Landfill Harmonic teaser

This video has been floating about the internet for awhile. I love it! I'm hoping it gets viewed a lot. When it came through my Reader, being posted again, I thought I'd post it too. And add a bit about my son's instrument creations. Dawson has been making steel cellos. He came up with the idea as an extra curricular project in a Music Appreciation class. We still have that first smaller cello at our home. After that one he's made several other full-size cellos tweaking it for sound improvement. The first of those he sold to a Canadian musician and teacher. Two others have gone to the Piano Guys - here's the song it's featured in most, and the in the last couple minutes of this one. And here's him playing it on youtube, and then his cello playing friend, playing it better (in our home) (he's not a cello player, but a violin player). He wouldn't mind more sales . . .

Our son Dawson's Handmade steel cellos

Thanksgiving music - like the "Saw"

The Feast of the Circumcision

Circumcision of Jesus

Torah required boy babies to be circumcised eight days after their birth as a sign of the covenant between God and His people. So since our calendar has Jesus' birth on December 25, January 1 is the 8th day, the Octave Day of Christmas or the Nativity. 

I'm not wanting to discuss this - like what about us girls? or New Testament baptism likened to circumcision. I only wanted to say that there's actually works of art depicting the possibilities of this scene! You can google the subject and find a lot . . . or you can just imagine . . . Imagery often flows from my scripture reading that I'll create into art, but I have to say I've not sat with the Luke text trying to visualize Jesus' circumcision.

You could though ponder this being the first time the blood of Christ was shed, thus the beginning of the process of the redemption of mankind. It also bespeaks of Jesus being fully human, and of his obedience to Biblical law. 

I'm sure the Mohel, the circumcisor, knew nothing of Jesus as The Son of God, the Messiah, the Creator of heaven and earth. More is told in Luke of John the Baptist's circumcision. The 8th day is also referred to as The Naming day. Zechariah was a High Priest and everyone was ready to name John after his father. Once Zechariah wrote, since he'd not been able to speak during Elizabeth's pregnancy, "His name is John", he could speak and began praising God.

Childermas - Holy Innocents Remembered

This is the day Matthew 2:16-18 is remembered. The wise men came asking about the baby born "King of the Jews". Warned by an angel, they did not return to tell Herod where they had found Jesus. Herod, in jealous fear, slaughtered many male children in his attempt to get rid of Jesus. Thus the beginning of the choice for mankind: for or against Jesus.

Matthew quotes Jeremiah, "...a voice was heard...sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children." Have you ever really thought of this piece of the Christmas story? Many artists have pondered it, so that it's depicted in many paintings and stories. (The pictures here are by Giovanni, Giotto, and Ruebens.)

Joseph was warned in a dream to flee this slaughter and escape to Egypt. I have a book we read every year by Madeline L'Engle called Dance in the Desert. It imagines the Holy Family traveling in a caravan to Egypt, and one night all creation comes to pay homage to their Creator. The pictures are beautiful, of toddler Jesus and various animals. The caravan men have knives ready but Mary always says, "Wait".

All cultures throughout time have the stain of innocent, unwanted children. On this day we can think of children all over the world who suffer innumerable forms of violence which threatens their lives. We can pray for our children and the world.

"Today we celebrate the heavenly birthday of these children whom the world caused to be born unto an eternally blessed life rather than that from their mothers' womb, for they attained the grace of everlasting life before the enjoyment of the present ... For already at the beginning of their lives they pass on. The end of the present life is for them the beginning of glory. These then, whom Herod's cruelty tore as sucklings from their mothers' bosom, are justly hailed as 'infant martyr flowers'; they were the Church's first blossoms, matured by the frost of persecution during the cold winter of unbelief."
-- St Augustine

Genealogy of Jesus and Women

So many Jewish genealogies begin with Abraham. Abraham is the father of many nations, not just Isaac and Israel. He was before the law. I like that he was justified by simply believing in God.

