Thursday, December 28, 2006



This was found on the back of one of the kids projects. It is a typical kid drawing of a tree. To western eyes it looks strange but it is really after a certain tree in Romania which is cut back each year to the trunk for fire wood. The result is a thick trunk with a little forest of 1-2 year growth on top like a Chia Pet. I enjoy the beauty, simplicity and economy of expression kids can achieve without realizing it. This kid took a marker and a pen and made a beautiful tree in a couple swooping strokes like an old Japanese painter.


Tuesday, December 19, 2006




I was carrying my little sketchbook and was asked by a few kids if they could draw. I told them to draw me and this is what I got. The middle one was one of our educators. More kids drawings to come.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006




The Role of the Artist:
Physical Play/Contemplation, Theological Insight, and Integration


The roles of the artist must deal with attentive observation. Apprehension of reality through time and work on physical objects in the physical world. It’s modes range from play and quiet contemplation. Play, the joyful discovery and interaction with the wonders of a miraculous creation, is one end of the same attentive observation, and quiet contemplation is the other. In its quiet contemplative mode it shares at its core, a joyful pilgrimage in the vast wonders of the physical universe. Joy is inherent as one is surprised by the beauty in every corner of the physical universe, one must only look long enough. This is true even in the most God forsaken places on earth. Without play and contemplation and art is always shallow, cliché, or an ugly slave and object of some totalitarian alien domain.

The next role is to be a participant in a similar playful and joyful journey into the universe through living theology, the present experience of the church as it is rooted in the historical and living Church. Written theology often opens doors to more fully experiencing God in the church, but theology in this sense is at its core a continuous journey, which is always renouncing false images of God and of the universe, grasping for the true God who reveals himself, but is always bigger than our comprehension.

The third role of the artist is the integration of the first two ever deepening discoveries (joyful explorations of material world through the senses and the joyful exploration of God through intuition and experience of living theology of the church. As these parts remain separate then the artist has contributed little to his communities, local and world. His power, responsibility to himself, to God, and to the world is to offer a synthesized, integrated image of the universe which seamlessly and organically (experiences the whole) ‘images’ a universe without separations, spiritual and physical, body and soul, idea and concrete reality, word and flesh. In the end the artist has done us a service when he has offered back to us the vision of the new heaven and earth where there is no division, separation, or warring parts. All is unified in the apocalyptic Christ Triumphant.

Without playful discovery of the material world the artists’ universe remains disconnected parts offering little hope of their ultimate reconciliation.

Without joyful pilgrimage into living theology, prayer and experience of God in the church, ones art remains abstract and offers little hope that it can ever touch the physical degradation of the world, the poor, or the earth.

Without integration, our play and contemplation remain undeveloped seedlings unable to provide shade or greater nourishment for the world. Though all artistic play, contemplation, and theological study have worth in itself it is their integration that needs to be developed if our work is to outlive us.

Friday, December 01, 2006



Here are two of four very similar panels. They are somewhere around six feet tall on unstreatched canvas. I am wondering if I shouldn't try working this way on handmade paper.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Sticking paintbrushes in the hands of 15 kids full of energy and too much desk time was the best idea I have had for a while. I took this large card stock page 70x100cm and filled it with blind contours of garden, flowers, plants,etc. Then I chopped it up in 10x10cm pieces, gave each of the kids paints and told them to paint them as they liked. When it was put back together all the kids stuck out their chests and pat ed each other on the back with pride in their colorful garden. It hangs now in the class room where they do their hours of homework a day. Many of them first generation readers, they are my heroes.

