Not Much

• Wow, less than a week to back-to-work, to teaching, that is. There are syllabi to revise, to submit to the department secretary; and there are things to think, things I will say, spell out, to a new crop of students. There doomed to be some words like cold water on dreamy expectations. 

• Has anyone heard of the book called The Gadfly? I'll come back to talk about what I know about it, and what it has to do with how much I knew of Catholicism, particular about priests and Confession as a teenager growing up in Communist China. 

• Things suddenly are getting busy. I took down the ornaments off the tree, removed the garland off the mantle, wound up the string lights, packed away the red-and-green thingies and ready them for another twelve months attic life. 

• At the same time I'm trying to keep up the daily painting routine. I'm painting light-hearted things, things "cute," even frivolous, making me feel like a "Sunday painter." I ordered twenty more miniature canvases to make a body of these things. I keep my fingers crossed that teaching won't get in the way. 

• Tomorrow I'm headed to a gathering of females instructors, to discuss the prior-proposed idea of forming a student club for female student artists. Why female only? Don't ask. Suffice to say that I'm being collegiate and amiable in reparation to my ugly reaction when it was first proposed to me. (Words like "gender issues", or "gender studies" bring out the worst of me) Maybe something worthy will come of this. 

• Once school starts, this blog will be hit-or-miss again. 

Kick-off to Another Year of Painting!

Toy Tiger: Red, oil on canvas (fresh and very wet!!), 5"x5", 2012

My first painting of the year is this little piece, destined to be my contribution to the upcoming spring fundraiser for the local art center. It was a hoot to paint, of course, such "cute" subject on such mini scale. I used a painting knife for the whole thing. The cloth toy tiger is a souvenir from one of my home-going trips in China some years back. This type of folk art motif is vanishing from China's craft scene - the commercialization and globalization have no use for such homey, traditional charm.

After painting the red tiger yesterday, I decided to follow up with another one today:

Toy Tiger: Yellow, oil on board, 8"x11", 2012

Needless to say the yellow fella was a companion piece to the red one. Don't you love the whiskers? And how about that palm-tree tail? The artist (mostly likely an elderly lady living out in a village where you practically find buried antiques by kicking the dirt underfoot) used what was she found in her sewing basket, a scrap here, few pieces of yarn there. This kind of indigenous instinct for formal harmony amazes me, always.

I'm on a roll - with painting. And, always, with love to share.

Work Completed

I posted the work-in-progress of this painting a while back. Well, it's been done and over. Last night I remembered to post the final version, only found out that I had not taken a photo of it. So here it is, on the first day of the year.

Some may notice changes between the two versions. But if one appears warmer in tone it was only caused by the lighting at times of photographing. The real change is in the composition. I had to "bend" things a bit, so to speak.

The painting itself is destined to be a gift to an elderly acquaintance of mine, who over the short period I've known her has shown me kindness and graciousness I have done nothing to earn.

Like most everything else with this blog, the timing is purely coincidental. There's no symbolic meaning for its presentation; it has nothing to do with resolutions.

Nor do I make resolutions any more. I'm learning to let things be, eat my daily bread, and trust all will be well.

Out here in my quarters things are plum quiet, plain, non-dramatic.

I'm getting rather intrigued by things plain and non-dramatic. There's a bottomless sense of mystery to things plain and non-dramatic.

All you need is to look at the Eucharist.

So with this painting let me wish you a plain, non-dramatic Happy New Year.

non sequitur

Perusing earliest entries of my own blog, I came upon the one about the German film Wings of Desire, and the Song of Childhood in it. A gentle melancholy veils my spirit on this post-Chritmas Day morning, like the overcast day it's turned out to be.

And this is beautiful. This kind of beauty used to cause me toothaches and neurosis. In some ways the longing for beauty led me to God, who authors all that is beautiful. Melancholy no longer alarms me, I'm at peace with it, for I understand now that it's a longing for eternal home:

Mirth of the Day

If this doesn't make you doubled-over laughing, head over to Pioneer Woman, read her post on doughnut in the Confession section of her blog:



Love to you all!