The following is from an article that I read recently, that I believe should be of interest to those Christians who are tired of the persistent efforts of scientists to disprove the existence of God:

“The eternal universe Vs the big bang. The cyclic model proposed by Dr. Paul Frampton, Louis J. Rubin Jr. distinguished professor of physics in UNC's College of Arts & Sciences, and co-author Lauris Baum, a UNC graduate student in physics, has four key parts: expansion, turnaround, contraction and bounce.

During expansion, dark energy -- the unknown force causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate -- pushes and pushes until all matter fragments into patches so far apart that nothing can bridge the gaps. Everything from black holes to atoms disintegrates. This point, just a fraction of a second before the end of time, is the turnaround.

At the turnaround, each fragmented patch collapses and contracts individually instead of pulling back together in a reversal of the Big Bang. The patches become an infinite number of independent universes that contract and then bounce outward again, re-inflating in a manner similar to the Big Bang. One patch becomes our universe.

‘This cycle occurs an infinite number of times, thus eliminating any start or end of time,’ Frampton said. ‘There is no Big Bang.’”         Article Source: Cornell University Library

Nothing existing in the heavens or on the Earth happens without a cause.  And so, science proves eternity!  Now we’re getting somewhere….

 

Long dormant volcanoes are now becoming active around the world, the worst earthquakes in history are occurring more frequently, with tsunamis and nuclear disasters adding to the dangers…more tornadoes, more hurricanes, more floods are happening on every continent! Add to the natural disasters an economic crisis with worldly repercussions… major flu epidemics and some long-forgotten serious illnesses making a return…countless graduates from college with hard-earned degrees in the professions working as waiters or out of work, because no one will hire them….the cost of a college education so great that many prospective intellectual and professional people will never enrich our society, because students are unable to continue their studies…revolutions on a wide-spread scale in the Mid East… the U.S.’s never-ending involvement in wars that history has proven cannot be won, while young people die in the name of a “freedom” that will never come to those they protect… a return of piracy that no one seems to be able to control, endangering commerce and people simply out to enjoy a vacation voyage… and everywhere, people are on “high alert” from terrorism, with our privacy being invaded on all sides by the controls imposed on us for “our safety”! Did I leave anything out?

That’s today’s world.

So, I go about my daily life with a few visits to the market, preparing meals, doing the dishes, keeping the house clean, working where I can, while watching my income diminish monthly from fewer student enrollments and serious cutbacks in my retirement check – because the government doesn’t have enough money to keep paying me. Yet money freely comes off the printing presses in great quantities to “fix” the economic upheaval created by a greedy few CEO’s, who made their millions on our backs and continue to earn millions while the rest of us go in the hole. The U.S. is so far in debt to other countries, including those who are our proclaimed enemies that it is not hard to imagine what will happen when those who hate us decide to pull the rug. I’m careful with my money, spend only what I have, and never go beyond the necessities when I do. Suddenly I find that I cannot pay my few basic creditors

All these things were running around inside my head bumping into each other for the past few months and arguing over who should have the right of way! …and I found myself becoming seriously depressed!

Are you tired of hearing this? So am I! Can we fix any of this? No we can’t. It’s out of our control.

Well, I have a solution: sack cloth and ashes! What in heaven’s name am I talking about? Indeed, in Heaven’s name, I’m talking about what works. Through all of man’s history, prayer and sacrifice have always brought God’s grace to mankind. We cannot do a thing without God! Yet He can do ALL. He loves his children and He wishes our welfare at all times. We create our problems: He doesn’t. This is a timely thought. This editorial was written in Lent, a time of sacrifice preceding the greatest feast in history, and the promise it represents for our very happiness. In all of Christian civilization, it has always been so: sacrifice before grace. Confront the pain with valor because the healing will come! Sacrifice with a well-intentioned heart brings miracles. And more than ever before in history we need a miracle!

There are numerous historical events to prove the value of prayer and sacrifice, among them: The salvation of Nineveh, the victory of Lepanto, King Henry V’s victory at Agincourt, all won against overwhelming odds – in the name of God….and the most sublime of all, Christ’s sacrifice through his Passion and Cross, where God the Son, in his nature as man – alone - opened the door to eternal life to every human being who ever lived or ever will, as long as time exists!

We are not above our God. If prayer and sacrifice move God’s heart to compassion, I see the solution! It’s a simple one…and changing the world is within our hands without any doubt. God moves the waters and the earth. He can still them. God allows evil men to rule. He can overcome them. God values sacrifice and answers prayers.

