Be Not Idle

Bob Parks, an online columnist I greatly admire, posted about the Chuck Jones Gallery (Jones of Warner Bros fame)  displaying a work that spoofs Leonardo’s The Last Supper. The artist Glen Tarnowski replaced the Apostles with cartoon characters. And Bugs Bunny figures prominently.

Tarnowski, an alumnus of California Lutheran University, explained that he meant it to be positive. The article paraphrases that he wanted to show that “God loves people so much that even if we all were cartoon characters, he would have come to us.”

Mr. Parks is skeptical, but  I don’t think it’s an insult to Christ. No, it’s just a plea for help. This is proof positive that the good folks in Washington must pass a media/arts bailout soon. Continue Reading »

Although its the middle of Advent, this week is the first time it’s felt like Christmas is approaching. It’s not because I unpacked the Christmas tree. I haven’t. And the Nativity is still in its box until this coming weekend, when a few friends are coming for nog-chugging and tree-trimming.

Partly it’s because this workweek is book-ended by Marian feast days: the Immaculate Conception and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The latter drives certain Christians up the wall, especially when they see the “worship” of Mary by Mexican immigrants. (Funny how Shakespeare used “pray” as “ask/petition”, but nowadays it’s a synonym for “worship”.)  

But the feeling of Advent also came over me when I took my students to the Detroit Institute of Arts. The big draw was the “From Monet to Dalí” exhibit on loan from Cleveland (including many works by Picasso and Van Gogh’s gorgeous The Plane Trees).

As usual, a couple of my students fell in love with Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry Murals. But the universal crowd-pleaser was a temporary installation. In the courtyard before Rivera Court, long strands of small mirrors had been hung from the ceiling for the holidays. They sparkled in the sunlight from the windows, casting circles of light that drifted over the walls. A couple of my students were so enchanted that they lay down on the floor in order to take photos from below.

It was certainly pretty, but it didn’t strike me as particularly Christmassy (to use a teenager’s adjective). No, what put me in the Advent mood was when a chaperone and I were walking through the European wing and came upon Fra Angelico’s Annunciatory Angel and The Virgin Annunciate. Two Muslim women were studying the paintings, and the bright images made a sharp contrast to their dark clothing and the dull colors of stone and metal artwork in the room.

I’ve seen this image every Advent, mostly on Christmas cards. This year it also appears in Christianity Today’s Advent calendar.  But reproductions don’t do it justice. The gold leaf sparkles so that the Gabriel shines and Mary’s hair is a golden mass of light. She is looking down, thinking. In person, you realize why this image is a great work of art and not a seasonal cliché.

That’s why it reminded me of Advent.

That’s what Advent does: It makes you pay attention to real Beauty. Christmas is not a story that you dust off once a year and display, like timeworn ornaments and the bent metal star. God in all His infinite power came to live among us, so we could know Him. 

Anunciatory Angel is one of ”The Director’s Dozen”, as chosen by Graham W. J. Beal. For the complete list, click on http://www.dia.org/the_collection/directors_picks/index.asp

For more about Fra Angelico in general, and Annunciatory Angel and The Virgin Annunciate in particular (including a photo), please see The Christian Science Monitor’s article on a 2005 exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1221/p18s02-hfes.html

Wow, what a great movie! I’ll try to keep spoilers to a minimum. 

The first section of the movie had almost no dialogue. I’d read a review that said that children would be bored with the slow pace at the beginning,  but all I can say is: That critic has forgotten that children are mesmerized by such “boring” things as a waterbug skating in a puddle, cat’s tails curling, and sunbeams reflected from the face of Dad’s watch.  Wall-E’s everyday life was fascinating.

I was stunned by the beautiful expression of  the relationship between the robots Wall-E and EVE. He wanted to share all his treasures with her. Even when she went into a dormant state, he continued caring for and sharing his life with her. He bashfully fixated on the eternal question that burns in a lover’s heart: Will she consent to hold my hand? (It was a more diverting subplot than the typical “When can I kiss her?” or “How do I get her into bed?”)

His devotion spurs him to follow her into space when she is retrieved by her makers. Upon reaching the spaceship where humans live, Wall-E continues his pursuit of Eve, but this relationship makes him see and interact with others. His interactions with humans, in particular, shake them from their complacency.

Complacency and consumerism are, of course, part of the “message” of the movie. After leaving the junk-covered and uninhabitable Earth, humans have taken to a spa-like setting in Space. Their bodies have atrophied and their attention is completely focused on trivialities. For me, the point was hammered home by two images. First, the video histories consisted of real people and photos of real objects – a jarring contrast with the unreal animated humans. Second, ads displayed for the ship’s populace featured svelte models standing upright, but the inhabitants were unaware that they looked nothing like those people. 

The breakthrough was when the Captain looked at the portaits of his predecessors and truly SAW the degradation of humanity that led to… him.  That’s a sad moment, but one of the joys of the movie occurs when the humans step outside their comfort zones. The Captain forsakes bedtime to learn history. Mary and John go from obliviousness, to interacting with each other, and at last to looking out for others.

Warning: unavoidable spoilage ahead.

1) Having the villain be a robot was BRILLIANT.  I fully expected a run-of-the-mill corporate executive to be secretly pulling the strings. Instead, the ship’s steering wheel is literally staying on course, despite the Captain’s reasonable assertions that returning to Earth is the TRUE Directive.

