The Healed Paralytic Oil and 23k gold on canvas 18″ x 24″
This depicts the well-known story from Mark 2 in which the paralyzed man is carried by 4 friends to get him in front of Jesus. But the crowds have pressed in from all sides. These friends are the heroes of the story, humanly speaking. Even though they must have been exhausted, they didn’t give up. After their way was blocked, they persevered and found the stairs to the roof. They carried him up the stairs, removed the tiles in the roof, and lowered him down through the hole.
Then Jesus performed 3 miracles.
The idea behind the halo is borrowed from the pop-art print “Explosion” by Roy Lichtenstein. As I thought about the paralyzed man, it’s interesting that we don’t know what he thought about what was happening to him. He did not speak during the entire story, even after he was healed. So, his halo is one of “surprise and wonder”. He must have been shocked to find himself actually standing on his own two feet. As that is happening, his mind “explodes” with realization.
Encounter Gallery paintings are hanging this summer at Redeemer Bible Church in East Dallas. A number of families and folks from St. Bart’s Anglican Church, which is currently co-located there, also stopped by with their children to look at and talk about the paintings and their stories.
Russ, Terri, and Michael Albert at Crystal Bridges
Terri and I hung out at the Crystal Bridges Art Studio in Northwest Arkansas a few weeks ago with Michael Albert (michaelalbert.com). Michael has been doing collage for a number of years and his works are both colorful and whimsical, and yet insightful and serious too. Michael has a number of favorite texts, narratives, speeches, scriptures, and such which have meant a lot to him over the years and he has committed them to collage, as well as some of them to memory. I thought that was pretty cool.
Terri working on her Lone Start flag.
So, while Terri got to work on her collage, I hung out with Michael and as usual asked a ton of questions. He’s on an “Art-demo and Workshop” Tour across dozens of U.S. cities. Most of his stops are at libraries where he leads folks, mostly kids, in activities using art, but also discussing and leading conversations about a number of those texts and stories that are so important to him. I asked him how he chose the libraries, and he said that he had written and published a book. He looked up which libraries carried his book, and just called them up and told them what he was doing. So, he has been driving from city to city for a number of weeks, maybe months now, visiting small towns and big, and getting to know people. Once again… very cool.
He calls his collage work “cerealism” because so much of it is found in the packaging for cereal boxes. So, it’s a lot of fun to see the images in his art, originally on cereal boxes I know well from my childhood. It’s sometimes a bit educational, if not sobering, to see how he uses the text in his work. Some of my favorites were Psalm 23, the preamble to the Constitution, and the Gettysburg address. There’s lots to choose from though, he’s a well-read guy.
Terri chose to make her version of our state flag. She had some symbolic fun and included some numbers in the work that are personally very important to her. I thought it turned out very nice.
Lone Star Flag Paper and glue 12″ x 14″ by Terri Reed
I have a tradition of working on self-portraits whenever I’m at making-art demos, working in new media, and I don’t know what else to do. So, I sat down and did a 30 second self-portrait sketch in pencil, and then started cutting up cereal boxes. I decided to do a layering technique, whereas Michael and Terri both do more of a mosaic effect where they cut the shapes out to piece them together like a puzzle. I overlaid mine, one on top of another, and got more of a 3-D effect, which really worked for the self-portrait.
When we were finishing up, Terri asked me where the grey was in my beard. I really was taken aback. It turns out that my self-portrait is not a bad likeness, but it’s more life-like to my appearance 30-years ago, than it is now. While I was making the portrait, I was actually thinking of myself with dark brown hair. So, I blamed it on the cereal boxes and told her that silver was not really a cereal color.
There are a few important things to me about going to these art-making studio demos. I love to meet artists who are doing their creative thing and are willing to share their time and ideas with me. Michael was so generous, gave us some fantastic posters, and talked about his creative background and experience. It’s really nice to just listen to artists talk about what inspires them. I think occasionally it rubs off and something important and perhaps philosophical might find it’s way into my art or my creative habit.
But, it also allows (forces) me to try something new besides oil painting. The painting is so serious and these different media allow me to relax and just have fun. Try cutting up some cardboard packaging like a 6 year old and make something out of it that’s meaningful. It’s fun. These new media really stretch me and push me into something new. I’m terrible about making art in front of other people. I like to be alone, alone, alone. But, in the middle of the chaos at the Crystal Bridges Art Studio there’s nowhere to hide and you just have to go for it. Give yourself permission to have some fun and be silly.