You finish the last sentence…

When I view artwork in a Gallery or through a social media connection, I comment on something that I believe is good, but when I find an artist that breaks out of the mediocre to create a masterpiece, and receives few comments; then I see people falling all over themselves to congratulate an artist on a piece of bad art, I want to shout:  “People, don’t you know the difference?   Get your priorities straight!”

In today’s art world, anything goes.  I respect that. What I do not appreciate is the number of artists who are gaining recognition on the basis of art that is unpleasant to look at, can be copied by other artists, or shows no artistic talent at all!  When such an artist explains his or her work, the words can end up as meaningless as their art.  A case in point …

“My paintings are the result of a ritualistic process. This process includes a series of combative encounters between the artist, the subject and the canvas; where the mood of the artist, degree of vagueness of the subject, and chance of the materials, can create an infinite number of outcomes. […]
 
The movements of direction and perspective, in my paintings, act in a distortion of harmonious interactions and playful moments. The work presents a oneness of almost congested thickness, hints of depths, and constant shifting of weight. There is a musical aspect in the way things repeat, move forward, move in reverse, mutating and pushing matter as the flow pleases. The matter is usually suggested towards the natural world in the form of weathering landscapes, atmospheric energies or systems. Some present time and change within a geological melody.”       ----Jordan Cantwell’s artist statement

What did he say?

Jordan Cantwell can’t well define his art!  I’m not sure that he can even paint!  He is a Pollock who has only slightly become organized.  Contrary to traditional rules of landscape painting, here he paints the sun into his sky, red and furry.  It shines down on vague city structures that seem to be coming and going in various stages of “tipsy.” They hover over flowing pieces of blue emanating from the city like over-crowded freeways, eventually intermingling haphazardly and spreading out into a vast blue “ocean” on which sails a tiny red boat like the home-made one my kids used to play with in the bathtub. In the final observation, the sun and the boat are the only parts of this work that say anything – to each other!  Within his [quote] “combative encounters between the subject, the artist, and the canvas” the artist appears to have lost the fight.        ----My critique

Even if you don’t agree, indulge me here. It’s what I believe.  In the world of modernism the process of creating art often seems to be synonymous with “it doesn’t really matter.”  Yet, I think “it matters.”  One earns the name “artist”  through exceptional skill and creativity, and by managing and improving on these over time – not by letting the paintbrush “go where it will,” almost as if it, alone, were in control of the outcome. Paintbrushes are stupid. They can’t paint without a higher intelligence.  That begs a question …

On the other hand:  Among the better contemporary artists today, there are two who have earned my respect because their work epitomizes the word “fine” in fine art: 


Lorena Kloosterboer paints trompe l'oeil and photorealistic art with a skill and aestheticism that is equaled by few others!  Click on the image to go to the artist's website.

"Clarity No. 2" Acrylic on Canvas, 5 ¾ x 12 inches

Artist's statement: "This trompe l'oeil depicts a small niche holding an array of translucent glass bottles and jars. The niche symbolizes a safe haven which  holds the spirit of divinity. Glass objects, due to their transparency, represent an inner plane. They reflect purity, spiritual perfection, and knowledge.  The niche and the jars embrace all the essential traits we seek in life."


 

Keiko Tanabe is a master watercolorist who gives new meaning to mastering watercolor.  Her work is magnificent, and I wish for all the world that I could render a watercolor painting with as much beauty and sensitivity as she does. Click on the image to go to the artist's website.

“Star of India, San Diego I” Watercolor on Paper, 11 1/2 x 8.25 inches


These are only a couple of artists who give me hope that great art is not dead.  Go find a few of your own and when you do, tell them “thank you.”  They are putting life back into the arts!


Please note: This is an art critique, not a personal criticism.

One cannot copy great art!  Even if you manage to reproduce it in every detail, the spirit of the artist will be lost!
 

If you are on Facebook, join me on my art page.  Your comments are always welcome!

Fine Art Studio on Facebook

On my way to class yesterday while waiting at a stop light, I watched a man on the corner “running in place” lifting his knees all the way up to his chest and bobbing up and down like a cork in water. But there wasn’t any water.  I knew that he was warming his leg muscles while stopped for the same light. He was just another health enthusiast out for a jog. I couldn’t help thinking, however, that if I had seen him a few years before jogging had become a common sight on our city streets, I would have thought him crazy. From the back he really looked comical! He, of course, was oblivious to everything around him and probably couldn’t care less that he was somewhat of a public spectacle - nor did anyone else apparently.