Monday, November 20, 2006

the sunflower has grown
old leaves warped
bloated, head cast down
cloves that held up wide

yellow masses now thorns
towards the ground
crowning the massive head
what pride what arrogance

high, bright, bigger than all
flowers plants wide veins
pumping water to the
shower head spraying yellow

your seeds are bird eaten
your petals ground under
with the grand show over
you bow deep with closed eyes

you turned the sun to seed
who shall find you guilty now
of ego pride and greed
you poured out all you could gather

your power not wasted in you
but carries life through winter
into the next year, the next life
another day for extending us into the sun”

-5 September 2006-

Wednesday, November 15, 2006


Through the summer and into the fall I have been doing blind contours with pen on handmade paper of the sunflower outside the studio window. This one includes a couple birds that were picking away at leftover seeds. Posted by Picasa

Friday, November 10, 2006

Detail from 'The Storyteller'
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a wonderful example of the genius in African Storytelling. As I relished the culturally rich language such as, "... the market was so crowded, that if you threw a grain of sand it would never hit the ground" A few days after finishing the book I listened to a discussion led by a new Word Made Flesh board member, a Ugandan Catholic priest, and presently teaching at Duke. He discribed briefly how we live in and out of stories. Often these stories are unconscous yet they inform our descision, our sense of who we are, and become a basis for building our lives.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Here is a sketch I worked on for a larger oil painting in progress. Almost every major composer in music history has done tributes to Roma (incorrectly called Gypsy) music. Here is a clip of Roma music by violinist Sandra Layman who studied, 'muzica lautareasca', with Roma in Bucuresti some years ago. Roma have often become used in literature and common language as a symbol of wander lust, rootless peoples, and adventure seeking. In reality this was historically the lot of a people running from slavery. In Romania there are more Roma than anywhere else, mainly because they were enslaved for a couple centuries. For more good information on Romani people check out the Roma scholar Ian Hancock's book, 'We are the Romani People' Rather than being a symbol of wandering adventurers, Roma are becoming for me an example of cultural identity and rootedness in the midst of an uprooted world and its prevailing mono culture. Also, see more recently posted on the Word Made Flesh site my 'Reflections on Rootlessness'

Monday, October 16, 2006

This was part of a series of paintings I did a few years ago. We were doing drawing sessions with a few artists in our community at the time and this yeang man had been off the streets and off of drugs for a few months. He was an imortant voice in our community. I liked how the bookshelves in the back became unnamed compartments, like the un discifered letters, pointing to the mystery of who we are. I appreciate the moments when I have been able to directly draw or paint people who never saw themselves as worthy subjects.

Friday, October 06, 2006




In the armpit of a building I set the camera to shoot long exposures and gave a couple of the guys living on the streets the flashlight. There is some startling truth in the shadowy, hazy, presence with this streak of light. There is a beauty which remains in these tortured faces though they hardly exist for the society, and sometimes for their own families. They seem to spend much of their time trying to not feel their own existence. They huff shoe glue till they get sores on their mouths depriving their brain from oxygen and numbing their emotional pain. They are the physical sign in the world of our own rootlessness, few have any sense of connection to our past generations or the future ones. We live for today and for ourselves.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

This is a trial run of a project with marginalized kids doodling in sand. There images appear and dissapear. I hope to make a longer smoother version as I work with these young kids more. I just took another 1000+ frames to work with. Where we live kids are told they have no talent early on. This is a very non threatening way for them to play with lines and shapes. Any ideas on a story line that could go along with these images? I am thinking of having the kids develope some ideas.

Thursday, September 28, 2006



Caleb Coppock an art student at Minnesota College of Art and Design (MCAD), came to Romania last summer to do an art intership, and make art among the poor and reflect on his expereinces. Of the many projects he worked on, he left this mural in the bathroom in the home for youth coming off the streets. The mural is based on drawings of marginalized kids doing homework, and from a series of 'jump photos' he did of kid in the air.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

A study for 'the dive' painting which hangs at the Valley House center.


I just listened to a great ‘This American Life Show’ entitled ‘Unconditional Love’. You can listen to it at…This American Life . It has a segment on attachment disorder through the story of a kid adopted from Romania who was in an orphanage till 7 years old, He didn’t know what parents were. Many of these kids who grew up in these same orphanages are now over 18 and on the streets coping with glue bags. I appreciated that the show started with a segment on the psychological and pediatric trends in the US, which were saying that too much affection would harm children, give them infections and other problems, this meant kissing your child more than once a year was harmful! Lets not accuse Romanians or other peoples of being backwards and inhuman too quickly...they may be just applying our own theories. God help us.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006


This painting was done by Silas West who works among the poor in Katmandu Nepal. Here are his reflections...