When I sit with the Matthew 1 scripture, I see that four women are listed in Jesus' genealogy. Historic Israel is very patriarchal, male-oriented. Genealogies never list women. And if you were a woman, your security was in bearing children and your continuity was in a son.

By God's wanting women in the list is a wake-up call to pay attention, because these are human points of God's intervention. Israel practiced exclusion of peoples whereas here God shows His initiative of inclusion. As I read between the lines and try walking in their shoes I fall in love with God more.

Tamar was a Canaanite. Hebrew law said that if your husband died without an heir you were to be given to the brother, so a seed/heir of the tribe/family could carry on. Since her father-in-law refused to follow through, she took things into her own hands, producing twins from the father-in-law. Read the story. For the first time in both the Joseph and Tamar stories Judah acknowledged his wrong. He claimed the twin sons as legally his. It's as if Tamar with the son Perez (which means "a break in the wall") created the transition for Judah to become the patriarch the Lord called him to be.

Rahab was an alien prostitute who displayed faith in God from hearing the stories that preceded the Israelites' coming. Her desire was beyond her, but to preservation for her family. She married Salmon and had Boaz. I'm imagining: being brought up by a foreigner who has to learn the faith from scratch and maybe interjecting a bit of her own pagan background into the stories. It all seems a bit scandalous, yet God blessed their union with sons. God's grace is for all.

Ruth has more 'story' in the Bible to actually read. She was a Moabite, who were hated by the Jews. Her ancestry goes back to Lot and the incestuous union with his daughter. Yet God blessed that with a son. (Conception & birth was all a mystery totally attributed to God.) God's hospitality is not decided by blood, birth, race or nationality. Ruth and Boaz seem to have healed the family tree that pre-dates the law.

Then there's Bathsheba. Adultery. I've come to maybe even call it rape. I remember a story told about a King that loved a maiden. He didn't want to force his desire of marriage because he'd always wonder if she really loved him. So he cast aside his king stuff and became a pauper so he could woo her love. That's the Jesus story. David's story is so opposite. How could she say "No" to the king!

These stories Jesus heard over and over again as a boy growing up. Much of what we find in the eyes of Jesus must first have been in the eyes of Mary. In both of their eyes was what they both believed about God - a co-believing. All these women made themselves available to God just as they were - they were real. We do not have to leave behind who we are in order to receive God's acceptance. God desires all of who we are - not perfection. Our redemption and transformation depends more on our response to God's love and desire for us.

You can see these women's stories in all the people Jesus reached out to. We still have Tamars, Rahabs, Ruths, and Bathshebas today. God still loves them and desires to redeem their stories and embrace them.

Monte's Art

I posted this earlier, but am posting it again and adding two new drawings he just finished.
____________________

Monte is writing a book - The Secret of Singing Springs. It's in the editing and formatting stage. He's just finishing up the art work. Monte's got his own unique style. Some of his techniques come from his many years of geologic mapping. I told him I'd like to post one of his pictures, so here it is ...

Elk Fighting

The book's beginnings came from treasure hunts Monte used to set up around our property for our kids and friends, utilizing orienteering skills. Now it's evolved into more of the areas surrounding us where they've played, built forts, and hiked. Some local history, including my family's history, has been included in the book now too.

He'd want me to add that our first date was us sitting on a mountainside sketching. Monte sketches more photographically real. Like on that date he only got 1/10th of a tree we now have hanging in a hand-carved frame he made. I sketched probably ten things that date.

Monte's Art

Monte is writing a book - The Secret of Singing Springs. It's in the editing and formatting stage. He's just finishing up the art work. Monte's got his own unique style. Some of his techniques come from his many years of geologic mapping. I told him I'd like to post one of his pictures, so here it is ...

Elk Fighting

The book's beginnings came from treasure hunts Monte used to set up around our property for our kids and friends, utilizing orienteering skills. Now it's evolved into more of the areas surrounding us where they've played, built forts, and hiked. Some local history, including my family's history, has been included in the book now too.

