Tag: art

An Echo, a Shadow, Nothingness…Whoa!

In order to experience a poem, we must understand it; in order to understand it; we must hear it, see it, contemplate it—convert it into an echo, a shadow, nothingness. Comprehension is a spiritual exercise.

Octavio Paz,
Alternating Current, p. 49

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Floating through Space and Time
Floating through Space and Time,  Mixed-media,  Hendricks@2023

I don’t think I am creating anything as profound as Paz describes, but as I said many times in this blog—I am on a path, which is not totally visible to me. I get glimpses, but never too sure what I see.
I do want to say that just because I post works of art, I do not think they are grand, that the technique is refined, or the lines sure and sharp. I know they are not. However, as I do and study my ideas, my voice and path will clarify.
There is one thing I want readers and friends to know, and that is that I believe in a power greater than ourselves, and there is a piece, a bit, of that power, that Light within each of us. I don’t know if I am a theist, non-theist, pantheist, or panentheist. Whatever I am, I seek to reach, connect, and engage with that Light that exists within me… and you. I am saying this partly because I have avoided saying it in the public eye of art critics and peers.
OH MY GOD! I just came out again.  😆

Creation or Construction

 

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists. 

G.K. Chesterton’s “Are You Creating or Constructing?”
Drawing on Paper
Tumult, Mixed Media, Hendricks ©2021

This article came to me through a friend on LinkedIn that I respect very much, Chris Zuege. The article is by Robert Rose. Chris posts on LinkedIn often, and I always find his posts enlightening.  This resonated with me because the work I do is very off the cuff.  I often wonder as I am working and when it is done. Am I the tool or the creator? For me, this quote and article gave me an answer. I am the tool, and what I create was loved before it existed. 

I know it has been quite a while since I posted to this blog. The truth is that I was off learning. I studied color… read philosophy… learned more about  3D digital art. I will be posting more regularly again.  

Today’s post was important to me. First, to wish everyone a great holiday and an even more fabulous new year and then share my last drawing of 2021.  Its title is Tumult. It fits for 2021. 

The Drawing that Will not be Done

The drawing wants to draw what is invisible to the naked eye.It’s very difficult.The effort to write is always beyond my strength. What you see here, these lines, these strokes, are rungs on the ladder of writing, the steps which I have cut with my fingernails in my own wall, in order to hoist myself up above and beyond myself.

Cixous, Hélène, and Catherine A. F. MacGillivray. “Without End No State of Drawingness No, Rather: The Executioner\’s Taking Off.” New Literary History, vol. 24, no. 1, 1993, pp. 91–103. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/469272
Mixed Media Drawing by Bill Hendricks
Drawing Without End Hendricks © 2021, mixed-media, approx: 5″x 5″

This drawing lingers for me. Not wanting to call itself done. Yet, even when I call it finished, it calls me back. A friend asked me what I was doing a few times when he called from New York, and I told him, “I am working on a drawing, and it won’t end.” He asked me, “How do you know when it is done… Don’t you stop?”
Well, no. You don’t just stop. Some might say I should. I am moving on, but it sits on my desk. Done for the moment. 

Doodling Vs Drawing

Doodling is to the [artist] what stream-of-consciousness is to the writer.

~Alvalyn Lundgren, Alvalyn Studio

Doodle or Art?

Ink drawing by Bill Hendricks, all work copyrighted.
Creation, 2020—pen,  Bill Hendricks©2020

Great question!

It has both the aspects that Alvalyn Lundgren’s article describes. It had no real purpose. It doesn’t need to depict anything like a person. There was no pressure to perform, but it is meaningful, and a drawing that does communicate.  Not sure how well or not. It is merely a series of marks. They are playful, geometric, linear, shaded, or whatever. It is a question I am interested in considering. 

I will go with automatic drawing with thoughtful consideration. Thus, art.

Christian Art Show — Not Mine but Dr. He Qi’s

Postcard from Christian Art Show at Cross View Lutheran Church

I had the pleasure to judge the Christian Art Show at Cross View Lutheran Church along with Marko Fields. It was indeed a pleasure to see so many works.

I am grateful to the congregation of Cross View Lutheran Church for recognizing the importance art plays in our lives by supporting artists and administering the Christian Art Festival.

 

I had the pleasure to judge the Christian Art Show at Cross View Lutheran Church along with Marko Fields. It was indeed a pleasure to see so many works.

I am grateful to the congregation of Cross View Lutheran Church for recognizing the importance that art plays in our lives by supporting artist and administrating the Christian Art Festival.

Art is meant to be shared. It is a poetic form of communication that helps us understand and reflect on our world and its cultures and our relationship within its context.

What struck me most about the submissions that Cross View Lutheran Church received was the honesty that came through in the work and the sincerity in the process of art making. I see it, as a Quaker, as another approach to prayer. Where listening to that that stirs within is as important as vocalizing prayer.

The opening is Saturday, April 29, 2006
6 – 8 pm.