"This is the first oil painting i ever did. I am kind of fond of it. With all the art i have done in my life, this is my first work with oil as a medium. It is not as easy as i thought it would be.

Although i still am not choosing what i get to work on, i really do enjoy the process of painting in the art campus studio. i find myself reflecting on the lives of those the instructor hires to come in and model for us and praying for them as i paint. They are simple people, very poor. They get paid next to nothing and the other students, usually from affluent backgrounds, don't treat them with any respect--often speaking down to them and making fun of them to other students.
this man is a porter. He gets hired by shops to carry goods people buy to their homes or places of business. its common to see an old man like this carrying a sofa or a refrigerator on his back across town. what i loved about him was his quiet dignity. the way he held his head up and kept his gaze confidently in front of him.

I hope to share more of my work along with thoughts and reflections in the future."

Friday, September 15, 2006


detail of Nina's art room painting
Oil on Canvas
3.5ft X 8ft
This little slice of Nina's painting in the art room at the day center shows ones of our good friends whio has been on the streets for over ten years. She had each person model as she painted them in different poses.
Nina graduated from the art high school in town a few years ago and put of university to work among the poor. She has done art and art therapy with street kids and marginalized kids in our school program for 6+ years. She is now entering at the top of her class into a BA fine arts program in ceramics this semester. We are all proud of her and can't wait to see what she does in the future.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Circles

series of still shots animated, thematic circles, spinning, and dials.

Moise left today. He had been living with us for a year and a half, the longest of any of the street boys. Around five in the morning he snuck out of the house with his toothbrush and toothpaste, epilepsy medicine, folic acid, Vitamin B12, and a little framed painting of an empty cafe painted by Kari Segal-Allgire that I had given to him a week ago.

This video has always seemed apocalyptic to me. Moise was big on the end of the work, the destruction of all the wicked, the last judgment, and fear of his parents and grandparents ending up in hell. I think this was part of his motivation for jetting.

Please pray for us. We have been in shock. Moise has been to some extent the center of our community, offering life, hospitality, and hope. Please pray we can see beyond the cycles of suffering, of uprooting, and alienation, to the now creation beyond the end of the world. God have mercy on Moise, on his family, and on us all

Friday, September 08, 2006

I am always reading visual images. For a time Coke was using the naked back and butt of a woman next to a huge coke bottle to sell more in Romania. It is greatly contrasted by the images of the Theotokos (Mother of God) found on the inside and outside of many of the Romanian Orthodox churches. The Theotokos is the model of not only womanhood, but of the pinnacle of human spirituality, theosis, and refers to the great dignity of people in general and to all women specifically, to be God bearers.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

These trees root in the Danube just below. While my wife was pregnant with our first son, she would run along the river and I would sit and draw in the mornings. Without a studio a lot more of my energy went into these little sketches.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

"Mihaiita"
An eight year old boy was run over by a mini van taxi while being watched by his cousin who lives on the streets. I was asked to take photos of the funeral. This painting and poem were part of my grieving process. I was constantly asked to get closer and take pictures of the little boys bloated corpse. Usually I avoid death and suffering. Somehow I was pushed to face it in its creullty in the face of Mihaiita. We lived for a time in a one room apartment with a balcony with a view of a slice of the Danube.

"from the balcony window
I exhaled a funeral
over the Danube

willow trees bow to the river below
the water moves but never changes
a boat with three men and two oars
are a water spider flying slow
across the massive water

a strip of pines frame the distant shore
where the now dead boy played soccer
with a deflated leather ball

above the pines float yellow fields
marked with horizontal and diagonal
farm roads growing in those golden rows
the mountains fade into the foggy
evening blue gray

the water seems to be made
of the same stuff as the sky
with moon caught in current

the scene is dark and rich
the breeze off the water flows
around my face, God’s mercy
for me a sinner
being afloat in Beauty

when she touches you,
in the wind
and water

in the night sky
in the shiny river
or the face of a little boy
you feel her breath
being an icon kissed

Saturday, September 02, 2006

This is a drawing made by a survivor of Hiroshima. The Hiroshima Virtual Museum has a small gallery of drawings done by other survivors. The drawings take us beyond politics and philosophy. God have mercy on us.


