Well, I’m honored to have receive the “Thumbs Up” award this week from William Lehman of Decloned. Who’d u thunk it?! Thanks William!
I’m tired. I get up quite early every morning, at 6am, and get myself with my first cup of coffee into my studio to paint for a couple of hours. That’s the first thing I do every day. By the way, my art is for sale on EBAY and ETSY. Most of the ones I do are smaller and therefore affordable. The larger ones that I do are cost more, of course. You can find my watercolor paintings, oils, inks, woodcuts and sculptures there. Enough of the shameless self-promotion.
I’ve been told that my art is very minimalist, simple, oriental and contemplative in style. I admit I have been very influenced by Japanese sumi-ink pieces, as well as the delicate and amazing art of woodcut and woodblock printing. Apparently this simplicity and minimalism comes through in the way I think, write and pastor. My art reflects who I am, and who I am and what I do reflects in my art. I think if someone were to look at one of my paintings, they would think that I might be something like that. What do you think?
The watercolor and ink painting shown here is available here and here.
If you like this post, or if you'd like to use it, consider buying me a beer.
David Hayward is an artist trapped in a pastor's body, stripping to the essential.
I find your art to reflect the place you love being most (I am guessing), which is in solitude with God and nature.
I think this corresponds with your approach as a pastor….taking the people back to the basic beauty of the faith. Yes?
I think if someone were to look at one of my paintings, they would think that I might be something like that.
-yes.
Sas x V nice.
I paint too, Sarah and also do scratchboard etchings. Do you have anything online I can take a look at? I love seeing other people’s work.
i love to paint to (watercolor) but not very good at it, and lately i was inspired by pastor dave
I cannot believe that you would do anything without a passion behind it. If this is the case, what you are will show in everything you do.
i love, almost to the point of fetish, clean white paper, board, canvas, even screen these days. i love it, all that purity waiting for me to make a mark. sometimes i feel i should just leave it like that… unspoilt, uninterfered with. but i never do. i’m not sure i’ve ever done a piece of work that i preferred to the white space i started with.
know what i mean?
AB, go to
http://www.fernforest.co.uk/sarahharris.html
Let me know what you think!
Love
Sarah x
Sarah,
what medium are you using??
There’s a lot of light–even in the darkness! Amazing light!
I took a look at your online store David, and it’s quite impressive. As well as simplicity, the words that spring to mind are natural, awed, lonely and majestic. I’d agree that your art reflects the personality that is on display in this blog, with one very satisfying exception: God is not in a single one of them!
When I move to the US shortly, I might buy one of those paintings. Very nice indeed.
maybe god’s in all of them, darren?
damn!.. darren, i missed your ironic winking man! you’re a cheeky man!
Sarah, I enjoyed seeing the artwork. My favorite was “Godson”, because of the unique angle you used.
If you want to see any of mine, drop me an email. I don’t want to put the URL on here and make everyone think I am advertising:)
Keep on creating, everyone! Sounds like NP’s blog attracts a lot of creative people.
Jon Birch – if god is in any of those pictures, then he’s completely unseen and not a hint of his presence. In other words, very realistic.
Hey this is so cool!
BM, they’re pastels, a couple are ink, pastel and chalk. The veg is oil pastel.
I like pastels cause the movement is so free with them. I like big, blank pieces of paper that I can launch myself into.
Karen, are you talking about me?
AB, I’m gonna email you.
Lots of love all,
Sarah x
Hghm, AB how do I email you (without compromising your security)…Can’t see it anywhere. I’m new at this commenting thing.
Love,
Sas x
I wish I had the discipline or drive to go to the studio every morning. For me it is a fight to get there. Sometimes it is scary what I have to face there. My artistic soul seems unusually tuned into to the suffering side of humanity.
`Sometimes it is scary what I have to face there.`
Sarah in M, I know what you mean!
hey darren. i think my view of what/who god is must be different to yours. that inexplicable ‘thing’ that brings everything into being… electrons, atoms, stoats etc. i call whatever is behind this intricate and awesome stuff god. i try not to have any preconceptions as to what that might be… personally i find personifications of god unhelpful. i just can’t buy an accidental universe… it’s too full of complex pattern. our attempts to describe god are always at best little more than poor human constructs,
filled with politics and a need to make ourselves feel better. even the name ‘god’ these days is so loaded (maybe it always was). but even a big bang seems pretty purposeful to me… creative energy at its most forceful… i’d rather stand with that than against that.
i’m aware, even writing this, that i’ve made a poor attempt at describing what i think. i just can’t help but believe that this planet and the universe are not in my ownership, but it is my responsibility to steward what i can.
i’ve rambled, but i hope you get my basic thrust.