He'd want me to add that our first date was us sitting on a mountainside sketching. Monte sketches more photographically real. Like on that date he only got 1/10th of a tree we now have hanging in a hand-carved frame he made. I sketched probably ten things that date.

Soft-Boiled-Eggs, Rosemaling, and Chicks

Rosemaled Egg Cup

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Where do I start this post? From chicks to eggs to rosemaling? I'll start with "I love eggs".

My 10 girls

We had chickens for almost thirty years. When Heather married we got rid of our chickens, as she was my one child who loved chicken chores. I have missed the chickens. I miss fresh eggs. We are building a new coop closer to the house. I will be the one doing chicken chores. I currently have 10 chicks in my dining room. Every morning I sing my "Good morning, good morning ..." song to them and say, "Good morning girls". I want them to get to know me, get to know my voice.

Danish boiled egg holders - egg top snipper

Years ago a Danish friend gave me egg cups for soft boiled eggs and taught me how to prepare them and eat them. I love a 'sunny-side-up' egg with great toast, but I'm cutting down on my bread consumption, so have returned to regularly eating a soft boiled egg.



I have an egg piercer. I pierce the large end, cover the eggs with
tap water, sprinkle in some salt, and bring to a gentle boil. In my
Hearth & Home I tell you there is a science to cooking eggs. Call it
the culinary alchemy of eggs. I always like to know the whys and know
my ingredients. In heating eggs in shells, a race begins between the
buildup of pressure within the egg and its release of air oozing out the
end. If the air pocket is heated faster than the air can escape, the
shell cracks. Some eggs have larger pores, some have harder shells, so
not all crack. Thus the hole poke. I could go on and on with the science, like why the salt too ...

Egg timer

I also have an egg 'timer' that works for me, in that I know when the dark purple line is at the half-way mark to 'soft' I remove my egg and crimp off the top. If it looks a little underdone, I'll set the top back on and let it sit a bit, otherwise I eat it immediately, with some fresh ground sea salt and pepper, with my little spoon.

I looked in Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions book for a time - she suggests 3 1/2 minutes, but does not say whether the egg should be room temp or from the fridge. Since I don't have my own eggs yet, but buying pastured eggs (otherwise you should use organic), mine are coming from the fridge to soft-cook.

Why look in Sally's book? My daughter-in-love was just here and little S's first food is an almost raw egg yolk. I cooked her egg like I do mine with my timer and Sarah said it was just perfect. Little S was quite colicky until Sarah started making the raw milk baby formula in Sally Fallon's book - like night to day difference!

Monte's mom used to do Rosemaling like the egg cup I started the post with. Since she no longer can do it, I treasure the pieces we have of hers. I'll end this post with pictures of her rosemaling.

Rosemal over Keeping Room couch

Rosemal over our bed

Rosemal hanging in our entry's stairway

Posted at The Homestead Barn Hop, Little Farm in the Big City, Simple Lives Thursday, Food Renegade, Frugally Sustainable, Real Food Wednesday,

This was online - maybe Facebook. I love it! It is so true in my life.

I remember YEARS ago when in college, I'd put my sewing machine away, thinking I'd not use it now that I needed to use all my extra time studying ...

Oh, but I was going crazy! I pulled out my machine and spent a bit of time creating, and as I sewed I could feel myself unwind; thoughts became ordered and crystal clear.

Never, never think creativity a waste of time!

"Vandalism"

A friend sent this ...
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God is a tagger on the walls of nonexistence.

You and everything are the four dimensional graffiti of God.



God writes his name a thousand different ways, not as an egomaniac

but to claim the emptiness

on the walls of nonexistence.



There is another who hates the color – says the walls are his-

who works to strip all of it clean into nothingness

or to at least sandblast that name unrecognizable.



but He who showed up as the art and the artist,

scandalous scrawny four dimensional spray can manifestation of outrageous word-shapes

was Himself sandblasted and stripped on the wall of nonbeing.



