God is an Awesome Artist

A couple weeks ago, my sister sent me this email:

Hi Pauline. At a women’s retreat in June, we had to try to find words (preferably alliterative pairs) describing the Lord for each letter in the theme of the retreat. But I think it could be fun to try the entire alphabet. So, for example, L could be Loving Lord. But there are more subtle ones, based on scripture; I found quite a few in the Psalms. For example, Foe Finder (based on Ps. 21:8). So I thought, Pauline might enjoy finding phrases, whenever you feel like thinking them up or hunting them down in the Bible.

Of course she was right – I promptly started trying to think of alliterative pairs for each letter of the alphabet. I remember doing something similar at a Wednesday night Bible study over twenty years ago, when we were learning about the attributes of God. But that time we only tried to come up with one word for each letter of the alphabet, not two. It’s easy enough to say that God is Zealous. But I have yet to come up with a noun starting with Z that applies to God. (I’m not going to even try X.)

Some letters were pretty easy. I came up with multiple ideas for F, G, P, and S. Others are more challenging, especially as I’m trying to find a Bible passage to go with each one, preferably using some form of both words. For A, the closest I could come was Almighty Alpha-and-Omega, from Revelation 1:8 (“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”)

But since I’m trying to find words starting with letters of the English alphabet, using a word that is actually a letter of the Greek alphabet, and is part of a phrase rather than a single word, didn’t satisfy me. If I want to say that God has been from the beginning and will be to the “end” (not that eternity has an end, or a beginning, for that matter), I’d rather use a perfectly good word like Eternal. (Which is what I’m trying to use for E, but I’m still working on that one…)

I can say God is an Architect (Hebrews 11:10), or Author (Acts 3:15), but neither of those passages offers an adjective to pair with it, not even one that doesn’t start with A but has a synonym I could use that starts with A. One idea I came up with was Absolute Authority. While I’m sure I can’t find a verse that uses those words (I’ve tried), the idea is certainly there in many passages.

But in the end I decided the one I like best is Awesome Artist. I have at least one other that speaks of God’s creative power, but there the focus is on bringing everything into existence. With Artist, I think of the incredible beauty we see throughout the universe. From the microscopic size (have you ever thought of bacteria as beautiful?) to the astronomic (NASA has a great Astronomy Picture of the Day archive), creation is filled with colors, patterns, and an endless variety of designs that leave us gaping in awe.

A mountain, a man, and a monument

At the opposite end of the size scale from Willard Wigan (see my post “Art under the Microscope”), Gutzon Borglum sculpted works so large you have to stand pretty far away to see them properly. Eighty-two years ago today, he started carving the face of an American president into the southeast face of Mount Rushmore. When he died fourteen years later, the work was still not complete. His son Lincoln finished the massive monument, which today attracts almost three million visitors a year to the Black Hills of South Dakota.

I hadn’t known until today that increased tourism was in fact the initial motivation behind the project. Having lived in a town whose economy depended on tourism (Houghton Lake, Michigan), I don’t think highly of such a plan for stimulating the economy. There are plenty of jobs in a tourist economy, but few careers. Few young people aspire to work in motels or restaurants (or gas stations, gift shops, or convenience stores), so they move away in search of better work. And while an economic downturn hurts the whole country, it hits especially hard in an area that depends on people from elsewhere coming to spend their discretionary income.

The sculptor selected for the project had grander things in mind than tourism, however. He rejected the initial ideas of subjects for the sculpture: Western figures such as Chief Red Cloud, Buffalo Bill Cody, Lewis and Clark, and legendary Sioux warriors. Borglum wanted his work to inspire all Americans. Besides the four Presidents, he also planned a huge panel commemorating the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, plus the Louisiana Purchase and other territorial acquisitions. But this part of the project had to be abandoned due to lack of funds, along with carving the Presidents from head to waist rather than just heads.

I don’t know what I’d think of Mount Rushmore if I saw it in person. I love mountains, but in large part that’s because I like to be out in nature. I don’t dislike civilization, but I do like to get away from its noise, as well as from the lack of beauty in many populated areas. Mount Rushmore is certainly out in nature, but it is so obviously a work of man, I’m not sure I’d be more awed by man’s achievement there or wishing it had been left alone to be shaped by wind and rain.