I know what brings stoats into being – other stoats!
If you don’t mind me deconstructing what you’ve said for a moment, your basic thrust, as you put it, is that you don’t understand how everything came to be, therefore there must be a god behind it. This is a tenuous link; it doesn’t follow logically. Our human brains are geared to look for agents, which is probably why you find it difficult to accept the accidental universe, but “god did it” really explains nothing, it just pushes the question one step further back and we soon find ourselves into infinite regression.
It’s ok to admit that we just don’t know how it all began, and we never will know for certain. You seem to be adopting a deist or pantheist position, but that, along with the theist position, does nothing to advance our understanding. It’s mentally lazy to shrug one’s shoulders and pretend to know that god did it.
Clarke’s third law (any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic) also suffices to explain the need to attribute the complex natural structures we see around us to some magical figure. Just because we don’t understand it now, it doesn’t mean we never will.
Hi Darren and Jon,
Hope you don’t mind me chipping in.
Darren your comment about not knowing re the origins of the universe is dead right I don’t think we can ever be certain, we weren’t there!
I think people who’ve experienced God in any way shape or form trust that he did it rather than know – how can we mentally know? How can we? From my experience I would say I trust, of course I don’t know.
But that’s where science comes in, I think that’s the whole point, to try and find out where we came from, what we’re doing here, where we’re going. I don’t see how science cannot not contribute massively to that.
Yours,
Sarah x
Sarah, you’re right that the job of science is to explain the natural world as we see it. Our scientists do a remarkable job, too, but it’s somewhat worrisome that religious fundamentalists would hobble science because it offends their literal interpretation of their creation myth, wouldn’t you agree?
It would be nice to see religious moderates actively opposing such fundamentalists, then we could all get along much better.
sarah,
very artisitic,
you can look at some of my art too, not too good as np and im using watercolor
and tell me what you think.
Here is the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laralois
Barrenmind, how pretty your work is. I especially liked “Trees”.
I forgot my email was not available to click here, Sarah, so if you want to take a look, here is some of my work:
http://texfam.smugmug.com/gallery/1259419#192100099
AB, thanks
love your work, i love the mixture of black and white
what medium did you use?
yeh… i know nothing. that’s one thing i do know.
it’s a faith, not a dogmatic position that i hold. my pursuit of truth hasn’t been too lazy, though not as thorough as many. it’s just that everything points to order and however tha order comes about i call GOD. i have no face for god, no understanding of god other than that which i believe to be reflected in this amazing universe.
i’m not really arguing, not even interested in winning a debate. simply letting you know where i’m at and where my journey so far has taken me.
i too, have a big problem with religious fundamentalism scorning scientific pursuit in which i take a great interest. genesis never was an historical account of the origins of the universe… it is as you say, a creation myth, and one which contains a great deal of truth about the world, our responsibility, our nature, it is not scientific fact.
i also have a problem with bad science and bad philosophy… propegated by the likes of dawkins, who seem to be equally as fundamentalist. neither of these ways of being is helpful and are just antagonistic and pompous.
darren, you’ve definitely inspired some more cartoons, thanks buddy.
Darren you’re totally right. Did you know this happened again when Champollion was deciphering the Rosetta Stone and the Church was all over him because it was possible his translation could put their version of Ancient Egyptian+Hebrew history out of skew.
Why do people build such empires out of such fears?
Take care mate,
Yours,
Sarah
Jon and Sarah -
I’m sorry, but it just won’t do to seek to place the likes of the Genesis record to the vaults of ‘myth’. Take a look sometime at the book, ‘Legend – the Genesis of Civilisation; by archeologist Dr David Rohl. Whilst I don’t agree with all of his conclusions on the data at hand, one thing is clear – not even the earliest chapters of the biblical record are ‘just myth’.
I’ve recently been deluged by the view that Genesis 1&2 is ‘just poetry’ – again, our times seeking to find some kind of way to handle this material – it isn’t. It’s written in the same historical tone as the rest of the book.
The Creation account tells us something that the New Testament clarifies:
“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God” – the same faith, incidentially, that the writer tells us was known by Abel, Abraham and countless others, which enables us to ‘run the race’ before us.
If we undo the inherent truths expounded in scripture regarding creation, fall and redemption, there’s not much point to Christianity at all.
“If we undo the inherent truths expounded in scripture regarding creation, fall and redemption, there’s not much point to Christianity at all.”
Exactly!
Yours is an emotional response, Howard; perhaps you’re afraid to admit that the Genesis account just does not stand up to scrutiny? Simply to reassert that it’s written in a historical tone and that it “won’t do” to relegate it to myth status does nothing to change the rather obvious point that it’s just a story, designed to inspire lesser educated peoples from an earlier age.
