These are dry times. Summer slips away faster than you can catch it – a dime down the drain. The sky hangs damp and icy today. Across the globe, powerful little men toy with the world’s future like it’s a game of chicken. Hurricanes have ravaged large parts of our earth. Families will suffer the effects for years to come. Terrorists won’t let London sleep.
This planet can get so ugly. So broken. So disordered. So many of our mirrors are shattered.
There is order in beauty. A divine order, I believe, but whatever your theology you can feel it. The affirmation of disparate parts falling into place.
Jennifer Berkenbosch’s Cultivar matters because the world needs beauty today. We need to be reminded that there is goodness. There is a solid bed beneath this wild river.
A source of continual inspiration, Austin Kleon is a prolific artist who gives back to the significant community that surrounds him. From his live art sessions on Periscope, to his weekly treasure trove of email recommendations, I've learend a lot from Austin Kleon.
You have something to say–why not say it here? Email your blog post idea to dave@bleedingheartart.space and let's chat.
Image from http://goldensea.makotofujimura.com/
Makoto Fujimura is an artist who has opened worlds for me. He opened the world of abstraction so that I could walk inside. I'd felt shut out of that world before I encountered the welcome of his work. Something in his work continues to draw me, even though it contains no forms I recognize and no concrete concept I can dissect or explain. Even though I'd never heard of Japanese Nihonga painting before.
Fujimura might be the reason I painted my bedroom wall gold.
Makoto Fujimura opened the world of faith and the arts several cracks wider for me. He showed me, before I began to see it everywhere, that there are artists of excellence who are fervent Christians. Honestly, I'd thought that was a hybrid that didn't exist, like a unicorn.
Finally, Fujimura showed me that, even in a world filled with hunger and thirst, extravagance in art is not only alright but needed. That beauty is life-giving. That hope and creativity are conjoined twins.
Discover his work at http://www.makotofujimura.com/works/
You have something to say–why not say it here? Email your blog post idea to dave@bleedingheartart.space and let's chat.
Today I received an email from Image Journal, and in that email was a link to a new poem from Scott Cairns called Lenten Complaint.
Photo from Image Journal
This poem reminded my how I've been stirred by the words of Scott Cairns in the past. How when Cairns reminds me that, "He shaped of every sepulcher / a womb", I resonate. How his relationship with Greek Orthodoxy, the Greek language and the Christian faith stirs a potent poetic cocktail. How his phrase 'every womb a sepulchre' How I haven't done so well with Lent this year. How I have my own complaints. How we share a broken hope.
I realized, reading that poem, that you may not know the work of Scott Cairns, and how that would be a shame.
His latest book of collected poems is called Slow Pilgrim. Whatever you are fasting from for Lent, I hope it isn't poetry.
Read Lenten Complaint, from Issue 68 of Image Journal, here.
You have something to say–why not say it here? Email your blog post idea to dave@bleedingheartart.space and let's chat.
I first learned about White from Beauty is Embarrassing, the documentary that taught me Wayne White was like the underground bizarro-world Jim Henson, and pretty much endeared me to him forever.
You have something to say–why not say it here? Email your blog post idea to dave@bleedingheartart.space and let's chat.
Cynthia Hamar is an Edmonton area singer-songwriter who released her third album, The Son and I, just this weekend
You have something to say–why not say it here? Email your blog post idea to dave@bleedingheartart.space and let's chat.
I've never altered a book before.
Sure, I've highlighted and underlined and jammed a thousand sticky notes into the pages to mine the goodness from a book for posterity. But I have never transformed a book into a work of art.
Tonight, Penny Torres is going to teach me how to alter a book.
You have something to say–why not say it here? Email your blog post idea to dave@bleedingheartart.space and let's chat.
We see missing and murdered indigenous women in this country.
We see a field of bare trees hung with red dresses. We see colourful prayer flags covering those trees throughout February and into March.
We see change. We see healing and we see hope. We will continue to see. And we will act for reconciliation.
http://www.bleedingheartart.space/we-see
Opens February 7 at 2 PM. Closes March 5 at 3 PM.
92st and 118th ave
All are welcome.
This project has been inspired by the REDress project originated by Jaime Black in Winnipeg. Find out more about her original project at http://www.theredressproject.org
You have something to say–why not say it here? Email your blog post idea to dave@bleedingheartart.space and let's chat.
BH: Penny, you are leading a workshop on Altered Books at Bleeding Heart on February 3. For someone who doesn’t know what an Altered Book is (like me, for instance), can you describe an Altered Book?
PT: An Altered book is kind of a cross between sculpture and and multi-media art. It's environmentally friendly because you use old discarded books and transform them into interest artistic statements. There are countless methods involved and they can be as easy or complicated as you like.
You have something to say–why not say it here? Email your blog post idea to dave@bleedingheartart.space and let's chat.
Why do we feel guilty spending money to further our creative careers?
Why does it feel indulgent to make investments that nurture and awaken our weary souls?
Spending money on workshops, retreats and resources can be a big pill to swallow but let me assure you, it is not money spent, it is money invested. The investment often has returns you simply cannot predict.
You have something to say–why not say it here? Email your blog post idea to dave@bleedingheartart.space and let's chat.
A couple of weeks back I had the opportunity to sit down with Alysha Creighton and talk about her current installation, WAITING ROOM. It's rare that I share something that has barely been edited, but I wanted to get this out there before we all shut down for the holidays. Expect a more polished version in the new year, but for now, enjoy this conversation in all of its glory!
You have something to say–why not say it here? Email your blog post idea to dave@bleedingheartart.space and let's chat.
