What's Your Shape?

Griffin

watercolor study

9" x 12"

Last Friday afternoon I had the privilege of attending the Lauritzen Gardens spectacular LEGO Sculpture Show titled "Nature Connects".  New York artist Sean Kenney created the 13 works on display.  Some pieces utilized upwards of 60, 549 pieces of LEGO (the Monarch on Milkweed scuplture).  A life-size sculpture of a kneeling gardener planting a seedling contained 16,383 LEGO pieces.  Very fascinating to see what can be accomplished using LEGO bricks for an art medium.  I do not plan to trade in my pencils and brushes for that genre any time soon, though!

While I was at the Lauritzen Gardens, I wandered down the paths with my easel and pastel sticks, looking for a scene to catch my eye.  The weather was in the 50's F.  So I wanted to be out in nature exploring and exploiting the good temps.  Here is the following study from that afternoon:

Lauritzen Gardens

pastel study

5" x 7"

This drawing was a lot about the trees and how the sunlight was illuminating them.  Trees are favorites of mine.  I love looking at their shapes and unique characteristics.  What a vast variety in leaf size and shape, in branching structure, in fall coloration, fruit, flower, and seed.  One word that addresses the overall shape of a tree is arboriform.  I was awake in Botany class that day!  That led me to thinking about how distinct the shapes of our individual lives are, like the trees, with unique patterns, identities, personalities, body builds, emotions, and intelligences.  Not only physically, but how our whole person has a distinct shape that when your name is mentioned, it conjures up how you are in life.  Just like a tree's arboriform, the sum of our parts is summed up in our overall "shape".  That's what we bring to life.  As  Chris Laszlo states in his book Flourishing Enterprise: 

          We need to be rich in who we are being, not in what we have.  Wealth needs to be measured not by the quantity of goods we own but by the quality of our life experience.

I submit to you that knowing and following Christ brings a richness and beauty to one's life so that the shape of one's life mirrors the "arboriform" of Christ-likeness.  So that is a challenge for myself....what shape am I?  Can others see the beauty of Christ throughout my life, in spite of my inadequacies and failures?  Am I helping people to flourish?  

 Last Sunday night I enjoyed hearing the award-winning European ensemble called The Spanish Brass perform at Dundee Presbyterian Church here in Omaha.  I had to sketch quickly as they kept shifting positions every so many seconds.   Their music was fabulous and their showmanship was engaging!  But not everyone felt the same...as you can see.  My art manikin Michelangelo was caught sleeping on the job!

 pastel study

9" x 12"

oil study of Canadian river

6" x 8"

I plan to use this oil study in a 12" x 16" work in pastel that I hope to finish next week.  It will go to an art show in Lincoln, NE from February through April.

Check out my new available Prints of Originals page!!

That's it for this week.  May you flourish this week like a beautiful, stately tree!!

Be brave and courageous!