Simon Helps Jesus Carry the Cross Oil and gold on canvas 30″x20″
My closest artist friends and I were a part of the Art & Faith Life Group. One year, 16 of us decided to create our Scriptural Way of the Cross. For this project, I chose to do Way #8: Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus Carry the Cross.
But, as usual, I needed the right model. My son Jonathan worked at Starbucks at the time, and through him I met Oliver, one of his long-time customers. I shared the story of the Encounter Gallery and my idea for this next painting. It turns out that Oliver knew the story well and said he would be my Simon of Cyrene. He even agreed to change into a suit & tie and meet me at our church where I knew I could borrow a large cross. Then, as my friend Andy carried the front, Oliver carried the back end of that cross up a hill many times while I took pictures.
WestWind Christian Church, Keller TX Maundy Thursday 2025
Simon of Cyrene did not volunteer his service for Jesus. He was forced to serve. But, he did it.
We might think that this was just an accident, because he was somehow noticed by the soldiers. But I think he was noticed and singled out by God, who used the soldiers to pull Simon forward.
However Simon did not shrink back when called – even forced – to serve. I’m sure that a direct order from armed guards was quite convincing. But he did not complain, he was not too proud to carry a cross for a convicted criminal.
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.
There’s something reassuring when working with scissors and glue. Not only familiar, but also easy and fun. For me, there are fewer pretentious thoughts to making great art and lots more smiling and fun. It never fails when we’ve set up an art-making night that everyone gets busy and I just stare at whatever materials we’ve collected and all my great ideas just fly away, It feels like the everyone else is moving on and doing their thing and I am completely out of ideas.
More ceralism.
Most of the materials we were using were from cereal boxes saved for this purpose over the last few months due to our recent collage experience with Michael Albert. The colors and font designs are fantastic and probably the results of millions of dollars of advertising campaigns. The cost is basically nothing, and it’s keeping some packaging from going straight to the dump. Ok, so it’s just a little bit of packaging that we’re temporarily keeping from the garbage, but it’s a good feeling to recycle even a little bit. It’s especially a good feeling to make something fun and use basically no money at all in it.
Lurking Desire
Here’s what I finally came up with. It’s a sort of psychological portrait of a small part of our marriage. It’s also using what was available and not being fussy about it. The pepperoni pizza bird on the left is me, the popcorn bird is she. It would have been more accurate if my bird had been made of fried chicken, but a suitable pic was not available. The popcorn bird is entirely accurate. My lovely wife loves popcorn. It’s the go-to snack while amazon prime binging.
Intense discussion
I love this picture. It’s a bit out of order. We almost always eat, and talk, and pray together before the art-making. The spot on the couch by Phil is occupied by Wendy who is right there skyped in on Melissa’s cell phone which was pretty cool. The conversation that I remember most about this evening is the idea that we have to keep taking risks and focusing on truly important things. Whether it’s with new art-making ideas, new relationships, or more time spent praying, reading, and applying scripture to our lives. Someone said that we need to rid ourselves of those time-consuming activities with which we are pre-occupied and move forward with the vital things. And stop worrying about whether or not we and they will be accepted.
At Art and Faith in July, Mac Browning showed us how to take a loop of wire and sculpt a twisted-wire tree. I’ve admired Mac’s beautiful trees many times and it was very interesting to get a feel for what goes into one of his creations by trying to make my own. Mac was thorough and patient and getting started was easy. However, the wire twisting itself was not easy. It takes a combination of strength and dexterity to get what you want. It always gives me a great appreciation for what another artist does when I try a new technique for the first time.
Tom, Melinda, Sara, Melissa, and Norma focusing on the work.
Sometimes making art requires intense thought. When I’m painting a portrait, I have to concentrate completely. If I zone out and begin thinking about something else, I make color, value, and composition choices that just don’t make sense and have to be re-worked and fixed and it wastes a ton of time. It’s happened many times. It’s nice to have something that is not quite like that. Maybe Mac has to concentrate and not lose focus to make his trees, but for me, it was nice to work on something and carry on a conversation at the same time.
Mac showing how it’s done. Sara and Melissa contemplate the next move.
Art & Faith is on the 2nd Saturday of the month. We eat, we pray, we make art.
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
Artists at play. Sara, Denise, Wendee, Robert, Rebecca and Lindy. (Cr. Russ Reed 2019)
Art & Faith met Saturday evening and as usual shared a wonderful meal and caught up on recent life events. We also discussed the meaning of Jesus’ scribbling in the sand and response to the woman caught in adultery and we prayed together.
Denise Hohulin gave a wonderful and unique photographic presentation on The Texture of Light. She passed around a number of photos that were so interesting. I had been looking forward for some time to see how she set these up. Denise only uses a few hand held lamps, or an open window to let in the sun for the light source. Then she uses a number of glass vases, champagne glasses, bowls and other objects to get these shots. She showed us how to manipulate the light source and the glass vessels to achieve some remarkable patterns and textured surfaces layered on textured surfaces. .