He took his name and the art to the other side of the wall, claiming it forever

color reaching us from the inside, we hang with Him, the name which is written a thousand

different ways.



still somewhere obliterated on this side, we spray it back, knowing who we are.

- from "a Denver Book of Prayer"

Visual Faith

Art is a subject I’ve wanted to study – not art history, and not the how-to. I’ve collected many books and it may be what I write on next, having blogged about the calendar for two years and putting it in book form (I really have several books in meself to write!) (and, as I’ve written sometime this summer, I am going to change my blog format … someday … when I’ve more time … haha!). But my art quest began moreso with “Come to me as a child” and the desire to Recapture the Wonder (which is the title of a book by Ravi Zacharias, and then there’s Dangerous Wonder by Mike Yaconelli). I want to study of the power of beauty, the power of the visual – Visual Faith.


I got a new Bible for this year’s devotional/ meditational/ lectio divina/ contemplative reading. It’s called the Mosaic Holy Bible, using the word mosaic as referring to us believers. On our own we are little more than bits of stone and glass, but together we make up the body of Christ, reflecting His image. The front third of the book has guided Scripture readings appropriate to the church season, along with writings encompassing a great cloud of witnesses from old to new; prayers, hymns, and poems, as well as full-color artwork – all for engaging the soul. Then the last 2/3 is the New Living Translation. I’ve not read that translation and am finding it refreshing.

I recently read the section titled “Creativity”. Remember, calendar girl me has told you our Christian Year begins the end of November with the start of Advent, and we are now in the season called “Ordinary Time”, the 22^nd week after Pentecost. I really resonated with this creativity theme. Even if I weren’t artistic (which if you say that of yourself, I’d question your definition of “artistic” and maybe some quotations and comments here will help you think this through) … I’d still value the thoughts worth pondering.

“Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us” … So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them … Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!
- Genesis 1

“Deep within all of us is a longing to recapture a sense of wonder, to marvel at the mystery of God and His creation like we did as children. But through the years our capacity for wonder has been stifled by busyness and ambitions, and we have resigned ourselves to explaining away all that once made us gasp in awe … Our sense of wonder is a blessing from God.”
- Ravi Zacharias


“Every experience of beauty points to infinity.”
- Hans Urs von Balthasar

All creation proclaims God’s craftsmanship and glory day after day and night after night—they make Him known in their way.
- Psalm 19

“I am creating new heavens and a new earth … Be glad, rejoice forever in my creation! And look!”
- Isaiah 65:17,18

I have been looking. I do notice. I do appreciate, hopefully beyond a rational assertion … but in the realm of aha!!!!!


“Art has long been a spiritual practice. Its modern stigma has undeservingly dampened Christian creativity and squelched the innate novelty with which we were formed. Fortunately, churches are once again beginning to embrace the full range of the arts, exploring the nonverbal ways God is glorified.

Of course, we were given this very mandate and model for creativity in God’s creation—nature and humanity are brave testaments to an imaginative Creator. As we enter an awestruck posture, it is right and appropriate to respond using the creative nature with which we’ve been blessed.”
- Mosaic Holy Bible

Our imagination as Christians has been primarily nourished by the spoken and written word as well as music. The church and its experience with beauty appears to be estranged, and the role the church could offer has been supplanted by art galleries and theaters. In desiring to respond to the presence of God with the whole of our beings, is there a place for visual artists and their responses in church? In saying above that we’ve been moreso nourished by literature and music, could I also say that we’re mal-nourished in our visual imagination?

The importance of creativity “is that the Christian life involves the use of the imagination—after all, we are dealing with the invisible [like God], and the imagination is our training in dealing with the invisible—making connections…”
- Eugene Peterson

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
- Albert Einstein

The root word for imagination is “image”, meaning a visual representation, a visible impression, a mental representation or idea, a simile or metaphor. The visual has a way of sticking in our memory and making demands on our conscience long after the explanations have been rubbed thin by the frictions of daily life. We do need moral propositions and principles, but we need images too, because we think more readily in pictures than in propositions. And when a moral principle has the power to move us to action, it is often because it is backed up by a story or visual image.

