Thoughts on thankfulness

If I am thankful for the good in my life, the good truly benefits me. I have the joy of it. I embrace it to myself and it defines me. The more I am thankful for, the more I see to be thankful for, and my joy and contentment grow, even in the presence of sorrow and difficulty.

If  I don't take note of the good with thankfulness, I stand away from that good. It should be mine, but I don't really have it. I am defined instead by the lack which is all I am taking note of.  I don't receive the good until I step toward it with open arms of gratitude.

Without thankfulness, I starve in the midst of plenty, because I am not partaking of the feast God is always setting.

We can never know how rich we are until we say thank you.

Smaller wax bishop's cross

I'm finally done this wax model, maybe mostly. I took days longer than I expected. I thought it would be easy, having carved this design before in a larger size. But when I reduced the size I blithely changed some of the side-view proportions, which opened up some new expressive possibilities, which led to lots of rethinking. I'm not good at leaving well-enough alone. 

This wax is tricky stuff for me to photograph, because it's shiny and irregularly translucent. The different colors are different consistencies of wax. The blue is flexible and hard to break. I carved the basic shape out of blue wax. I then made some corrections with molten green wax, which flows better than the blue when melted. I put in final details with a purple wax that flows beautifully and takes details easily, but is also easy to break.

From here we go to the silversmith, who will create multiple castings.

November is beautiful sometimes

I've been indoors much too much this fall, but as I sat down to be an artist this sunny, not too cold afternoon, all I could think of was going for a walk. So I walked. The sky was perfectly bright blue, but the light and air were soft. The oak leaves smelled like tea and were loud, almost clattering, beneath my feet.

Another cross

I am carving a new crucifix smaller than the bishop's cross but with a similar design. (The little bird ornaments I showed  a bit ago are on hold.) It won't be a one of a kind piece this time. Multiple copies will be made--I hope in time for Christmas.

Wisdom for artists

I recently re-read the book Plain and Simple: a Woman's  Journey to the Amish by Sue Bender, an artist who sought among the Amish wisdom and groundedness she lacked. I love this conversation she had with a non-Amish friend:

"'What counts, Sue, is not the results," said Tino, my dear friend from Sardinia, a sculptor, a poet, a wise man. "Final products are never satisfactory because the potentialities of a person are never realized.'

'Then what is satisfying?'

'It is the enjoyment of every step of the process of doing: everything, not only the isolated piece we label art. If accomplishing is the only goal, all that it takes to reach that goal is too slow, too fatiguing--an obstacle to what you want to achieve. If you want to rush to the accomplishment, it is an inevitable disappointment. Then you rush to something else. The disappointment is reaped over and over again. But if every step is pleasant, then the accomplishment becomes even more, because it is nourished by what is going on.'

I needed to hear his words.

'All the stages of one's work have a poetic nature," he continued. 'No-one gets paid for keeping his own tools cleaned. It is an act of real art; otherwise you don't have a rapport with the tool; then it becomes a rebellious servant, not respected, not properly handled. If you don't appreciate its weight and be aware of the balance, one day or another it is going to hit your finger.'"  (pages 84 and 85)

Birds in progress

Birds hand carved from pink foam with my super sharp wood carving knife on the left. I'm bummed about the photo quality. Not sure what happened.

Foam birds covered with drying Paperclay, with wire rings securely embedded for hanging.  Think of Paperclay as very refined paper mache.

Glittery, girly hand-painted birds for your Christmas tree. In the background is vintage, thrifted cotton seam binding, which I am using to hang the pink birds.  More birds in other colors coming your way soon.

In silver

Here is the ring I designed for our new bishop, on his hand. I carved it in jeweler's wax, and it was cast in silver by a silversmith.

The signet area shows a communion chalice surrounded by the flame of the Holy Spirit. A sword symbolizing the Word of God is wrapped around the band. In this picture you only see the handle of the sword. The three symbols were chosen by the bishop to represent the core of his ministry, and it was my job to pull them together into some kind of design.

I did not want this piece to communicate worldly power or opulence, but there were moments during its making when it was moving in that direction. I tried to keep it from looking like a rich man's ring by giving it an irregular, handmade, time softened look inspired by this ancient ring.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Byzantine_-_Signet_Ring_-_Walters_572104_-_View_B.jpg

The crucifix was a scary thing to make. I felt inadequate, unprepared in every way.

The bishop-to-be wanted the piece to communicate not only the suffering and labor of Jesus on the cross, but His victory. My initial ideas for communicating that victory, such as a sunburst radiating from the cross, looked more decorative than specifically symbolic. I feared that I would not be able to come up with anything I felt good about, but one day as I was in my car running errands, pondering and praying for insight, I knew that the cross itself should burst into life like Aaron's rod (Numbers 17:8). My first mental image was of tiny branches budding and blooming all over the cross, but the visual statement was weak and confusing at that scale, so I settled on a simpler design, with a root at the bottom, a stem running the length of the cross, and a few leaves at the top--"a shoot from the stump of Jesse." (Isaiah 11:1)

The hardest work was carving the figure of Jesus. I didn't try to create a harshly realistic image of crucifixion, but a truth-telling symbol that expresses both suffering and love.  I would like to have had a year to study anatomy and crucifixes through the centuries, but instead I took a few weeks to look at a lot of crucifixes and crucifixion paintings online and make a lot of practice pieces in clay. The artistic director of this project was a sculptor with amazing knowledge of anatomy. His input was invaluable.

I don't much like this photograph, partly because I designed this piece to be seen from the front, and the side views or three quarters views are distorted or compressed to make the piece work as jewelry. When I get better pictures I'll update this post. I wish I had taken pictures of the finished wax crucifix, which now sadly is no more, having been melted away in the casting process. We were super busy with a bunch of stuff during that time and missed the chance.