I have no problem with people drawing inspiration from stories and fictional characters, but to assert it as truth is not acceptable in this modern day and age. Imagine if people in the year 4008 fought wars over the truth or otherwise of the Harry Potter series….
Just to turn the conversation back to art for a moment:
AB, I loved `Joy`, that’s how I feel sometimes, and I LOVED your peacock. Very peacock (as in colour!)
BM, I like `Trees.` Well done.
Love to all.
Sarah x
sarah, thanks
howard. i too believe in creation, fall and redemption. but i am not a creation’ist’. genesis is not written like that. it tells us the order of things, not the science. creationists often miss the central points of genesis… those of stewardship and relationship and responsibility. i am not reducing genesis 1& 2 at all, i am though seeking to open it up.
don’t think that myth does not equal truth… with genesis it certainly does, but it isn’t a record of historical events… if it were, it would have been written very differently.
in short, i believe the creation story to be true, but i do not believe it to be a scientific account. i see no ambiguity in this position.
Darren – I believe you view Christianity (or any theology?) as a mis-reading of who and inherently what we are, so I’m not surprised that you view my position as without basis.
Some may wish to equate the likes of the Genesis account with Harry Potter – I would say that position merely displaces a much more profound and necessary engagement that is required with the historical and essential truths concerning our reality that these words from antiquity are urging us to make.
If one wishes to believe that the universe we currently inhabit in general and that we as humankind in particular are not ‘displaced’ (as certain events recorded in the bible mark as definitive in that regard), that is certainly their choice. In regards to Christian theology, however, we see that this is not the view recorded throughout the many centuries, over which the ramifications of three cardinal truths* were encountered and expounded – hence my exhortation in my initial response to Jon and Sarah.
Howard.
(*As outlined in Genesis 1-3 itself:
The material universe is created.
The original order of that universe was altered by the fall of humanity
The resolve of this problem is a redemption of the created order).
Jon – Thanks for your response.
What is imperative to me here is is our faith being informed by truth (that is turning out to be a pretty loaded word in this discussion – I’ll seek to clarify):
You state, for example, that you believe in creation, fall and redemption, but what I think is key here is unpacking the theological realities of these subjects, as defined and expounded from their historical and revelatory sources.
What do these very themes mean to the modern church? Do those views marry with the Biblical message itself, or have they become dislocated from this? Those are my concerns, and when we begin to define certain ideas or passages as belonging to the realm, for example, of mythology, we are certainly uncoupling the material in a fashion that may – as Darren clearly views it – diminish and effectively silence its value.
That surely gives us pause.
Howard.
Howard, perhaps you could elucidate why viewing a story as allegory diminishes its value? I don’t accept that is necessarily true.
In any case I don’t accept that the biblical message is even a good one. To teach children that they are born sinners or faulty or imperfect in such a way that they need “saving” is, quite frankly, ridiculous (creation), manipulative (fall) and self-serving (redemption) to the power-hungry few at the top the the religious structure.
You start from a faulty position – that the bible is true – that poisons your very conception of what truth is. Truth does not require faith, and faith is not a virtue. Faith does not set you free, but chains you, and you seem to be your own prison warden when you accept, unquestioningly, such fantastical claims that are made in the bible.
The universe is indeed a wonderful place, as is the human animal. There is no need for the creation myth, and there is no need for the concept of fall and redemption. We are sophisticated enough to manage our morality without such ridiculous fear-mongering.
“in short, i believe the creation story to be true, but i do not believe it to be a scientific account. i see no ambiguity in this position.”
Jon, you’re stretching the definition of “true” here. You seem to have neatly compartmentalised these two conflicting views in your mind. I challenge you to revisit this and ask yourself how these two mutually exclusive positions can co-exist.
Darren – thank you for clarifying your position. It is pretty clear that you perceive my entire world view as faulty and ‘ridiculous’ – a ‘truth’ which merely enslaves me to error. I will not seek to engage in a discussion here – one I have had so very many times over my thirty plus years as a Christian – as to why I disagree, but suffice to say that I do.
My reasons for entering this discussion were not to re-commence the debate between Christianity and your particular world-view – they were merely to raise what I see as an important question with Jon and Sarah as to how they view the Biblical material on the cardinal themes of theology. I’ve done so, so for the present, I will leave it there.
Howard.
Wow, I feel like the victim of a drive-by preaching!
Howard, I don’t know your entire world view, but I would hope that it is somewhat broader than the few references to Genesis in this thread and indeed is not limited to, and by, your faith.
David: I think your art is very simple.