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God … Through Christ God created everything … “For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself …”
- Colossians 1:15-20

“Creator God, your Spirit enables our own creative abilities as we allow you to work through our words, our hands and our imaginations.

We thank you for the beauty of created things, for pots and bowls moulded by the skilful manipulation of clay, for a portrait which captures the essence of a personality, for the written word which transports us to a faraway place, a poem that captures the raw emotion of a moment, a prayer that speaks to our heart and soul.

You are present wherever mankind opens its eyes to see, can be heard whenever mankind opens its ears to hear, can be felt as hands are outstretched in faith.”
- John Birch

“The desire to create is not taught. The world and everything in it is the workmanship of the Creator. As created beings, we carry the image of God, not least of which is an innate urge called creativity.

Creativity is a spiritual discipline that followers of Jesus have too often ignored. As far back as Genesis, God gave humanity an artistic assignment. He asked Adam to name the animals and thus invited him into the creative process with himself, the Creator.

Unfortunately, the beauty and order of creation were soon scarred; God, however, was not deterred. The story of Jesus is the mark of the creative master at work. Only divinity could take something as offensive as the cross and use it to restore beauty. He continues his redemptive plan by empowering us to join him in this creative work … And the Spirit came in power to an expectant group of Christ-followers, and the creative force embodied in one person, Jesus Christ, is now available to everyone.

Peter quoted the prophet Joel to describe what has happened: ‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people’ (Acts 2:17). And with these words, God’s creative spark ignites the hearts of men and women in a whole new way.

God the Creator now places his divine imprint on our spirits. Pentecost shatters the glass ceiling of possibility. The garden is now replaced with an upper room, and the new assignment goes beyond simply naming his creation to calling his creation into a regenerative process, making old things new.

Wherever there is a divide, God’s creativity in us leads us to build a bridge. Wherever there is doubt, God’s creativity in us stirs our imagination and produces faith. Wherever there is despair, God’s creativity in us pictures and pursues hope. Wherever there is injustice, God’s creativity in us finds a way to show his love.”
- Mark Miller

Travis had a poster that said “Expose yourself to art”. And I think it was Madeline L’Engle who said to not judge art, but let art judge you.

Taos Wool Festival, etc

It's early morning. The sun might not make an appearance today. I'm currently looking out on thickly frosted plants and ground - wilted leaves and flowers. I love how only one side of the evergreen trees has the thicker white coating, leaving all the north sides of the trees their dark green. It would make a nice picture to capture and keep.

I'm not seeing bunny tracks - maybe it's still sleeping. The birds are awakening and looking for seeds. Are bugs out for the bug eating birds? Are the bears hibernating yet? I hope so. Do raccoons hibernate? Monte saw two in the trash trailer (probably after some fish wrappings) and we've decided they did the latest bird feeder destruction. Elk are still in their rut and bugling.

It's getting lighter outside and I think it's trying to snow. Now it's pretty seeing an occasional golden aspen in the midst of the dark evergreens with their white one-sided dusting. I should be starting the wood stove. Made my tea though, and curled up in wool socks and thick bathrobe. And I don't want to take too much time posting cuz I'm working on a felted piece. Colorful wool in baskets and curly colored locks too, and a shiny skein of wool, are covering the kitchen table and benches awaiting me to create.

Which reminds me ... my last post was just before Monte and me were leaving for the Taos Wool Festival. It was a great vacation - a true vacation, not related to Monte's work travel or us speaking.

