Category: <span>Art • Design • Culture</span>

Going through family photos, my eyes landed on one I had never seen before. My grandfather Arnold, is on the left with my grandmother Louise in the center. Her twin Lucille is on the right waving her kerchief. They are standing near the San Gabriel River in El Monte California, at the family ranch. The original photo was a sepia and I wanted to preserve that look while surrounding them with a sky blue. This is oil and acrylic on canvas.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Fine Art

Quarantine

This was a small painting born from sheltering in place during the early months of the COVID 19 pandemic.

The painting began years ago as one of my first attempts at oil on a black gessoed canvas. My first attempt was dismal. So, I decided it would be an abstract, but that became horrible. So, I thought I would experiment with collage on oil paint using pages from an old Bible and dried flowers.

I still wasn’t happy with it until I had the gas mask idea, inspired by current events. A friend from the coast really liked it — now, it’s his.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Fine Art

I wanted to capture a downtown Grass Valley scene without the Del Oro Theater in it. So, here is my acrylic on canvas painting of Fable Coffee: 12″ X 16″… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Fine Art

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I thought I’d try my hand at hyper-realism, but I don’t think acrylic paint was the best choice. Live and learn, they say. I painted this from a photo of Olive and Sylvie I took at the Roseville Aquatic Center. It’s a 40″ X 40″ canvas and it’s found a home. … Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Fine Art

Sunrise Over SPD

Sunrise Over SPD is acrylic on canvas 36” X 48”. This wasn’t my favorite entry, but it won the People’s Choice Award at the Nevada County Fair in 2019.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Fine Art

It seems like forever ago when I walked into downtown Grass Valley for their annual classic car show, snapping away with my Nikon. When I got home and looked at all the photos I shot, it just seemed natural to paint the passage of time. I had to remove some cars that were parked out in front, but that guy actually walked out and began taking photos with his phone. Nevada Club is acrylic on canvas. … Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Fine Art

This is one of my favorite paintings.

A friend posted a video on Instagram of her daughter running by on a dreary winter day — it’s a split second long. I loved the complementary colors and motion, so I thought I’d try to capture both on a small 12″ X 12″ canvas. … Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Family • Friends Fine Art The Last Postmaster of Camptonville

This is acrylic on a 24″x 30″ canvas. I took a photo of Olive in a blueberry field on Christy Hill in Sedgwick ME on an overcast day and thought it would make a good composition, if I made up a horizon and cloudy sky.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Fine Art Maine: The Vista From Away

I noticed something about women’s fashion while working for the Postal Service: many if not most, blouses, tops, or business outfits for women don’t have pockets!

Most of my career was spent in Post Offices where I was the Postmaster or manager, so I organized them for me. I had pens located at a few stations I visited often during the day like the retail window, the desk, or the area set aside for receipt and notification of mail. But, I kept a pen in my pocket for the dozens of other places I would visit throughout the day. I couldn’t carry one around in my hand, because I was called upon to use both hands all the time.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture The Last Postmaster of Camptonville Women's Issues

I was looking at photos and video from our trip to Maine in July 2016. I wanted to paint these girls playing on a float on Blue Hill Bay in a way that would communicate activity and the passage of time. I decided to create a series of five small paintings in a left-to-right timeline depicting the girls in different positions on the float as they moved from one side to the other, in order to look at a crab they found. But, I was unsure if it would communicate what I wanted — and, that was the downfall of this project.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Fine Art

I spent a couple of hours arranging my upcoming book and, so far, it looks like I’ll have a 175-200 page general Introduction to the Baha’i Faith for Christian Readers. Actually, I’ll try to make it accessible to any reader, but it will be written from my perspective as an Evangelical Christian — I’ll be presenting the material in a semi-autobiographical fashion. There are a couple of reasons for this approach, but the most practical consideration for presenting this material to someone new to the Baha’i Faith is where we find ourselves in history — we are entering in on the “ground floor” of Baha’i history and development as a distinct religion.… Read the rest

Baha'i Blogging Books • Literature

Back in 1988, I received my first promotion to become the Postmaster at Camptonville CA. In 2014, I would become the last Postmaster of Camptonville, but that’s another story and another post. This one’s about the failure of musical education in the United States.

I needed a radio for my small rural post office with a good adjustable antenna to pick up stations from the Bay Area. It was June and I went to the local Long’s Drug Store (now, CVS), because they sold consumer electronics at the time. I found a ghetto blaster that looked promising: it had an impressive telescoping antenna, tone controls, headroom, and a cassette player.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Music The Last Postmaster of Camptonville

I’ve been wanting to return to the blog and have a number of posts in the queue — strange that this will be the first one published since back in March. It’s not a subject I felt compelled to write about in the past, but Denise and I just finished watching the Grateful Dead documentary, Long Strange Trip, on Netflix

We were real live Deadheads for a short time and this film pulled back the curtain to reveal why we never felt that compatible with the band’s following and eventually lost interest in the Grateful Dead, a band we enthusiastically embraced almost 50 years ago.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Film Music

I knew Winston Churchill was a painter, but only recently heard of his essay, Painting As A Pastime. Former President George W. Bush credited this little book with both his deliverance from “sitting on the couch, eating potato chips” in retirement and awakening in him a newfound passion for art and painting. I thought I’d read the essay online, but The Estate of Winston S. Churchill has a tight hold on the former British Prime Minister’s massive collection of writings and correspondence.