Even without seeing Mount Rushmore, though, I will always associate it with the ideas of resourcefulnes and perseverance. When I was in elementary school, we occasionally were shown movies (on those old reel-to-reel movie projectors). My favorites were the Bell Telephone science series, and a movie adaptation of Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, all of which we saw more than once. One movie we saw only once, but which I have always remembered, was called “They Said It Couldn’t Be Done.”

Art under the microscope

If you think a camel can’t fit through the eye of a needle, you haven’t seen Willard Wigan’s artwork. Of course, you won’t be able to see it without a microscope. (These days, I can barely see the eye of a needle, let alone anything in it. I understand now why just a few years ago, women I sewed with envied my ability to easily thread a needle.) With proper magnification, however, you will see that Wigan has placed not just one but nine miniature camels in the eye of a needle. (See slide 2 of this slideshow.)

My husband likes to paint small pewter figurines, and he purchased a visor equipped with both a magnifying lens and a light to aid him in his detailed work. To paint the eyes, he uses a paintbrush narrowed to a single strand, or the point of a pin. But even that would be impossibly large for the work Wigan does. He does use a hair to paint his creations, but it is hair taken from a dead housefly.

Wigan is a prime example of failure fueling success. A child who struggled with dyslexia and other learning disabilities and did very poorly in school, Wigan found solace in creating art on a tiny scale – so tiny his teachers could not see it and thus could not criticize it. Encouraged by his mother, he applied his unusual ability on a smaller and smaller scale. To this day he can barely read or write, but his one-of-a-kind artworks sell for tens of thousands of dollars.

I admire Wigan’s skill – both with his scalpel (unlike most artists working on a microscopic level, he does his work by hand) and in controlling his body. To avoid hand tremors, he has to work in a trance-like state and only make cuts in between heartbeats. He chose a difficult profession and applies himself to its demanding requirements, patiently working week after week to produce a single product.

The childhood wisdom of Maurice Sendak

As many people as there are who love the book Where the Wild Things Are, it may be strange that I never read it until tonight. At least, I don’t remember ever reading it before, and the story didn’t seem at all familiar. I have to admit to being somewhat puzzled at it being a favorite book for so many, and being described as being appealing to adults as well as children.

One reader comment at amazon.com helps explain it somewhat to me:

There’s some deep message in it for little children coming to terms with their own creative and destructive instincts. It doesn’t preach, it has no moral or message really, but it is somehow liberating in that it addresses the desires a young boy has to join the wild things and his wish to eventually return home to the comfort and safety of his family.

Perhaps I have never come to terms with my destructive instincts. (My husband complains that I almost never even express anger; indeed I find it very difficult to do so.) I don’t identify with a desire to join the wild things, and while I did get homesick sometimes as a child, for me “family” represented as much “the wild things” as comfort and safety.

My 9-year-old wondered what I was reading (I found Sendak’s story in an anthology of children’s literature that I bought back before I ever had kids), and read the story when I was done. I’ll have to ask him what he thinks of it.

Birthday of a Polymath

I took an online vocabulary quiz some time ago (I forget at what site, I was trying out several of their quizzes), and one word I was unfamiliar with was polymath. My first thought was of mathematics, and then of polynomials, but as the quiz was multiple choice (what other kind can you put on the web and have it scored by computer?), I could tell that wasn’t the answer. But I was able to figure it out: a person whose knowledge is not restricted to one subject area, and generally used to refer to someone who excels in a wide variety of subjects or fields. (I wondered where the “math” fit in, but I just learned that it comes from the Greek polymathēs, πολυμαθής, “having learned much” – and now I remember from my New Testament Greek that mathētēs, μαθητής, means “learner” or “disciple.”)

I also just learned that today, besides being Tax Day in the U.S., is the birthday of probably the most famous polymath in Western civilization, Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci. Usually he is referred to as the quintessential Renaissance Man, rather than a polymath, but I rather like the shorter term. He certainly knew math – along with being a scientist, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. I never had any ambition to study engineering, anatomy, or botany, but I did aspire to study both broadly and deeply. I’m not sure how well I have achieved that, but I’ve also learned that just learning a lot is not worth all that much unless you can do something worthwhile with your life.

I think da Vinci might have agreed with that. I found a variety of interesting quotations by him at wikiquote.com (under April 15, his birthday), including this one:

Shun those studies in which the work that results dies with the worker.

If the learning only benefits me by giving me more knowledge and the satisfaction of knowing many things, then certainly all that will die with me. On the other hand, attempting to do worthwhile things without having the proper knowledge is not good either.