Our close friends, Jim and Marty, had time share places lined up for us to stay in - the first night in Red River, New Mexico. Monte worked there just before we married, coming home for us to elope. Lots of memories, including his favorite restaurant, Texas Reds, where he ate a lot. Tho the original had burned down, it's a part of the Red River Lodge now and the owner remembered Monte! We all had a salad with their famous salad dressing that Monte's raved about for 34 years - and yes, it was very good! The waitress had fun with us and Monte's memories (like hiking the hills with backpack full of rocks), tho she'd not been born yet then. With the great music in the bar (Monte and Jim bought the guy's CD) it was a great atmosphere and wonderful meal.

The nice thing about this trip was that we weren't driving long distances, so could stop and enjoy the local scenery - which included galleries and the local's food hangouts. La Veda, Colorado was one stop, for lunch. A very old hippie (yes, old hippies, including us), artsy fartsy town. We could tell lots of music happens around there. Some famous people (famous to us textile people - like Marty is a quilter) live around there, and then Monte fell in love with one style of oil painting and we ended up talking with the painter himself - and Monte's got to go back next year (his first openings) for a week long class.

Scenery? It was perfect timing for colorful Colorado's fall colors! Since we don't have maple trees, our rusts and reds come from scrub oak and other bushes and vines. The golds of aspen are our main color. But too, there's the grasses (I used to have my kids notice all the varieties of grass when we'd walk - did you ever notice how many variances there are? - could fill a large book, just on grass - interested?)- lots of fall color changes with them too.

After Monte's 34 year old memory lane fix (It was Frontier Days in Red River and we walked around the next day - finding out many of the locals work several jobs in that small community. We figured they'd all be sitting around the bar the next night talking about these strange visitors that befriended them for a day.) we drove winding back roads to Taos. Monte and me were last there 33 years ago. So the joke of that time was asking around if "Joe's Place" was still there? Joke? Because with Monte's knack for stretching the truth in his story-telling, you wonder what's really real - so this was a weekend of dispelling myths or finding them true. A local at Michael's, where we had a fabulous breakfast, really had fun with Monte.

It was beautiful weather and we enjoyed walking everywhere. The beautiful place we stayed in Taos had fruit trees about the property, so as we walked anywhere we were eating apples (looking for worms) and great plums. The Wool Festival was in Kit Carson Park (Taos is his home place - his home a museum) close to our place and we walked around amongst the many colorful booths both Saturday and Sunday (as well as all the many artsy shops and galleries that make up Taos). I found a site that posted pictures from this year's festival in a slide show. By Sunday most of the beautiful felted hats, and woven pieces made into fabulous clothing were sold out (and expensive they were too!!!)

I googled the festival and can't believe there's not great pictures posted. Looking tho reminded me that the same weekend was the balloon festival in Alburquerque and little over an hour south. I've seen pictures of it and Marty and Jim went years ago. Hundreds of colorful balloons fill the sky! I did see from my own photo library that Monte took quite a few pictures from his iPhone (Dawson put them on my computer and I hadn't even looked at them yet). So I'm going to post some of them on my photoblog.

Monte and me went from this trip to Travis and Sarah's and spent the night and Monday with them. Travis has been working on a CD of original songs and creative arrangements him and friend Katrina have done. Monte was excited to hear it and help with any tweaking his producing ears heard, before it's done being mixed. We had a very relaxing day, ending it with purchased vanity and sinks for their main bathroom, and a good bar-b-q sandwich supper.

It's snowing now. I'm resigned to the fact that summer is over. Time to start the woodstove and cook a stew on it or soup.

Susan Boyle - Singer

Monte showed me this (click) , since the above won't work. Amazing! Beautiful! Great message!

It's now Friday, almost noon, snowing hard (2ft?) and when I saw the above youTube link was disabled I did the above click link that does work. So now I've probably watched this 5 times and I tear up with joy. I had heard about it on the radio and so glad Monte found it so we could actually see and hear.

I'm remembering my friend Ellen saying, "We don't dream big enough!" It'll be fun hearing about where this ladies dreams will now fly!

What Art Can Really Do!

I'm smiling having watched this. What would be your response in this setting?

