Month: April 2013

  • Spring Illustrated

     Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –         
       When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;         
       Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         
    Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         
    The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
       The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush         
       The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         
    With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         

     

    What is all this juice and all this joy?         
       A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
    In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,         
       Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,         
    Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,         
       Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.   
     
     
     
     
    by Gerard Manley Hopkins
     
    Photo by Yours truly taken on recent hike of Pine Log Creek Trail on the border between Bartow and Cherokee Counties, GA.  Flower is dwarf crested iris which native plant is fond of moist soil.
     
     
     
     
     
          
     

  • Fine Art Friday:Melvin

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Meet Professor Clyde Kilby*.

    I never had the opportunity, but this portrait painted by my college friend, Deborah Melvin Beisner, makes me feel like Professor Kilby is talking with me.

    In fact, he came up in my Facebook feed this week.  Actually, it was a photo of this portrait.  It was linked to John Piper’s reference to some of Professor Kilby’s wisdom. Then while reading a friend’s blog (Soli Deo Gloria), lo and behold, Kilby surfaces again. 

    Kilby’s challenge to help us all see clearly dovetails delightfully into the online book club discussion I am enjoying with Cindy Rollins at Ordo-Amoris and lots of virtual friends.   In honor of Edith Schaeffer’s recent death at age 98, we are reading and blogging through her treatise, The Hidden Art of Homemaking, an obvious favorite of mine since it is the inspiration and moniker for my two blogs.

    One commenter wondered why we are saddled with so many preconceived notions of art.  I propose that the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel explains our confusion. Thankfully, Mrs. Schaeffer rightly defines art at the beginning of the book, establishing the LORD God as the First Artist.  Here’s a link to my synopsis of the first chapter.

    Look and see what He has done.  Creation (the world) is right here in front of our noses.  Dont miss it.  

    Join the group and be inspired to represent His Image faithfully.

     

     

    *Dr. Clyde S. Kilby, oil, 1987, in the collection of The Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College, 32″ x 35″

     

     

  • Back Yard Art

    Here’s an unedited picture of my backyard taken through the window screen.  I am sitting in the chair at one end of the kitchen table and gazing at our *garden of eden.*

     

        

    On the far right is a 50-year-old flame-colored azalea that I hope to propagate, since it’s from the landscape where I grew up.  On the deck is a container with cora bells and a butterfly bush.  On the treads of the stairs leading up to the deck are pots of pansies that have given color all winter.  In the upper left-hand corner is a tell-tale sign of the magnolia we planted only 2 years ago.  Other hard woods on our half-acre are tulip poplars, oak, and blank.  Leaves should be raked up by the end of the month and the centipede grass will take off.

     

    This post is related to online book club discussion of Edith Schaeffer’s Hidden Art of Homemaking.

    Link to my review of Chapter 1: The First Artist.