Brevity: Thinking about Azaleas, Camellias, and Japanese Magnolias

It seems that the best things we experience in life are often the most short-lived. People wait in line for hours for a roller coaster that lasts a couple of minutes. People wait for years on a book only to devour it in a couple of days (that was me with every Harry Potter book after The Goblet of Fire). There are some things that through self-discipline we can learn to savor. On the other hand, there are things of which only the most fleeting form of enjoyment is possible.

The most beautiful blooms I know of are transitory.

Winter in South Alabama is itself fairly brief, but dreary nonetheless. A lot of artists prefer winter over summer because a plethora of greens can feel boring. Winter, though it looks depressing, affords the artist many options for color and composition, especially where I live. When I look out my window right now, I see mostly leafless trees and yellowed grass. The tree line has a backdrop of dark pines obscured by legions of skeletal branches. It's a depressed artist's wonderland.

Standing out from the gloom are the azaleas, the camellias, and the Japanese magnolias. The first one I noticed in the microcosm of my yard was the camellia. We have one near the street with blood-red blooms. They signal spring like the Robins and the honking Geese. The camellias burst out of the dark green like bright red taillights. I savor them almost every time I walk out my door, and I lament when they begin to wither. Such is life.

Next I noticed the Japanese magnolias. Different than our Southern magnolias, these blooms explode from twiggy branches that look unable to support such life and beauty. Rich magenta or lavender moving upward to a softer rose color. And for weeks those extravagant cups sit proudly on so many lawns in our area. Soon, they'll be gone. Such is life.

Right now, the azaleas are starting to make their way into the spotlight. For those who don't know, azaleas bloom twice a year (as do camellias, come to that). Our yard has a set of azalea bushes about sixty years old. They're a mess and we're in the process of cleaning them up so they can flourish (and so our neighbors can stop judging us). Even still, those bright purply pink blooms will find their way to shout for attention out of the tangled mess of brambles and intrusive volunteer plants. But soon and very soon, they'll be gone. Such is life.

Why do the most beautiful images in creation only last a while? I wonder sometimes if art is just another way of trying to preserve fleeting moments in time. Sunsets are the most elusive subjects to paint, yet they're one of the most popular subjects among representational landscape painters. There's a reason landscape painters refer to nature as a "drunk model": she won't sit still.

It's a morbid fact, perhaps, but every human being will reach his or her own sunset. Our blooms all wither. Art can help us savor the transient for a little longer, but art cannot prevent the seasons from changing.

I don't paint under any illusion that life as we know it can continue forever. However, I work with the hope that all creation will be renewed. And everyone, through faith in Christ, will be reborn and raised imperishable. Until that day, I will savor the beautiful sight of the Japanese magnolia, the azalea, and the camellia. And I will be sad when they're gone.

Until they come again.

Art & Story

One thing that is very important to me as an artist is “story.” I want to create art that tells a story in some way. This does not always involve figures, though it sometimes does. Even in a landscape with an empty field, one has to remember that we wouldn’t have the scene without the “seer,” the one responsible for seeing and rendering the landscape. We ask questions like, “Why is this setting so important to the artist? What is there to see? Why should I value it the same way he or she does?”

When you look at our social media, you can see a “6” attached to our email and handles. Why the “6”? Because I am a husband and a dad. there are six of us. And all six of us make Argo Art work. We are all “creatives.” Every member of our family inspires the artwork I put out, as well as creates their own, in some way, either through music, story, acting, craft, design, or speech. You name it. There’s beauty all around this business and it comes out of six people, not just one (and not to mention a beautiful community of friends and family in which we find ourselves placed). I say all that to give a shout out to my oldest daughter, the amazing artist who gave me this digital artwork (pictured with this post) for the last Father’s Day. She drew me and our four children as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoon characters. It was one of the coolest gifts I’ve ever been given.

I plan to write a bit more about this concept of “art that tells a story” from my experience with the Jazz Art Writers South (JAWS) festival last year. However, let me reiterate by saying that, with what I create, I am not just an individual telling his own personal story. My artwork is part of the story of me, my immediate family, my extended family, my faith, my ancestors, my place on earth. Then my own story connects with the stories of many others who commission and collect artwork that tells or connects with their stories. It’s a profound responsibility and privilege. May God help me steward it well and tell the stories faithfully.

Art as Hospitality

There have been many other reasons people have chosen to give art to others. Giving artwork to your home as a gift to your every guest is a beautiful reason.

A couple came to me asking me if I could do a four-painting set for a home they’d just built. Their interior decorator had suggested that one wall would be best filled with original paintings. They asked if I could do four paintings themed around the Bay Area where they live: a blue crab, a heron, a pelican, and an oyster.

We don't just give art to fill the wall. Art helps us enjoy the life we share with family, friends, and even strangers we welcome into our homes.