I'm remembering my mom and me watching "The Sound of Music" together when it first came out. Since as a young bride she joined her husband in Austria with war clean up, I was born there. During the movie, she'd say, "You were there. You were there." I'd like to go there - maybe this summer ... and see 1st-hand for myself!

Thanks for sending me this Beth. What art are you working on these days? Wish we could get together sometime, but now you're farther away (and busy with Grandbabies!).

recipe quest

This is "the week of egg salad". Any favorite egg salad recipe you'd like to share?

This picture was taken a year after these eggs had been boiled in onion skins. What I learned? 1) Surprised, having saved yellow onion skins for a long time turned these eggs a reddish brown color. 2) That hard boiled eggs sitting out longer than a year never smell or explode (as some of our raw Ukrainian died eggs have) and do seem to dry up inside. Conclusion? Maybe hard boiled eggs would be fine to use for Ukrainian dying. They just can't be eaten, so no egg salad from them (see post.)

Indifference Quote

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."

- quoted by Elie Wiesel, survivor of WWII concentration camp and set free April 11 in 1945 as a teenager and went on to write many books and won the Nobel Peace Prize.

May we now move forward with resurrection power, living life full of beauty, faith and love.

Passover

Benjamin West, in 1784, painted this first piece of art depicting the Lord's supper. He is our first born-in-America artist, born of a Quaker family. Quakers wanted nothing to do with "graven images" and his becoming an artist makes for an interesting story in a great book by Marguerite Henry. I love retelling this story!

The 2nd piece is a very early, 1150-1200 English fresco. As was traditional in early paintings, Judas is on the other side of the table. I find it amusing that so many Lord's Supper pictures have everyone on one side of the table as if they're posing for a photo. And, if you look thru the several hundred pieces done on this scene, so many have the Beloved John sleeping ... And why in the midst of this special feast would the disciples start arguing!

The third art is from 1542 by Italian Jacopo Bassano Ultcen. This is it restored. It was heavily painted over when the fashion did not like greens, pinks and oranges. And then the 4th piece, by Hans Holbein in 1525, has parts missing, the rest of the disciples, and has been restored too. There's been eras of history when iconoclasts rioted destroying many works of art. Jesus' head had been sawed out of this picture and then crudely glued back in. The next pieces: Le Dernier Repas, an African Mafa interpretation, a stained glass in NJ, and the washing of the feet, I don't know.

The disciples had no clue Jesus was going to die. Jesus shared the meal with them, with special twists that would tell his story more powerfully than any other way. Jesus must have played the role of the father in the typical seder, but as he did with everything, he made the Passover become personal. Jesus' new Passover speaks even more powerfully of God rescuing His people in a new and complete way.

The Passover meal became the Lord's Supper. The Passover Lamb becomes the Lamb of God. Instead of just remembering the slaughtered firstborn of Egypt - we remember that Abba Father slayed His firstborn. Instead of smeared blood protecting the firstborn - Abba protects those who drink from His firstborn's cup.

Jesus made himself the center of the Passover re-enactment. Jesus established the physical bread and wine so we will never forget his gracious act of love for us. It's a meal that speaks more volumes than any theory. We participate in his life (and death) for us. We physically remember. Jesus asks us to "taste, see, and know My presence".

Loosing Myself?

This is Passion Week, Jesus is in Bethany/Jerusalem. Mary anointing Jesus' feet with costly perfume took place this week. This picture hangs in 'my office' and I gaze at it often as I sit in my favorite chair. It's a scene I often contemplate ...

"Unless a grain is buried, dead to the world, then it sprouts itself many times over ... If you let your life go, reckless in your love, you'll have life forever ..." And this is what Mary did. Judas thought it a reckless extravagance. Jesus said, "She has done a beautiful thing to me - preparing me for burial". I'm sure the fragrance filled the house, and I imagine the fragrance stayed with him through his trial and beating and death.

My contemplation? It is very easy for me to 'lose' myself in God ... but can I 'loose' myself, as did Mary?