Self-portrait Paper and glue 10″ x 8″ by Russ Reed
Disciples Serve the Five Thousand Oil on canvas 24″ x 18″
This is my latest work in the Encounter Gallery series entitled “Disciples Serve the Five Thousand”. I was talking with my friend Takiyah about my narrative portraits and that I had started out painting almost exclusively my own family members, mostly because they were willing. I said that as I looked back over my paintings, it occurred to me that my family was awfully white. Takiyah laughed and said “well, my family is awfully black!” I asked her if there was a gospel story that she most identified with and characterized her and her history. She said that the one that most often came to mind was the feeding of the 5,000. She told me about growing up fairly poor in the Los Angeles area, but definitely not realizing that they were poor. She recounted a few of the numerous times that her family was unexpectedly confronted with the Lord’s abundance. This idea of abundance is central to Takiyah’s experience of God in her life. He has supplied her and her family’s needs abundantly and continually. There were powerful stories from her childhood in which her family was blessed with abundance that could only have come from God. As I listened to her stories, I thought of my own history. My father had a good job, and worked steadily throughout my childhood. I never really questioned or wondered where the groceries came from. I realized early on that Dad was paid regularly, and the money went into the bank, and that was how we bought the groceries. I knew then that God provides, even in this way. But Mom and Dad were very frugal, and I never really got a sense of abundance or unexpectedness. Our abundance was more a sense of “enough” and “steady” for which I’m very grateful. This very consistency was and is a gift from my Dad. The groceries always got bought, so that meant that Dad was working, and God was providing both.
But Takiyah’s experience was different and in its own way glorious. God has continued to provide for her in an abundant and sometimes an unexpected way.
While meditating on the story of the 5,000, I began to think about how much labor it would have taken to distribute a dinner of fish and bread to so many men, women and children. Thousands of meals delivered across a hillside next to the lake would have taken so much effort. I imagined that as Jesus multiplied the fish and bread, his disciples saw what was happening and quickly realized what it would take to serve this crowd. They loaded up with plates of the newly created meals and went throughout the crowd, handing out delicious food to everyone who was there. I set the scene on the northeast shore of White Rock Lake with the skyline of Dallas just barely visible in the distance. I pictured the disciples as seasoned diner waiters and waitresses with arms full of plates of baked fish and rolls headed up the hill to the people. This was a day of extraordinary and unexpected abundance, and Jesus’ many followers and disciples were there to serve. It is the perfect story of Takiyah’s experience with the unexpected abundance from God.
“Disciples Serve the Five Thousand” is currently on display with the Encounter Gallery series at Lovers Lane United Methodist Church in Watson Hall (in Dallas) until August 22, 2019.
24 Feet is installed in the sanctuary of Saint Cecelia’s Catholic Church through Pentecost (Sunday, June 9). Father Moreno asked that we install it in the sanctuary over the exit door so that the congregation will see it as they leave the service. It took quite a bit of expert maneuvering of the hydraulic lift. My friend Robert and I held and attached the painting, while Alberto ran the lift. It turned out to be a stunning place to hang this painting.
St. Cecelia’s Catholic Church at 1809 W. Davis Street in Oak Cliff is a new church building in an established parish. The older church was hit by lightning in 2007 and burned. This beautiful and spacious new church was then built and dedicated in 2011.
The Confessor (self-portrait)
Oil on canvas,
30″ x 24″
This is my entry into this year’s Southwest Dallas Arts Festival which had the theme “Healed!”. In connection with spiritual and physical health and healing, I’ve been thinking about James 5, especially the two “one another’s” in verse 16. This seems to me to be encouraging confession among all of us “one another’s” as opposed to confession to a priestly class. This work was made thinking about that idea.
The Confessor and The Listener
Both Oil on canvas
Both 30″ x 24″
The painting on the left is a self-portrait, painted in late April. The painting on the right is my friend Paul and was finished around 20 years ago. I keep some of my older paintings in the stairwell in our home, so I see them every time I go up or down, which is many times a day. I have great memories of painting “Paul”, because my first art teacher and mentor was very enthusiastic about the unusual composition and how it turned out.
I think that Paul is listening to something that is very troubling. I imagine him to be on the receiving end of a confession, so he’s a perfect “Listener”, to my “Confessor”. That’s why I hung the 2 paintings in the festival exactly like this. It was also interesting since they were done so far apart. They are speaking to each other in a spiritual way (confession), but also across a couple of decades. The painting of me turned out pretty intense. I seem to be staring down my friend Paul, daring him to respond to my confession. But after I finished I reflected that confession itself, to our chosen “one another“, is a very intense and frightening idea. Perhaps the withering glare is somehow appropriate.
