Category Archives: Art

That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire

Web_Fire Root

 

 

 

 

 

Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem keeps moving through my head. This painting is called “Fire Root.” I built up a thick landscape of acrylic molding paste, let it dry, and then followed the bumps and contours of the little ridges and valleys of paste. (The painting is just a bug, 8 inches square, but a bright bug, part of my series on fire and combustion. “Million-fuelèd, | nature’s bonfire burns on..”

Pentecost

Web_Pentecost

 

 

I was aiming to finish this by the 50th day after Easter. Late as usual. I wanted to put Mary’s flames in the middle, but somehow that didn’t work out. Perhaps we all burn equally bright before a loving God.

I’m thinking that this painting might be included in “Opening Prayer,” a book of poetry I recently finished.

 

Squeezed at the Edges

Web_Wood for Burning

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll be posting examples of my drawings and paintings over the next few days, just to clear out the clutter. When I was growing up, I didn’t write very much, but I took art classes from second grade through high school. Then I went to college and switched to writing. Now I’ve circled back, why I don’t know.  More to come. This drawing is called “Wood for Burning.” I like the way the log squeezes against the edge of the paper at each end. A lot of us are like that.

In Life as in Art