Meditation on magnolias and free-will

Every day, and numerous times each day, I pass between the two buildings where I work - the gallery and administration buildings - and receive a gorgeous view of the west lawn and row of eight or so magnolias the arboretum has. This week I noticed that the blooms of each of the trees were all beginning to unfold on their south sides. This was only a mystery for a few seconds, since anyone remotely familiar with natural science will know that the south is the warmest point of the compass, especially in the late winter and early spring. In fact, as I found out years ago, the house I grew up in, built circa 1895, was built on the south side of the valley specifically so that the snow would melt more quickly in the fields, orchard and pastures surrounding the house. For all farmers not close to the equator, it makes economic sense to be able to work one's soil sooner.

For the magnolias too, economy isn't entirely out of consideration. Like any other growing thing, the sooner you can get flowering and propagate yourself in every way possible, the better. What made my "theological mind" as my friend Dayton would call it, begin musing though, was how naturally (instinctively) the buds began reacting physiologically on the warmer, southerly side of the tree. In fact, the buds on the north side were barely unfurling one petal, let alone ready to saucer out into magnificence.

What a delight it is to see humans respond in a similar way to the Lord's timing; in this decidedly "instinctual" way. Instead of struggling to force open buds on our north sides (perhaps the place where God's will is not presently shining on us - or "permissive" will as opposed to "perfect" will), we instead acquiesce and respond to the sunlight and warming skies on our south sides, where budding will be so much easier. This takes much practice and discipline (discipleship) for us: we do not have submission written into our gene sequence.

To me, this is a proof for the concept of free-will. For trees this is not an issue, but for us, it makes all the difference, really. And I'm not necessarily talking about pure Arminianism, but rather a more flexible concept involving all concievable strength and omniscience - and grace - of Jehovah in our lives. What more proof is needed than to contemplate our (and everyone else's) countless mistakes and struggles in the face of what later is revealed as futility and disobedience? Even though people and circumstances around us may be prophesying to us the perfect will of God the entire time, we can be so closed off to those rays of light at our back that are telling us to turn around, so as to bloom more easily. Free will from God is what allows us to keep making those mistakes, and subsequently still be allowed to turn around and face the sun. If free will didn't exist, why even allow the possibility of us making myriad mistakes, when God could simply reach down, box our ears, and turn us around to face him? Wouldn't that be a much more "economical" way - such as what the magnolias are concerned with?

But, we know full well that God is not concerned with economics, at least not in the human societal sense. Economy is concerned with self-preservation and advancement: these characteristics are unnecessary and antithetical to God. Paul Miller, in his book Love Walked Among Us, said succinctly and profoundly, "Love is not economical." Free will is love. But let's learn whatever we can from the magnolias, in their gene-bound ways. Face the sun of God's will - search; yearn; stretch; become etiolated for the face of God - and blooming into his perfection waiting for us will be that much easier.

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Art Thoughts, Week 11 -- Sisley & Atmosphere

(N.B. - I pushed this essay out so hard, it almost hurt, so I may be editing/adding to it over the weekend...but my thoughts, though raw, are authentic). Actual painting above!

Saint Mammes – Loing Canal, Alfred Sisley (French, English, 1839—1899), 1884, oil on canvas, BF 224.

Impressionism as a name has always rubbed me the wrong way – given me the wrong “impression” so to speak. Not only has it become cliché, and is now thrown about to speak of post-impressionists and other related groups, it also doesn’t really give a clear idea of what these painters were really after. It has become the worst of titles: one which no longer clearly portrays even the abstracted idea it originally stood for.

I would rather the impressionists be called “atmospherists”, for that is what they were so doggedly after; not just an “impression” of a place, thing or emotion, but a representation (in the general sense) of the depth in front of them. To make a painting of a space – what impressionism and plein-air are so much about – it was necessary to neatly wrestle down and compress that space on to a canvas, sprung so tightly it looked ready to jettison at any moment: the transitional tension of the three-dimensional morphing into the two-dimensional. What a pent-up state! Yet these paintings are so often, from misunderstanding and overexposure, thought of as benign; saccharin; even obtuse. Think of this tension as the difference between the surface of a pastel, and the surface of a lithograph. Upon very close inspection, much of the actual pastel medium is suspended above the paper, perched as it were on the paper fibers, creating a sense of atmosphere; spaces between the stuff. On a lithograph, the ink has bonded with the paper, the compression of spatial sense (as far as material is concerned) being endemic to that medium.

Enter Alfred Sisley. One of his paintings owned by the Barnes Foundation, Saint Mammes – Loing Canal, I hadn’t even noticed until a few weeks ago. It is a small, but sweeping sky-scape, lodged in a corner of the thirteenth gallery. But it feels epic when you look at it closely. Sisley is admired for his evocative, emotional and atmospherically accurate skies. The brushwork brings to mind Pissaro, or the more oblique haystacks of his friend Monet, when the cataracts were getting the better of him (or, making him better). This particular sky looks like that tightly wound spring mentioned previously: each layer is like a coil, compressed into the three-quarter space Sisley has given it; arcing from southwest to northeast, following roughly the sweep of the sun and the compositional direction towards the focal point. In fact, the whole painting seems swiftly tilting rightwards. Yet it also has a calm, luxurious economy; a group of ducks in the canal foreground is made simply of a dash here and there of lead white and black; the roofs of a small lock-house, two pips of vermilion. This painting, though sweeping and taut, is anchored like an enormous kite on a sturdy line. The sky may buck and reel according to its own will, but Sisley’s sense of grounded-ness doesn’t let him get too carried away with too roiling of an atmosphere. This spring has a firm footing.

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Spring and the studio

Alright, time for another interlude of recent photos of studio work, etcetera.

Below you'll see what I've been working on this past weekend, and last evening. Along with cleaning out the entire backyard, pruning the grapes and apple trees, thinning the raspberries and strawberries, and installing a new rain-barrel, I began building some raised beds. Vicki and I have missed container gardening since we left the apartment, but also like having the extra space at the house, so we came to a compromise, and I've begun putting in these beds for my vegetables and herbs. Raised bed gardening, especially for "kitchen gardens", has a rich and long history, back to medieval Europe, and was particularly popular with Pennsylvania German farmwives, who favored the "four-square" layout (four square beds in a grid). Here, I am digging the post holes for the second bed, and below that you'll see the first bed, sans seat (which I began last night...I love these later-lit evenings).

Since Vicki took these pictures, I've decided to take a board off the top, making them a bit shorter. It would have taken too much soil to fill them, and about thirteen inches is plenty high. I'm hoping to pick up some free compost from Fairmount Park to fill much of the beds.





And of course seasons come and go, but I keep plugging away at the studio. I've already shown this painting on the blog, but that was before I added the little bit of colored strips curling off at the top. The working title is Cede. (The shot is a bit dark).




I also showed some shots of prescription slips I'd been painting different colors on both sides, but here is the finished piece, with the folded origamis-of-a-door papers affixed to a nice piece of Arches paper. As you can see it needs some flattening, but I'll be framing this for the house soon, I hope. Still working on a title for this one.

And, lastly, I have long had a fascination with flattened Chinese takeout boxes, and have approached them from many angles. Lately though I've had trouble getting into a drawing mindset, which is what I previously did with them, so I decided to just start painting on some I had sitting around. The drawing idea came after that. This particular one is in latex paint, marker and yellow enamel, and is based on the Forsythia which is just coming around again now.

Have a great Spring; next Art Thoughts coming right up.

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