I read the reviews and found this gem on Amazon.com “used” — it was actually new and I picked it up for about the price of a sugary, dairy-based corporate coffee drink.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Books • Literature Fine Art

So, you are concerned about children in poverty, consumerism, nutrition, and the harmful effects of fossil fuels on the environment? Why place your hope in politicians, administrations, and government institutions that swerve back and forth with each new Congress or administration? Try doing what we do: buy stock and become a shareholder in some of the more progressive corporations on the exchange. As a shareholder, you have rights and the ability to move those companies in the direction of positive social change.

This constructive way forward to influence culture and policy came to me through exposure to the divestment movement and its questionable effectiveness.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Politics

It’s 2017 and President Obama is free to enjoy a well-deserved season of relaxation — being President of the United States has to be one of the most difficult jobs on earth!

I didn’t vote for President Trump in 2016 nor do I plan on casting my ballot for him in 2020, if he’s a candidate. So, I have some sympathy for those who were disappointed back in November, but little patience for much of the hysteria that has followed his inauguration.

I plan to move forward in 2017 in much the same way I planned to if Secretary Clinton had won the election and have done through past administrations.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Christianity • Religion Politics

Unpacking Forgiveness: Biblical Answers for Complex Questions and Deep Wounds by Chris Brauns

Let me begin my post about this book with one of the endorsements from the back cover:

Offenses will come. It’s a given. Unpacking Forgiveness wisely prepares us for the aftermath. Grieving the loss of our six children in a van accident and then being reminded of that loss throughout thirteen years of subsequent battles forced us to search the Scriptures concerning the issue of forgiveness. Chris not only has confirmed answers that we had found but has thoroughly sorted out what it takes to be right with God and man.

Read the rest

Books • Literature Christianity • Religion Gospel-Centered

I’m a new artist and had this conversation with Denise the other day: “My drawing skills are horrible and I’m so impatient that I’m not really observing my subjects at all. After I get going, the process slows me down and I begin seeing everything I missed.” Denise, as she typically does, listened patiently to my exposed inner thoughts and acknowledged my concerns. Then, she continued with her reading. This is a “conversation” we’ve had at least five times over the past couple of months and it was just this last Monday I engaged in the self-flagellation one more time.

On the way home from Bodega Bay on Tuesday, we stopped at the Goodwill in Auburn,  I picked this book up for a song and began reading it last night.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Books • Literature Fine Art

My latest urban landscape is Bubba’s Bagels, a familiar sight to most Nevada County residents. It is acrylic on canvas, but I wanted it to have a more printerly look. The colors are all desaturated to some degree with the ultramarine blue of the Arco sign being the closest to a pure hue. I wanted to create interest in a very mundane scene by placing elements exiting the frame in different directions, while drawing the eye into the center of the piece. The actual color scheme of the shop is captivating when you drive by it — so, I tried to get that just right.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Fine Art

91dmb9o48clI had the opportunity to attend the Andrew Fuller Conference at Southern Seminary this past week. On my flight home, I read a book I’ve been looking forward to for years — D.A. Carson’s Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson.

I was first drawn to this book through a couple of podcasts and/or interviews of Dr. Carson when it came out. The book recounts the rather ordinary, yet significant life of his father Tom, a Baptist pastor1 in French Quebec through the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. There are a number of reviews of the book out there and I’ll link to a few at the bottom of the post.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Books • Literature Christianity • Religion Church • Ecclesiology Leadership Planting

haykinBack in June of this year, Nancy Guthrie messaged to tell me that she was reading a review copy of a forthcoming book and I was quoted in it! Well, that was exciting news. I wrote Good Mr. Baxter about 25 years ago and it has remained in obscurity for the most part. I was just happy to see that someone read it and found something of value. You can find my semi-immortal words on page 49 of Dr. Michael Haykin‘s Eight Women of Faith!

This is my mini-review of his biographical sketches of eight historically significant Evangelical women, in one volume.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Books • Literature Christianity • Religion Church • Ecclesiology Religion Richard Baxter

Art • Design • Culture Education

Fudenjuce 2This year I had two entries in the Fine Arts competition at the Nevada County Fair. I received a Third Place for a Nevada County Scene with my Fudenjuce, which is acrylic on a large reclaimed yard sale canvas. It is one of a number of urban landscapes I am planning for the future. Although I received a third place, I was very happy with the result because I was competing across all skill levels including professionals.

Bridges PointI received a First Place in the novice category for my acrylic painting of a boat on Bridge’s Point in Brooklin ME.… Read the rest

Art • Design • Culture Fine Art

autopsy-of-a-deceased-church-12-ways-to-keep-yours-alive_2525018From Thom Rainer’s book, Autopsy of a Deceased Church, the author lists some tell-tale signs to alert us that our church is in trouble. Here are the most telling, in my opinion:

  • “The church refused to look like the community. The community began a transition toward a lower socioeconomic class thirty years ago, but the church members had no desire to reach the new residents. The congregation thus became an island of middle-class members in a sea of lower-class residents.”
  • “There was no attempt to reach the community.”
  • “More and more emphasis was placed on the past.”
  • “The percentage of the budget for members’ needs kept increasing.
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Books • Literature Christianity • Religion Church • Ecclesiology Gospel-Centered Leadership Missional Communities Planting

WBNPermanI suppose it’s fitting I write a review of Matt Perman’s book What’s Best Next (WBN) toward the end of a day that I’ve spent piddling,  getting very little done, on the way to working myself up to settle down to watch a movie.

My cousin Nancy pointed me to What’s Best Next, while discussing our recent retirements. For Type A personalities or those of us who obsess over how much time we’re wasting, our first impulse is to prioritize and jump right into finding more time.  That’s universal and, if you don’t believe me, just scroll through the thousands of productivity products and strategies on the web.… Read the rest

Books • Literature Gospel-Centered Leadership Religion