"The most terrible of crimes is to collaborate in the uprooting of others in an already alienated world; but the greatest of virtues is to uproot oneself for the sake of one's neighbor and of God, 'it is necessary to uproot oneself. Cut down the tree and make a cross and carry it forever after" pX from Waiting for God by Simone Weil

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Kari Segal-Allgire painted this a few years ago. It is a huge painting which sets the tone in the dining room at our community center for children at risk in Romania. She had some of the kids model and the buildings in the background refer to very typical communist style housing still dominating the city scape. Kari and I exhibited paintings together in some local galleries and at that time she was using drawings of kids and interpreting them with intuitively derived radiant colors. She has more recent work up at her site, K. Segal's Blog. Her present work, while it has developed still carries the weight of the poverty she struggled with among the poor in her time in Romania.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006


these photos are from a show in Lexington, Kentucky at the 'Firebird Gallery' downtown and the other in Galati, Romania at 'Nicolae Mantu Gallery', the local gallery of the Romanian National Ascociation of Plastic Artists.

The bulk of my work for the last two years, Sarcina Series Paintings is showing now at Georgetown College, Georgetown KY from July 6 - September 14 . Then they go to Asbury College from September 18th -October 8th, in Wilmore KY.

I think these paintings capture a lot of my wrestling with art and faith among hte poor in the last few years. At the Sarcina Series Paintings blog you can find a decription of the process.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

"Armenian cemetery Chapel"
The Armenian chapel stands near the back of the main cemetery in our city. The majority of people here are Romanian Orthodox, so the Catholics and Armenian were given space in the back.
I try to get away to a quiet place with my watercolors set, some pens and pencils and a chunks of time. I usually start with finding a quiet place to sit. Then by journaling and drawing, soak up what the moment has to offer, not controlling the outcome, but rather trying to surrender to the experience of the present moment. It is something like getting down the obvious details of the experience, and gradually over the course of an hour of journaling and drawing themes begin to emerge, a deeper perception of the beauty is present, which I had not perceived before sitting down. Subtleties become conscious, and I am wooed and sometimes overcome by the experience. The above watercolors is a record of one of those experiences. I wrote in my journal and then some on the actual painting some lines which seemed key to the experience. Below are the rest of my working exegesis of the moment I noted in my journal.
Aesthetic experience is said to boil down to concentrated attention and a submission/ non control of the experience. This method especially using lots of blind contour drawing, is a door into aesthetic experience, because its nature is attentive looking and submission to the experience, rather than being heavy on controlling the outcome.


"wood doors, tin plated
bullet nails trailing up
and down the arch
cross tipped steel hinges
embrace massive wood
and rock them open and closed

a tiny piece of metal rod
holds the door open
cemented in windows
overgrown weeds clothe
its cracking structure
red brick still holding
up the chapel without
the dignity of the mortar coat
rounded arched doors
and painted arch coves
go up to the rocked off
steeple, a leaning vented
rusted tin top hat

in the back of the catholic
cemetery she waits in silence
listens to the letter sculptor
hammer out new names
sons and grandsons clearing the weeds
and trash from the graves
swooshing around her gray
shell with armfulls of branches

she is opened probably
by vandals or homeless
or dogs or just the wind
for the lost storm

there must have been
yellow and blue, orange
stained glass illuminating
the floor for last
goodbyes, funeral speeches
and 'Lord have mercy
on our soul's

she has stood probably
over a century saluting
the sun every morning
inviting rays through
her eastern window
above the open door"

Friday, August 25, 2006







“…for the needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hopes of the poor be in vain” Psalm 9






A bolivian man waits on the busy street for something. He appears in the Moon Flute Video. This shot was taken in El Alto from the Word Made Flesh drop in center for women who prostitute in the fall of 2005.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006


Chapel Carpet Project

Scraps have been collected from some of the other Word Made Flesh fields, of old clothing from staff and the poor among whom we work. As we weave this rug in the chapel we are praying for mercy on the worlds poor. When we are done it will lie in the center of the chapel as a reminder of the centrality of Christ, and the poor who He weaves into His life in the center with Him. The many colored strips of fabric are all held together by a single un-cut string.