Have we all become so uninhibited that the refreshing words “anything goes” has become “who cares!”  My sense of aesthetics fights continually with my sense of laissez faire as I walk about the streets of my neighborhood.  On the one hand, I think it’s great that we have finally arrived at a time in history where people are not instantly criticized for looking, acting, or being different.  On the other hand, I’ve realized that beauty and decorum are no longer appreciated as they were before.  It’s cool to be different, even if “different” is weird – or downright ugly!

I hold to the belief that the pursuit of excellence is the key to success and to peace of mind. I don’t criticize those who like to be different by pushing the envelope “over the edge” in their dress or behavior, but I have to ask myself if this way of thinking does not actually represent something disturbing about our society.

Excellence in all areas of life, from the mundane to the profound, is apparently no longer worth pursuing. Those proven spirit- and character-builders, the arts and sports, are being eliminated in our schools. Academics are being dumbed down so that more students can “succeed” in their studies, and our public servants can commit heinous acts and still get re-elected. In matters of art, what I see consistently appreciated by more and more galleries is artwork that displays ugly colors and infantile drawings in garish compositions that break all the rules of aesthetics in the name of “free expression.”

This new freedom of expression is actually a protestation of the time-honored and trusted norms that have previously produced some of the greatest artists, musicians and composers – not to mention statesmen - that have ever lived.  Why try for excellence after all, when mediocrity is applauded. When a group of people resist this new face of society, they are immediately pegged as “fanatics.”  When in truth, it’s the other way around! 

I don’t mind someone looking silly when they are out jogging, but when I see no one else looking his way in amusement, a mental image comes to me of thousands of people all over the world dropping whatever they are doing and bobbing in their places like corks in a rushing river - and I wonder where they are going….

 

The Shasta College Art Gallery  in Redding,California is one of the best galleries in town, where student art shows vie with exhibits by professional artists, and both are top notch. Yet I have too often been disappointed by the shows of the art instructors.  Here is my review of one of these exhibits...

Gallery Review: Shasta College Annual Faculty Art Show

Alice Walker said: “If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for!”  As I jot down my first impressions of this exhibit, I find myself asking this question of most of the works shown: “What is it for?”  I make a preliminary tour and manage to come up with a few words to describe my reactions: why?...what?...blah!...boring!...cute!...dead!...and ouch!

WHY would Susan Schimke go to all the trouble of rendering lovely charcoal portraits of her family, then cover them over with encaustic so that you can’t see them?  WHAT is Richard Wilson trying to say?  Drew Burgess’ huge acrylic paintings of boards and bricks on pastel confetti backgrounds are BLAH!  Lorelle Lindquist’s black and white photos are BORING.  Shari Borkin’s happy chicken wearing two slices of bread in the guise of a sandwich is Sesame Street CUTE.  Drew Burgess’s’ dried up, discolored lemons in a box are DEAD!  And then there’s Shari Borkin’s “Paint Lickers” – OUCH!  When I look at it, it hurts.

My first impression duly noted, I retrace my steps and spend some quality time with each work of art.  Susan Schimke’s charcoal “Portraits of the Schimke Family” begin to take shape behind their beeswax coverings. They peer ethereally out from some inaccessible plane of the universe, waiting to be released. The encaustic is beautiful.  The art work beneath is yet to be discovered.  I try to write an intelligent appraisal, but the only word that come to mind is – “nothing”.  The dominant work in this part of the gallery is a larger-then-life acrylic painting on canvas by Drew Burgess - “Blackberry Hollow”:  A small brick wall with a hinged board appendage and a “lost” plank of wood in the foreground float on a huge color-speckled pastel blue background that reminds me of the squares of craft paper you buy at Michael’s for… I don’t know what it’s for, but it doesn’t look like quality art media to me. The only thing that gives life to the painting is a paper-thin halo of intense color barely peeking out from the sides of the brick structure, as if trying to say “Here we are! Let us out!”.  Both of Mr. Burgess’ large acrylic paintings, “Blackberry Hollow” and “Lost and Found” are in the same genre: small pieces of wood or brick structures in limbo on pastel confetti backgrounds. Are you pulling my leg, Mr. Burgess?  I move on.

John Harper’s printmaking series of “Burntscapes”, waving brown and ochre grasses and cloud forms burned into paper, are simple and refreshing after the pastel confetti experience. They briefly recall childhood memories of the California hills, covered in golden grasses disappearing softly into endless clouds. Four works – they all look pretty much the same. I have read them better than any of the other works in the exhibit: they are very obvious. Yet, that nagging word, “nothing”, keeps coming back to my mind. These are only memories. Once seen, they no longer have anything to say.  If they were on my wall at home, I might not even see them.