The relationship between the Captain and his “reliable” assistant forms a perfect contrast with Wall-E and Eve’s relationship. Eve sets aside her prime directive in order to help Wall-E when he’s damaged. However, he  insists on helping her fulfill her mission rather than being fixed.  It’s not exactly  ”The Gift of the Magi” in Space, but hits the main challenge of a relationship: knowing when to sacrifice one’s own Directive needs for the other’s.

2) Disney movies often end with a pseudo-resurrection, in which one character is assumed dead but miraculously survives. For example, there are Snow White, Aladin, Beauty and the Beast, the excruciatingly-mutilated rendition of The Black Cauldron, etcetera ad nauseum. Even Pixar’s Finding Nemo had two such scenes.

However, this time there was a heart-wrenching twist: EVE literally restores and refurbishes Wall-E, only to have him reboot as a quirk-less automaton. I admit to getting a lump in my throat at the scene. It captured the essence of those losses that hurt as much as death: losing a loved one to a change of feeling or to deteriorating mental faculties.  

 3) Finally, I’d read critiques that called the ending “bleak” or “dark”. Like every Pixar movie, you have to pay attention to the images as the credits roll. After all the videos and hi-tech imagery of the spaceship, the end of the story is told in heiroglyphs and mosaics: The ”defective” robots helping the humans rediscover life on Earth, children planting seeds that eventually overgrown the abandoned ship, a boy fishing from a clean lake, etc. It’s a happy ending.  

 Here’s a link to an interview with writer-director Andrew Stanton, including how his faith affected his story, including insights on the characters:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/interviews/andrewsta nton.html

Julie D. over at Happy Catholic had a post about the cartoon Savage Chicken. I get it in my daily e-mail. My favourite comic strips are “Crankshaft”, “Peanuts” and ”Rose Is Rose”.

I’ve never particularly cared for Garfield, but my cousin Anne sent me a link to “Garfield minus Garfield”. I love it. It’s funny because it’s sad…

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.

http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/

One of my classmates, Jessie, is a  pre-teen with a lot of imagination and heart. Today I commissioned her to make me a squirrel for my garden. We agreed that the price would be under $100. Her mother suggested that maybe we could trade art.  (I’ll have to see if she likes any of my boring old things… Maybe I could make her a horse-shaped bowl?)

 Children are so brave about their creativity. She knows that her masterpiece, a mare and foal, may crack or even explode in the kiln. She made it a bit thick and let it dry quickly. But for her, the most important thing is to make it.

The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of Life, and so man became a living being.

  - Genesis 2:7

As a kid, I used to imagine Adam being made of blue Play-Doh. (Because blue is a masculine color.)  I knew very little about clay. Once in a while I’d run into a patch of it while walking in a lake – a slippery mass of the blue-tinged white clay of Michigan. But it wasn’t until high school that I saw clay being used – and rather misshapen objects at that!

I’ve been taking clay class nearly a year. I joined because I had such a terrible experience with clay in high school, and I wanted a “do-over”.  It’s been wonderful! I’ve yet to use a wheel. Instead, I build things by slab and coil methods.

I’ve gone from making sculpture – like the angel that was Mom and Dad’s Christmas present – to more utilitarian objects.  I’ve gotten a good response to my work, even when they’re just sitting on the shelves near the kiln, waiting for the first firing. My teacher, Carolyn, told me that my bowls show my “signature”. I made them by using paper patterns to cut clay shapes, then layered them into a bowl. I worked from the outside in, layer by layer.

As of Thursday, I’m making tiles for my kitchen – a more durable backsplash than the stained and peeling wallpaper. I have sketched out tiles with a fruit motif to complement my Corelle Chutney dishes. I will mimic a classic Italian style by using a white glaze and a single colour per tile to accent the fruit.

At home, I have to measure the walls above the kitchen counter. I’m excited yet nervous. I face the prospect of cleaning, stripping, and preparing the walls. If I think about it, I start to worry that the tiles themselves won’t turn out. But I try to concentrate on one thing at a time: drawing, measuring, sculpting.

Truth to tell, I never thought of myself as an artist.  My best friend through grade school  is a great artist. When we were kids, she would become totally absorbed in drawing and painting. By high school, she had a maturity and a style that was very much her own. Her watercolours impressed even our teacher, who was a professional watercolour artist.  I was artistic but more of a dabbler.

Strangely enough, my skills are growing as I find reasons to make things. I suppose I’m not an artist as much as I’m a craftsman. Just like I can take an old piece of furniture or a discarded lamp and change it into something beautiful, I can make make something out of clay.  At first I was dissatisfied because what I wanted and what I produced weren’t the same thing. Gradually, however, I figured out that clay isn’t fabric or wood. It’s clay. So I let the clay be clay, and I changed my design.

Now I find satisfaction in the work itself. When I’m pressing down and forward on the clay, working the airbubbles out of it, the action is soothing even if my “rose” of clay looks more like a deformed seashell. Pressing it into slabs by running it under a roller – that’s fun. Carving into the clay and building up forms – those are like meditation because any extraneous thoughts have no room in my mind. All I can think about is what I conceive and what I’m doing at the moment.