The Texture of Light by Denise Hohulin
It was interesting to see how the smallest, most infinitesimal movement in the glass led to completely different and unexpected patterns. We played around and came up with some novel approaches to creating textured shadows on surfaces and walls. It was also fun to imagine an exhibition of light, darkness and shadows and what might be required to make it work. Most of all we gained a bit of insight into Denise’s creative mindset and catch up with her latest work.
Art & Faith was at the UTA Glassblowing Hotshop last Saturday evening. We received a very special invitation to watch Jon Reed and friends do what they do with hot glass. They stretched, formed, textured, blew, shaped, and reheated their glass countless times. The results were 3 gorgeous vessel created from initial blobs of molten glass.
Watching glass blowers is better than a movie. It’s a live performance with suspense, plot, drama, choreography, and great characterization. The final reveal can be shocking. We were privileged to watch 3 artists at different stages in their craft form and blow glass. When one artist was on point, the other two were busy helping behind the scenes with numerous tasks. I’ve watched videos of glassblowing before but did not appreciate the many activities that were happening “off-screen” which were vital to the success of the project. It is definitely a team sport.
Then we enjoyed some excellent pizza at Old School Pizza and Suds which is its own form of team sport.
I’ve enjoyed the piano work of Thelonious Monk, but didn’t know a lot about his life and relationships. Geoff Dyer’s But Beautiful is a book about some of my favorite jazz players, and there’s a great chapter on Thelonious and his wife Nellie. The insight into his work and their relationship from this chapter alone are worth the read.
After Thelonious was arrested for heroin possession, (he takes the rap for his friend Bud Powell) he was barred from working in New York City. But this was his city and he didn’t want to leave.
The un-years was what Nellie called them. They came to an end when he was offered a residency at the 5-Spot for as long as he wanted, as long as people wanted to see him. Nellie came most nights. When she wasn’t there he got restless, tense, pausing for an extra-long time between numbers. Sometimes, in the middle of a song, he called home to see how she was, grunting, making noises into the phone that she understood as a tender melody of affection. He’d leave the phone off the hook and go back to the piano so she could hear what he was playing for her, getting up again at the end of the song, putting another coin in.
– Still there Nellie?
– It’s beautiful, Thelonious.
– Yeuh, yeuh. Staring at the phone like he was holding something very ordinary in his hand.
This connection between Thelonious and Nellie, the artist and the one who enables the art, is powerful. Thelonious had to share his most intimate creative thoughts, first and foremost, with Nellie. Much of the chapter is about Thelonious absorbed in his music and playing it primarily for the pure action of playing it. To play was what he needed to do. But, clearly, he also needed to share with Nellie. So beautiful. This next passage is more about Nellie’s view of Thelonious.
There were times when Nellie looked at him and wanted to cry, not because she pitied him, but because she knew one day he would die and there was no one else like him in the world.
Wow! What a powerful vision: to know that the person you spend time with is such an amazing and unique creation. I suspect that each of us has the same opportunity to be amazed at someone close to us and see their extraordinary uniqueness. We know we are blessed because God has given us time with this person. They are like none other and the world will be a lesser place when they are gone.
Art & Faith met recently for black powder night. Okay, we didn’t actually use real black powder. That stuff is even more dangerous than what we used, which was synthetic black powder from the local sporting goods store. Even so, it’s incredibly difficult to find. Gun stores don’t carry it. I called 16 gun stores in the southern Dallas cities looking for any kind of synthetic black powder. Only one thought she might have some in a warehouse if I could wait a week. I couldn’t, since it was already Friday, and we had Art & Faith that Saturday evening.
So, we finally located the synthetic black powder – thanks to Veronica. She’s one of our artists and she loves to use black powder in her artwork. It’s always handy to be friends with women who know exactly where to get black powder!
It is very therapeutic to use fire. This technique uses fire to draw. It felt primal, and earthy, and good. Plus, there are some real meditative moments when you carefully shape and shift the powder on the board before lighting it up. There are lots of videos online of folks making amazing drawings with black powder. Watch them for inspiration. But, it is definitely a whole lot more fun to do it yourself. Whatever you do, don’t use the actual black powder if you happen to find any. My friend Jason, who has done a lot of black powder shooting, tells me that it is very, very dangerous. What we used was not so much. But, it’s still fire. And it’s still cool. Some day I’ll go back and finish the self-portrait. But, we had a great time and made some great memories.
As always, be safe. Don’t ever do this indoors. Always wear protective eye-wear and gloves!!!
Jon at the furnace.
The actual blowing of glass.
The final form.