Sunday, August 20, 2006


sketch of a woman begging
(often those begging hold an icon of the Theotokos or Christ)

The other night I took Simeon to meet some of the guys in the street. As we got off the Tram across from Mc Donalds I noticed a guy without legs on the ground behind his wheel chair counting his income for the day, and a couple guys around him helping out. He seemed a little agitated when I heard him say, "am fost sârman dejeaba astazi", which means something like, "I was a poor begger all for nothing today". God have mercy on us.

Thursday, August 17, 2006


drawing from the Athens Archeological Museum 2001

The Eucharist and the Dying Poor


"...“Thinking” about union with God, or about bread and wine is never enough, we must “eat” (see John 6:33). In the context of the liturgy this means Eucharist, and in the “liturgy after the liturgy” it means transfiguring everything we touch, to comprehend in faith, to love our neighbor as the priest handles the Eucharistic gifts. Then we have spirit and life, then the kingdom has come.
Eucharist is the experience of transfigured matter, the Body of Christ and the word of Christ. Though the Eucharist is never watered down or generalized it is the seed of the transfigured creation, of Life which is wholly spiritualized while never losing its weight. The bodies of the poor must be seen through Eucharist. The Eucharist restores our vision. This gift is the restoration, the access into the sacred river which flows just below the surface of all matter and pools in the wounds of the dying poor. Eucharist restores our sight and lets us and breathe the air of the New Creation.
“For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed, he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.” (John 6:55-56)

From an article published in In Communion Journal, the full text can be read at, Eucharist and the Dying Poor full article

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Violin

In the fall of 2000 I was with some friends in Iasi, a university town in northern Romania, the historic ‘Rome’ of the Romanian Orthodox church. As we wondered around the city the first evening we noticed some old theater buildings in the center of the city. As we got closer, the huge cracks in the structure looked worse, broken windows, and little life except a sun worn sign. To our delight there was to be a concert that evening. We wandered back to the building later that evening to find doors open and a ticket lady through the tiny little metal hinged window she gave tickets through.

Sitting in the balcony we had a nice angle on the concert given by the Romanian orchestra along with a guest director, cellist, and violinist from Japan. Since I listen better with a pencil, I did some sketches through the evening. This particular sketch was during the violin solo of the Paganini piece.

Some six years later through a strange twist of circumstances I have started to play violin; mainly my wife and I decided to see if we could teach our son Suzuki violin, which required a parent to be learning. Starting into the second Suzuki book, at thirty one, I am now somewhere at the level of the average three or four year old Suzuki student. My thought as I got serious about starting violin was, ‘I want my kids to experience something beautiful’.

Monday, August 14, 2006




The head of a sunflower is coming down from the top. Monica's garden has two sunflowers from the seeds which she hung last year to attract birds. I have been working on this six foot high shape for a few weeks till I can get more linnen and gysso to work on. I have been doing blind contours in in the garden onto the board, coming back in with oils and then working back into it with more blind contours over the l paint.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

The Role of an Artist in Community among the Poor


Will beauty save the world? This question percolates from the turmoil of Fyodor Dosoevsky’s novels (Richard Pevear, Introduction to The Idiot). But how could beauty and salvation be related in the least? Beauty tends to be a concept left to personal taste, not often a subject discussed in a theological context. But for Dostoevsky, salvation is incomprehensible without beauty. Dostoevsky seemed to understand salvation as beauty, or beauty as the manifestation of redemption.

