopher. It is very much appreciated! I think maybe our tastes are quite similar. There have been days or nights in the past few weeks - since I decided to draw every day - where I almost just decided not to draw, and did it as "just this thing I do". I'm surprised at how more ambitious pieces don't get the response that the other pieces get which I approached more lightheartedly.
Do you have some of your artwork featured at Sanctus Christopher?
Maybe I should start a fiction blog with the same philosophy behind it. Make up a story every day, even if it's not any good and is "just this thing I do." (Now that I ponder it, most writing manuals I've read have recommended something similar.)
But really, Stilwell, the first thing that came to mind when I read your reply to Christopher was not my own attempts at "art" (The scare quotes are there for my writing, not for your drawing) but my approach to daily Mass. And it got me thinking that if I were content to pray the rosary every night not as some sublime, beautiful prayer, but as "just this thing I do," it would be a prayer more pleasing to God than anything offered up only when I am in the mood.
Now you have me pondering how I can pray the rosary without distractions. I wonder if my distractions come about from thinking (automatically on some level) I have to be doing this Big and Holy Thing; and the distractions are like an unconscious way of avoiding being stretched thin, since that is what feeling we need to do a Big and Holy Thing does: wears you out - in which case distractions could be like a means of survival. But to enter with smallness into "just this thing I do" - yes, it's then that distractions vanish and, surprise, you find yourself in the midst of meditation, or even contemplation.
I would love to read your fiction blog, if you ever did it.
Here's a small and poor sampling: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cyurkanin/sets/72157613758518914/
Unfortunately, I worked as an artist back in the day when we still were required to keep everything on slides and the few slides I have remaining I've never scanned into one of those stupid scanner attachments. Not being in the guild anymore, I'm assuming everything is digital now and slides have been relegated to the box full of 8-tracks and Betamxes.
Your work is awesome. I had no idea you were such a sculptor. I love the St. George, and well, all of it; the St. Christopher and Sebastion...Also the blue painting with what appears to me as mountains beneath the cloud. Are those crucifixes done straight in metal, or are they like a bronze casting? I have no idea how all that works by the way.
There are still galleries and schools that demand those non-digital slides for submissions of one's work.
I think the last music I listened to on an 8-track was T-Rex (which might as well have been the first time), and it was just to see what it was like to hear an 8-track. And I think for Beta it was that Ewok spin-off movie. Could be wrong though.
Thanks Paul, too bad the masses with money don't share your sentiment lol They're bronze, cast using the lost wax technique. And that cloud with the mountains pastel is actually the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.
As far as 8-tracks and betamaxes, it was more hyperbole. I'm old enough to remember them being thrown away and put in garage sales by my brothers and sisters but I never owned any. And we were cool enough to have VHS, I don't think I knew a single person that owned a betamax!
Looking at your continuous effort at drawing has inspired me to start up this week, thanks!!!
7 comments:
Hey Paul, just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy your sketches here. The best thing about them is that you actually do them every day . I constantly tell myself I'm going to start up my artwork again and I constantly fail to do it. This bowl, as simple as it is, is one of my favorites. God bless and keep it up.
Thank you, Christopher. It is very much appreciated! I think maybe our tastes are quite similar. There have been days or nights in the past few weeks - since I decided to draw every day - where I almost just decided not to draw, and did it as "just this thing I do". I'm surprised at how more ambitious pieces don't get the response that the other pieces get which I approached more lightheartedly.
Do you have some of your artwork featured at Sanctus Christopher?
+JMJ+
Maybe I should start a fiction blog with the same philosophy behind it. Make up a story every day, even if it's not any good and is "just this thing I do." (Now that I ponder it, most writing manuals I've read have recommended something similar.)
But really, Stilwell, the first thing that came to mind when I read your reply to Christopher was not my own attempts at "art" (The scare quotes are there for my writing, not for your drawing) but my approach to daily Mass. And it got me thinking that if I were content to pray the rosary every night not as some sublime, beautiful prayer, but as "just this thing I do," it would be a prayer more pleasing to God than anything offered up only when I am in the mood.
Now you have me pondering how I can pray the rosary without distractions. I wonder if my distractions come about from thinking (automatically on some level) I have to be doing this Big and Holy Thing; and the distractions are like an unconscious way of avoiding being stretched thin, since that is what feeling we need to do a Big and Holy Thing does: wears you out - in which case distractions could be like a means of survival. But to enter with smallness into "just this thing I do" - yes, it's then that distractions vanish and, surprise, you find yourself in the midst of meditation, or even contemplation.
I would love to read your fiction blog, if you ever did it.
Here's a small and poor sampling: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cyurkanin/sets/72157613758518914/
Unfortunately, I worked as an artist back in the day when we still were required to keep everything on slides and the few slides I have remaining I've never scanned into one of those stupid scanner attachments. Not being in the guild anymore, I'm assuming everything is digital now and slides have been relegated to the box full of 8-tracks and Betamxes.
Your work is awesome. I had no idea you were such a sculptor. I love the St. George, and well, all of it; the St. Christopher and Sebastion...Also the blue painting with what appears to me as mountains beneath the cloud. Are those crucifixes done straight in metal, or are they like a bronze casting? I have no idea how all that works by the way.
There are still galleries and schools that demand those non-digital slides for submissions of one's work.
I think the last music I listened to on an 8-track was T-Rex (which might as well have been the first time), and it was just to see what it was like to hear an 8-track. And I think for Beta it was that Ewok spin-off movie. Could be wrong though.
Thanks Paul, too bad the masses with money don't share your sentiment lol They're bronze, cast using the lost wax technique. And that cloud with the mountains pastel is actually the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.
As far as 8-tracks and betamaxes, it was more hyperbole. I'm old enough to remember them being thrown away and put in garage sales by my brothers and sisters but I never owned any. And we were cool enough to have VHS, I don't think I knew a single person that owned a betamax!
Looking at your continuous effort at drawing has inspired me to start up this week, thanks!!!
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