I see several acrylic works on canvas that I immediately recognize as Richard Wilson’s: squares on rectangles. The artist disputes my description, but to the “naked” eye, let’s not kid each other: that’s what they are. To be fair I spend some time with these to try to fathom what the artist is trying to say.  After all, many uninformed art lovers, such as I, might say: “Anyone can make squares on rectangles.”  Try as I may, I draw a blank. I am obliged to refer to what Mr. Wilson, himself,  has told us about his art.  And so I know that the simplified, symbolic portrayal of an object, building, or bit of nature is what inspires him.  He seems fond of translating them all into rectangular forms. His stated “Celtic influence” is taken to extremes. The compositions are at least playful – something like playing with a child’s blocks and putting them in different places.  Mr. Wilson defines his art as  “spiritual”.  I cannot agree: my conception of “spiritual” is beyond man’s physical environment.  And squares seem to me to be the antithesis of the spiritual – our physical world represented in one, solid, uninteresting, never changing form – rectangular.  The artist plays a bit with his geometry, subtly shaving the sides unevenly, or placing them out of line by a fraction of a centimeter. The colors are grayed, the rendering immaculate – still, squares on rectangles any way you look at them. I feel the need to pick a favorite, with that greater need – to find “ something” in these works still nagging at my conscience.  What I really want to do is move on and forget the forgettable.  But I persevere:  “Routang” wins!  Good! Now I have done justice to the artist.  I come to the conclusion, however, that had I not had some previous insights from the artist himself, I would  have seen only those squares on rectangles!  I still can’t differentiate the building from the flower.  Why doesn’t Richard Wilson speak to the viewer?  There is no communication from the art itself.  And communication, in my opinion, is the sole reason for making art.  I feel left out.  Would I purchase one of Mr. Wilson’s works to decorate my home? NO. I could copy them just as easily.  That disturbs me.

Fighting off a growing concern about where I fit as an artist in today’s art world, I move down the  hall to a great splash of color that explodes in bright blue pieces all over the wall!  This impressive piece of art by Shari Borkin is called “Paint Lickers.”  It is a multi-colored, mural-size work, dominated by thick strokes of acrylic: purple, red, orange, green, blue and purple again that march across the central piece, on which are glued bright blue “melted” glass bottles which climb out of the painting onto the wall toward a dirty artist’s palette high above, like fat blue footprints trying to escape from the work. A good painting to escape from. Someone once said  “who said art must be beautiful!”  I did.  If it is not thought-provoking, inspiring, or beautiful to look at, I’m not interested. I march to a higher ideal. This work is the booby prize of the exhibit.  It gets right in my face and literally screams UGLY!   I don’t like it and I can’t avoid it.

Turning my back on the blue footprints, I am delighted to find a work that strikes me as beautiful.  Just in the nick of time. I was getting discouraged.  there on the wall is a lovely “piece of light” – a simple natural wood frame with a glass front enclosing rippling waves of opaque plastic, intertwined at intervals by a thin, supple piece of wood of the same color as the frame. The light falling on this piece makes it appear as if lighted from within. Nancy Lynn Toolan’s “Billow” is simple, light , and full of life.   I can’t take my eyes off of it. It lifts my spirits. What is the difference between this simply constructed multimedia piece and the simple squares of Richard Wilson?  why does one hold my interest indefinitely, while the others close all the doors to me? I can only venture an answer. Light is sublime. It represents something beyond the material, it draws me higher. It is what I seek to render in my own art, physically or symbolically, and what I seek to attain in my spiritual life. “Billow” is my favorite of the show. It is a light in the darkness.  Ms. Toolan’s other work, “Ebb”, is less interesting. Its opacity is too dense.  It doesn’t give forth light. It pulls me deeper as I try to discover what it has to say, but it doesn’t let me in.

Encouraged by “Billow’s” fairy presence, I look around for something else to like. I am not disappointed. Bob McGill’s’ “Encounter”, a large black and white acrylic abstract, has my attention. This piece, although containing for the most part, shades of black and gray, has intervals of soft white breaking through, like sunlight coming through a hole in a wall, or rays of light finding their way through a dark cloud.  It is interesting.  It moves. It reminds me of a personal favorite observation of mine:  “Light always expels the darkness, but darkness can never extinguish light.” It is a fact of physics. Of such is hope. There is a lot to think about in this painting.

There is also a lot to think about in his other painting, “Gate,” but that one disturbs me. The colors he chooses in this acrylic work, and their position in the painting make me uncomfortable.  Did the artist deliberately break the “rules” of composition and color?  The intense reds that dominate the piece are not unpleasant, but there is too much of it. It is too powerful for me.  The yellow intrusions of color are in the "wrong places", and make me uneasy. If “good” art provokes feelings, this piece certainly lives up to the reputation, giving it credibility, but I don’t want to remain in its presence.