A fifteen-year study on creativity by the University of Chicago showed that creativity is the bringing together of opposites into a meaningful whole (William Dyrness, Image Journal, Fall 1996). Beauty, in a similar vein, can be understood simply as diversity in unity. The fruit of true creativity is beauty. In monumental works of art, major themes are reconciled – love and hate, death and life, dark and light, hope and despair, black and white, or rich and poor – creating a moving beauty. This is applicable to every form of art, from painting to sculpture to performance art, Picasso’s Guernica, Melville’s Moby Dick or Michelangelo’s Pieta. In each case, the artist transformed disconnected parts into a meaningful whole, using colors, lines, spaces, times, cultures, politics or common human psychological experiences. The outcome is a deep beauty, which transcends both era and culture, ringing true to the person experiencing the work today.

Saint Paul says that Christ has “committed to us the word of reconciliation” (I Cor. 5:19). The final reconciliation of all things under, in and through Christ can now be seen as the highest form of beauty. All of creation is generated from the beauty of the Holy Trinity, the diversity of three persons in perfect unity. And all of creation is fulfilled in becoming a participating image of the unity of the Father, Son and Spirit (William Dyrness, The Earth is God’s). The history of salvation seen in this light begins and ends in beauty. Beauty is the manifestation of the image of the Trinity in the world. Beauty is reconciliation made material, and therefore beauty is also a vision of the final redemption of the world.

The book of Revelation says, “And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into [the Holy City]” (21:26). Here is an image of all of creation being gathered together and offered to Christ at the end of the age. Creation begins in the beauty of the Godhead and finds its final form in becoming a participating image in that same beauty, when all things are reconciled in Christ. At the end of the age, the diversity of nations, peoples and tongues are unified in adoration at the feet of Christ. The beauty of the communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is expanded out into the ends of creation and to the end of time. Coming from a utilitarian, what-works-is-best culture, beauty is often our last consideration. In our society, things are considered “good” if they get the job done, if they are efficient, and if they save us time and energy. However, if we consider beauty as the end, then we are challenged to re-think any strategy that does not reconcile scattered people and scattered parts of creation. If it is not done beautifully, little has been accomplished toward the reconciliation of all things in Christ, or the expansion of the beauty of God out into all creation.

For anyone of us interested in glorifying or revealing the Triune God in our actions, beauty must be our means. Our methods must necessarily participate in the end, reflect the end and announce its coming. In Van Gogh’s famous painting, Starry Night, a turbulent sky swarms around the stars and trees. The night air breathes a certain anxiety and force, yet there is an inner resolve to the overall painting. Yellows and blues form harsh contrasts but still leave the composition beautifully harmonized. In drinking deeply of Van Gogh’s turbulent sky, one experiences a peace, a reconciliation of blue and yellow, anxiety and peace, darkness and luminosity. Starry Night is beautifully made and so provides us with a taste of the beauty of the Triune God.

Our community often celebrates birthdays together with a meal, a speech and a symbolic gift. As we come together around the table, one can name the diversity – rich, poor, dark-skinned and pale, a myriad of histories and interests, artists, engineers, street kids, teachers, some with big ideals and some with just enough faith to smile. The celebration meal mysteriously tunes the diversity into a beautiful chord. In these moments, ends and means converge. Just as Van Gogh wrestled to tame his colors into a meaningful beautiful whole, so the Holy Spirit works among us to still our fears, sins and egos, to symphonize us in Him a rugged-yet-beautiful body. If our means are beautiful, the world is offered a little wedding cake before the wedding, and the bride’s entry music begins to be heard from the altar.