Hans Rookmaaker suggests that there is a reason we decorate our homes with paraphernalia on theme with our contexts. For example, people who live in our region decorate their walls with piers, sunsets, boats, fishing scenes, and the beach. Rookmaaker claims that this helps us experience more deeply the reality of the place where we live, and it offers us a way to enjoy these things, to give thanks for them. One additional benefit of this is how, when we purchase and hang art on the wall, when we practice hospitality, we offer people a moment to share our own enjoyment over something. A loving reuniting of the broken human community.

A woman we know well has artwork all over the walls of her home. Many of them depict periods in her family’s life. In the foyer hangs a portrait of her late husband. When I first visited her home, I went around and asked about any many paintings as I saw. She was more than happy to give me the history and the context for each piece, not to mention the fact that she shared how each piece made her feel. I felt valued, trusted, and in return I gave value and trust to her life and home.

Hospitality is becoming a lost art, particularly where subdivisions and privacy fences are taking over. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be a part of a revolution to bring people into our homes and, whether through art we’ve collected or a meal we enjoy, to share with them the joy we experience and the gratitude we feel at what God has given us? No doubt this would be a powerful counter to the pain and alienation we so often feel, the loneliness and meaninglessness. Art and hospitality give us a powerful balm against these evils.

Toward a Philosophy of Art: Wise Influences

As I’ve said, the foundation for doing what I do comes primarily from the Bible, where God commissions artistic work for the purpose of glorifying Him and displaying His beauty to others. Along my journey, I’ve also come across wise influences to help direct me in my art career so that my work is never purely for money, vain imitation, or people-pleasing. Two primary influences that have been helpful to me are Harlan Hubbard, a Kentucky painter, and Hans Rookmaaker, a Dutch art historian and critic.

Harlan Hubbard is one of the most beautiful non-conformists I’ve ever heard of in the history of art. He and his wife, Ann, spent a good deal of their lives on a shanty boat they’d built. Once the US Census screwed up their lifestyles and forced them to settle somewhere (and pay taxes), they built a home, where Halan drew and painted the Kentucky countryside. He wrote, "I do not paint with any idea of expressing my emotions, that would seem to me in bad taste. One should paint to express his joy in what he sees and his thanks for that joy." That statement struck deep in my heart; it resonated with me and put words to what I’d felt my whole life, ever since I fell in love with the landscape work of Albert Bierstadt and the Impressionists. I paint because I am thankful for the joy at the beauty that surrounds me wherever I live.

Harlan Hubbard also wrote, "Painting is an act of love." I agree with that sentiment.  And I’ve striven to make every work of art that I do an act of love, if not for the subject or the medium, at least as an act of loving service to my neighbor who has asked me to bring their artistic vision to life.

Likewise, Hans Rookmaaker, who had significant influence on apologist Francis Schaeffer, has taught me a great deal about how to think about art, in general. Art should speak to every part of life. Art depicts a worldview. It is never neutral. He writes, "Art shows our mentality, the way we look at things, how we approach life and reality." 

Rookmaaker also had something to say about the ultimate reason a Christian strives to make art. Many artists want to be great, just like athletes or musicians. But the Christian artist serves to glorify his own Creator, the Ultimate Artist. He writes, "In the last resort art is anonymous. Who knows the names of the great sculptors of the Gothic cathedrals? Who knows the names of the architects of even the building that has been made quite recently? Everybody knows that a good performance is never the work of one person alone but that he or she needed the help of many others. The one person was in a way the brand name, the trademark. The paintings, the songs, the good designs of cars and other industrial products are anonymous. It is good that way. We have only added to the world God gave us to develop, to beautify. We have added to the lives of many, loving our neighbors. That should be the greatest achievement."

What a summary: to add beauty to the world God gave us and to add to the lives of others. That would indeed be my greatest achievement, and the greatest achievement of any artist.

Toward a Philosophy of Art: The Foundation

For a start, I think it’s important to establish a philosophy of art. In other words, I feel I need to address the question, Why do I do this? What principles guide the way I make art? I am not an abstract expressionist. I am not interested in communicating my own feelings, at least not primarily. I want to draw attention to the beauty that surrounds us, which I believe corresponds to the joy I find in observing it.

Rather than just trying to turn out artwork, along the way I found it helpful to consider what my goals are as I wrestle with each painting or drawing. My first foundation, as with everything else I do, is the Bible, which has surprisingly clear guidance for the arts. In the Old Testament, two artisans, Bezalel and Oholiab, are commissioned to lead teams in the construction of the places and items for worship. God gave them two guiding principles for fashioning art: for glory and for beauty. It was meant to be “for glory” in that the art was meant to point to the majesty and greatness of the Ultimate Artist. But it was also “for beauty” in that it was meant to inspire wonder, thought, reverence, and even enjoyment. I want my own artwork to deepen people’s appreciation of the beauty around them. I also hope this would lead people to wonder at the goodness of the God who made them.