Almost at the end of my gallery tour now, I find the “pièce de resistance.”  My resistance!  Drew Burgess has put together a strange multimedia piece that I cannot find it in my heart to appreciate. In “Daedaius Meets the Angels”, there is no higher call to angels, only an elongated wooden box, the upper outer face of which consists of a rectangular piece of wood painted in the now-familiar insipid flecks of color, to which is attached a door.  The bottom part of the box is a glass-enclosed collection of rotten leather-brown lemons!  What would greatly improve this work would be to make the door long enough to embark both the top and the bottom of the work – and to close it!

There is more… a couple of “cute” works: a three-dimensional “Chicken Sandwich” by Shari Borkin that looks too friendly to eat and an “Alice in Wonderland” wood and glass composition called “Pilgrim”, by Drew Burgess, that has movable doors and windows and shutters covered with black and white newspaper articles.  There are a couple of extremely boring “shoe” photos by Lorelle Lindquist, more undiscovered wax works by Susan Schimke, and Shari Borkin’s “Have You Had Your Garlic Today?”, which (I have to say it) is not even as good as my 7-year-old granddaughter’s art.  That word, “nothing” comes to mind.  Yeah, “nothing on the wall” would look better!

The Shasta College Art Gallery is a small, but very nice gallery.  It is open and light, the art is professionally displayed and lighted, the shows are hung with taste and there is always sufficient information on the artists and their views, not to mention the added advantage of the presence, in this show at least, of the artists themselves.  One can always look them up if more information is needed. There are benches where one can sit and consider the exhibited works or take notes.  Students come and go from their classes, but they are never noisy. They are friendly parts of the gallery.

Whether I appreciate the artists here exhibited or not, this is one of my favorite galleries in Redding.  The shows – one way or another - are always interesting or educational.  About this faculty show, I wish I could be more positive.  I’m struck by the lack of originality, and disappointed overall with the quality of the art.  I consider that a work of art lacks originality, although it may be different from what anyone else is doing, when anyone could copy it.  These artists/instructors invariably inspire much better art in their students than what I see here from their own hands.  That is to their credit. As for their art….Richard Wilson stated that “great art is an artistic medium that most people misunderstand” unless they study. He ventures further to say that not everyone can “belong”.  If that is so, then I do not belong!   I do  not want to belong to this contemporary world of art.  I make my judgments as one who seeks in all things a higher good, an Absolute, without which I believe nothing – art included – is worth the effort.  As I look at these works of art, the questions “ What is it for?” is ever-present. Is it only playful?  That’s OK.  Is it a deep expression of each artist’s intimate self? Fair enough. Could it be that the artists are only pulling my leg? Or is it a clear  expression of the time in which we live?  In my opinion it is the latter. The world we live in has lost touch with its traditions and its direction. There is no depth. We are  headed for disaster, and I would like to see art that is part of the cure for, not the symptoms of, society.  I agree that art is a fascinating source of  history and reflection of current events, but today’s art misses the point completely, the point being that this world is not our “real” place.  I value more art that seeks a higher spirit and communicates its findings to others. This is also an elitist world that “not everyone understands”, but I generously hold that no one should be excluded.  It is a better place.

Addendum: I respect any artists’ freedom to express himself as he believes and I’m excited to live in a time when this freedom is afforded more than at any other time in the past. In art, as in life, I say "let the chaff grow along with the wheat."  A time will come for reckoning. Yet, I’m personally dismayed by the   current direction of the world and the arts which reflect it. Lest we   find ourselves too deeply mired in the mud, no longer able to see the final goal, let’s keep the light in our lives and in our art – for the peaceful inspiration of all who see it.

 

Chine collee on a monoprint.  The art paper is BFK.  The art is painted on a plexiglass plate with oil-based printing inks. When printed, the plate leaves an embossed "frame" around the edge of the artwork.


The following are two images of chine collee,  used for the  presentation of fine art from other media.























  
"The Mailbox," watercolor, is chine colleed onto another sheet of fine art paper for presentation.   The artwork is glued to the larger sheet, a piece of matboard cut to the size of the desired indentation is placed on the printing press first, the artwork with its backing sheet is centered upside down on the matboard, and the whole is run through the press. When it comes out, the matboard is discarded and the artwork is chine colleed, with an embossed edge, ready for framing. If you don't have a press, you can do this with your fingers, carefully pressing along the edge of the matboard to make the indentation.