Friday, March 14, 2008

I mean really fine art

As someone whose painting efforts are strictly part-time and can be accurately described as dabblings rather than art, I point you to this Catholic blogger who is really really good. I call him a blogger because he also has a blog. Everybody probably already knows about him except me, but just in case...

Found via Dylan via somebody via...I can't remember. You know how it is. You're either putting off doing something useful or you're in that glaze-eyed hypno zone following link after link because you suspect deep down you don't really have a life.

9 comments:

Thomas D said...

I hadn't known about him, even though you found him thanks to someone I linked to!

His still-life paintings are especially masterful.

Lydia McGrew said...

I know nothing about art, but in my ignorant opinion, the still-lifes are the best. I wish I owned one. Except if it had beer or Jack Daniels in it or whatever-it-was in a couple of those, it would offend all the Baptists who come to my house. And there are a lot of them. I sometimes get around to hiding the wine so my daughter doesn't open the pantry to get a plastic cup to give the little kids water and oops! There are several bottles. But sometimes I forget. Nobody that I know of has dropped me as a friend for that _yet_, but a still-life of a gigantic whiskey bottle on the wall might be pushing it.

Absolutely gorgeous paintings.

Didja see he has W4 and Zippy linked on the left of his blog?

Anonymous said...

I agree with you both on the still lifes.

Lydia, I don't know how you're going to do it, but you've got to loosen those Baptists up a bit and teach them how to enjoy God's gifts. Spring's almost here, the temperature's rising, and soon I'll be enjoying my Czech and German beers on a more frequent basis. I might even put one of the bottles in a still life and send it to you as a gift, on the condition that it be displayed prominently so that any Baptist crossing your threshhold can't miss it.

Yes, I saw the links. I found the artist in the comments to this post. He seems pretty solid.

Lydia McGrew said...

Please don't do that. :-) You'll put me in a terrible bind. :-) I already have a painting up by a Catholic friend of the lower part of St. Martin's (can't remember the rest of his name) robe and scapular, I think it is, with a great dog standing in front of him looking up at him and food for animals in a sombrero on the floor. There's a crucifix on the wall at animal height. I love the painting and am proud to have it displayed, but it's about as far as I feel I can go in the display department for my guests and family.

I was just at a wonderful home school Talent Night tonight (where Eldest Daughter did an absolutely wonderful job, despite a cold, on a solo of "Softly and Tenderly"), and I kid you not, there was a skit about how it's wrong to say "darn." I've gotta _really_ clean up my language. I'm afraid I've said "doggone" around some of the wrong people in the past few months. You know what a rough talker I am.

Anonymous said...

Crucifixes and beer bottles have the same deterrent effect? I guess I'll give you a break. If you can deal with that species of Christian, you're a better woman than I. (Which sort of goes without saying.)

Did your daughter sing or play piano?

Lydia McGrew said...

She sang. So you can imagine that the cold was a cause of some worry the last couple of days. We try to cultivate a calm, polished, unemotional style--not all "contemporary." But I was rather amused that the slight huskiness in her voice at a couple of points caused by the cold seems to have struck people as emotion. I had people keep telling me afterwards, "You could tell she really meant it."

Crucifixes aren't as "bad". That's why I have that painting up and not one of a beer bottle. :-)

But saying "darn" might really drive people away, so I'll have to watch myself even more carefully. :-)

But the various friends I have in mind are all, in my opinion, better people than I am.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, clean up your language.

better people than I

I doubt it, though I suppose your attitude is a healthy one.

Give my congrats to your daughter, and tell her to give thanks for the lesser infirmities sent our way, like colds.

Lydia McGrew said...

I actually know what you mean about the lesser infirmities, and I do tell her stuff like that, but I always feel rather grim doing so. I'm sort of glad she's had such a nice life so far.

But I was thinking about lesser infirmities today when I messed up rather spectacularly on the organ on the opening hymn at our church's St. Patrick's Day shindig (transferred). I have the same cold she has, but in my case the voice is more or less gone, so I couldn't sing. But I took along a huge quantity of tissues, pulled myself together, and did my best on the organ. We sing this song every year called "I Bind Unto Myself Today" which has some long-standing traditional connection with St. Patrick. And it is a stinker. You have to jump back and forth across the page five times and then turn the page. Anyway, the organist is supposed to know what's going on, even if no one else does, and I've done it for quite a few years and never gotten lost before but, sure enough, today I launched into the second page on verse one, only verse one doesn't have a second page. Lost the congregation completely, went back to where I was supposed to be, which only Eldest Daughter followed. She led onward with a strong voice valiantly, but by that time the congregation (including all the visitors who came to visit from our sister congregation up north, _and_ the one visiting priest who has a beautiful voice) was cowed and confused into near silence, and it was a very subdued opening hymn. What makes it sadder is that they had started out singing very well. It's a shame I had to mess them up so close to the beginning of the song.

One of those embarrassing moments. But it has a funny and comforting sort of sound to it when you tell the story. I can imagine being in many places and circumstances from which I would look back with great fondness on that service.

Anonymous said...

They had better appreciate the totality of your service, if not this one instance of it. Your story reminds me of the golfer's wisdom (especially if you're a good golfer): you're always one swing away from humiliation.