Beauty is, then, not only the end, but also the means. The Enlightenment has taught us to break everything down into parts that we can manipulate and control. Science measures, weighs, compiles data and sifts out all the parts of the world, which helps the human race become more and more powerful and productive. Science gives us bombs, but also a cure for polio. As Huston Smith explains in Beyond the Post Modern Mind, the scientific method is like a fishing net designed to catch fish with great efficiency, yet always remaining powerless to tell us anything about the ocean. To have beauty as our means is to go upstream from enlightenment thought and the religion made out of science, both of which are so dominant in western culture. A methodology of beauty implies that by intuitive imagination, we learn to see the underlying themes – the whole beneath the parts. The ocean is observed and considered, not forgotten in the rote exercise of counting the fish it gives. Being attentive to the working of the Spirit behind the scenes, we see not only the data about the human body, but we see the image of God imprinted on the soul of humankind. We trade our lust for power and control for a desire for life – the life of the Trinity, which models for us diversity of persons in mutual submission to one another. This mutual submission is seen in God as The Father giving His Son for the life of the world, the Son redeeming humanity for love of the Father, and the Spirit pouring Himself out into the world, gathering all things to the feet of the Son. Seeking power and control rather than giving, reconciling and pouring out one’s self for love of the other will only serve to disjoint and fragment humanity, creating chaos and disunity. The end never justifies the means because only beautiful means bear the seeds of a beautiful end. Mutual submission of persons, on the other hand, is itself an image of archetypal beauty – diversity in unity. If we choose beauty as a means of working in the world, our actions become brushstrokes of this mutually submissive self-giving love.

Art, by its very nature, is about developing the intuitive imagination, where one learns to see beneath the surface of diversity and chaos to the order and unity below. By faith, we know the Spirit of Christ is moving within creation to bring unity under submission to Christ in all of the scattered parts of creation. An artist in community among the poor, then, is one who encourages and stimulates this kind of intuitive vision. The artist inspires others to see Christ, the image of God, under our own skin. The artist teaches us by the beauty of his or her work to mutually submit to one another, to be gathered in unity; rich, poor, black, white, gypsy, woman, man, young, old, until we are raised up together, “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). An artist among the poor must learn to bring into unified works of art the suffering and desolation found among the poor with hope for an ultimate healing of humanity by the death of Christ. The artist, by accomplishing this in a work of art, teaches us all to do this integrating work within ourselves and in our cities.

Saturday, August 12, 2006



Here is one of our artists at work at our day center. A friend from the US was showing some of the boys on the streets his San Damiano cross tatoo on his leg and the boys asked if this guy had done it.

Thursday, August 10, 2006




Here is a self portrait done within a year of moving to Romania to work with Word Made Flesh. Many of the Apartment buildings are still on a common heating system which may get turned off before the cold weather is over.

This is when I began to work on reconciling an appreciation for fine art, faith in Christ, the need to do justice, and to not be a lone ranger.


I had no studio at the time and so I would go to the market with a sketchbook.


watermelon

2002

Wednesday, August 09, 2006



This is an oil painting done on a canvas shirt. One morning I showed up at our community drop in center and their was a ball point pen drawing on the table on a big piece of paper. I was awestruck and started copying the drawing in my sketchbook and asked who had done it. I found out it was done the day before by a god friend of ours who lives on the streets. This part of the drawing was his 'house' complete with a pot with salomi and bread stuck in it. He had written in Romania, 'door' by the door and 'house' up by the shelves on the wall. Later that year I had a show of my oil paintings and a series of his drawings.


Here is the image from my sketch book. his design elements found in al the would be oopen spaces appeared in my paintings after this point.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006




These are clips from a video animation project done in January 2006 with marginalized children at our day center in Romania. You hear their voices, see their eyes and ears and noses, but never see a whole face. My hope was that you would have an experience of their personality and character in a small way. The dancer in the video is one of the kids dancing, photographed with continuous shooting, turned into outlines, and then colored in by the kids. Another segment consists of drawings the kids did, starting with eyes and nostrils on a page. They completed the drawings as you see in the video... http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2772529845494804139

"The Dive"
oil on canvas
This painting was done in the Word Made Flesh community and hags at the drop in center in one of the class rooms for children in the afterschool programs. This painting was done after a series of large portraits were drawn persons in of the community.
preliminary sketch for "The Dive"
I have found that most people are honored when asked to model for a painting. There is a basic respect and dignity offered in spending the time to draw someones portrait. It says, 'you are important, you exist, you are worth attention'. The process in making art in community among the poor is redemptive in itself.