Those who are in love with practice without knowledge are like the sailor who gets into a ship without rudder or compass and who never can be certain whether he is going. Practice must always be founded on sound theory, and to this Perspective is the guide and the gateway; and without this nothing can be done well in the matter of drawing.

He seems to have been speaking of drawing in this context, but the principle applies equally well to other fields of study and practice. He had quite a bit to say about study, knowledge, and wisdom.

He who thinks little, errs much.

Meltdown

I don’t generally care for the idea of art that does something rather than just is. I’ve read about performance art, and concluded I had no interest in seeing it. But the idea behind Main Street Meltdown is clever, and makes its point effectively. (It isn’t actually performance art, since the artists’ bodies are not involved, but it is somewhat similar because it is about something happening over a period of time.) And ice sculpture is just plain cool (pun intended).

Visualizing the Bible

When I think of visualizing the Bible, I think of scenes from Bible stories, maps showing where Bible events took place, and perhaps some of the memory aids used to help people remember a summary of the entire scope of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. I never went to one of Walk thru the Bible’s seminars, but I did have a professor in Bible school teach us a fairly effective walk through the Old Testament. And last Sunday our pastor taught us a very abbreviated summary, consisting of eight words (each with accompanying hand motions): Creation, Rebellion, Law, Sacrifice, Invitation, Grace, Spirit, Heaven.

But Chris Harrison and Christoph Romhild had a very different idea. Their illustration, “Visualizing the Bible,” won an honorable mention for illustrations in the 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. Click here to see their excellent illustration and its explanation. I knew the Bible was pretty interconnected, but seeing this visualization of it is very illuminating. Wouldn’t that be a cool poster to have on the wall!

Afternoon in the museum

I was quite taken aback, entering in through the back door of the art museum fifteen minutes before the doors officially opened (to rehearse with the choral group that would be singing as part of the city’s PatriArt celebration), to see a large bald man standing in the gallery, facing the opposite wall, wearing nothing but a Speedo bathing suit.

I was embarrassed to come closer, wondering who he could possibly be, and thinking that although from the back he bore a striking resemblance to a friend of mine, my friend would certainly not appear there in that outfit. As I came further in, I noticed other figures, extremely lifelike but frozen in poses that no living person would hold unmoving for that length of time. So the corpulent man was apparently just an amazingly realistic sculpture. I walked on by. The security guard seated across the room was clearly real, however.

Or was he? He did not look up as I approached. Or as I walked past. Only close up could I be certain that he was no more alive than the others. I headed on to my rehearsal, but made a mental note to be sure to check out the exhibit carefully once the performance was over.

Guernica

I grew up knowing almost nothing about the history of Spain. Other than Ferdinand and Isabella sending Columbus (who was Italian) off to find a new sea route to the Indies, Spain was almost never mentioned in history classes. I had heard of the Spanish Inquisition, and the Spanish Armada, but never the Spanish Civil War. I’m not sure I even knew that Pablo Picasso was Spanish.

Studying Spanish and living as a student in Spain, I learned much about Spanish history, not just from my classes but from visiting museums and monuments and travelling to various cities. I never got up to the Basque region, largely because it was perceived as more dangerous. (Shortly before I left for Spain the first time, Basque separatists set off a bomb in a bank in Bilbao. Things haven’t changed much – earlier this month a bomb was exploded in Bilbao outside the office of the Spanish Socialist Party, apparently set by the Basque separatist group ETA.) But I took quite an interest in learning about the region, especially as it was the setting for Picasso’s famous painting Guernica.

Las Fallas en Valencia

If I were a tourist in Spain this week and wanted to see some local spectacle, I’d have to choose between Fallas in Valencia (culminating today on St. Joseph’s Day) and Semana Santa (Holy Week) in Sevilla. Having seen both in 1984 (when Holy Week was in April and there was no hindrance to seeing both), I would have to choose Las Fallas.

I had spent six months in Valencia in 1981 as an undergraduate, and during my year of graduate studies two years later, I was eager to go back for their world-famous festival. My former landlady graciously let me stay in a temporarily unoccupied apartment (virtually all hotels are booked well in advance), and I had a wonderful time wandering the familiar streets. I admired the giant paper mache sculptures – the “fallas” – in every neighborhood of the city, marveling both at the artistry involved in their construction, and that they would all be burned in the Cremà at the end of the festival. (One of the figures is “pardoned” each year, based on popular vote, and instead of being burned is saved in the Fallas museum.)