Art's Eternal Value

Beth, an Artist friend of mine, who had to move to Wyoming, sent me this speech. I read it yesterday morning and it's message has so touched me ... I was thinking I'd quote parts of it, but it's so good in it's entirety. I read it to Monte yesterday as we ate lunch (he ate, while my leftover spaghetti got cold :) and he so liked it he asked me to email it to him, and he's passed it on, like to our son Travis.

There's so many favorite thoughts, like ... art having a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us ... in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities ... Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning”... And then the day after 9/11 - The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on ... art is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t with our minds...If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists ... who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.
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Welcome address to freshman parents at Boston Conservatory, given by Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of music division at Boston Conservatory.

One of my parents’ deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn’t be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother’s remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school—she said, “You’re WASTING your SAT scores.” On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they LOVED music, they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren’t really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the “arts and entertainment” section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it’s the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.

The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.

One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the “Quartet for the End of Time” written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940, sent across Germany in a cattle car and imprisoned in a concentration camp.

He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose. There were three other musicians in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist, and Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.

Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture—why would anyone bother with music? And yet—from the camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art. It wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning.”

On September 12, 2001, I was a resident of Manhattan. That morning I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn’t this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.

And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.

At least in my neighborhood, we didn’t shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn’t play cards to pass the time, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, that same day, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang “We Shall Overcome.” Lots of people sang “America, the Beautiful.” The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.

From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of “arts and entertainment” as the newspaper section would have us believe. It’s not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t with our minds.

Some of you may know Samuel Barber’s heart wrenchingly beautiful piece “Adagio for Strings.” If you don’t know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie “Platoon,” a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn’t know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what’s really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.

I bet that you have never been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but I bet you there was some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings —people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there’s some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn’t good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can’t talk about it. Can you imagine watching “Indiana Jones” or “Superman” or “Star Wars” with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in “ET” so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn’t happen that way. The Greeks: Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.

I’ll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important: music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in Fargo, ND, about 4 years ago. I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland’s Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.

Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier—even in his 70’s, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.

When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland Sonata was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterward, tears and all, to explain himself.

What he told us was this: “During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team’s planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute chords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn’t understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?” Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. This concert in Fargo was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.

What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year’s freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this: “If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.

You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.

Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.”
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When we watched movies as a family, I used to always make comments about the music's importance in making the scene. "And think of the persons who KNOW music so, to pick the fitting pieces!

And the nursing home story almost undid me, I've seen similar scenes. Heather worked in nursing homes and did some in-home eldercare before she nannied and married. And I'd gone to nursing homes with Monte's mom, watching the people as she played the piano and hymns were sung.

The "why write and enjoy music in a prison camp" reminded me of the movie Shawshank Redemption. The music scene, where one man dares to share the hope in his soul with all the inmates, is the heart of the movie - a great movie.
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The art piece is "1st Cello" by my friend Melinda Morrison. I'd post art from my friend Beth too if I had access to a picture. I love her work as well.

"Beauty will save the world"
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Ukrainian Eggs

I thought I'd post about Ukranian Eggs now with a link to where I purchase the stuff from. We often give this one kit as a wedding present. And you can read last year's post with more pictures, and then more pictures.

Last year's post tells the history of me starting to do these eggs in 1973. So it's been a long time, and the success grew exponentially when I started using these tools and dyes.

I have a box in the garage I can pull out whenever someone comes, or I want to do Ukrainian eggs. I don't think we're going to have any company coming this year to do eggs unless Travis brings a crew. His young married friends want to come again, but with him being a music minister, he wouldn't want to come till the busyness of Easter is over. We'll see.

And, as I said in last year's post, I would love to do these as Christmas ornaments to give away or sell. Monte made the shelf last year and from the same above link source I bought the egg stands.

And last summer I varnished them for the first time ever - a final step I've always skipped. So some of the varnished ones are older and already faded. These dyes are toxic, so no eating of the eggs, but are not run-proof, so make sure the varnish is not water-base.