Two pieces from the Union Exhibition and more

Here are two pieces from the Union University exhibition Bits of Redemption. The artist statement from the show is included in a recent post as a re a couple more pieces from the show. The first piece in this post is titled, prehistoric camera. Thanks goes out to Jayme Burchett for that title. I thought that when she revealed her impression about the piece, it was perfect, because you can hold it in your hands just like a camera and pretend you are Fred Flintstone or one of the Geico cavemen taking some sort of prehistoric photo. The second piece is, recomposition with mower blade. This is my largest asemblage piece to date. It is the one that had a catastrophic failure as I was placing it in the box to ship. [no worries, I fixed it… TWICE… before the exhibition.] It is good and sturdy now. Alana and I returned home yesterday from a trip to Union where I gave a lecture, attended a reception and reclaimed my artwork. To top off a hectic week which began with the breaking of my arm, today I presented a paper at a Christian Aesthetics colloquium titled, Christian Aesthetics: Why Good Christian Art is Good no Matter what it Looks Like. It sure would have been convenient to break my arm this Sunday [tomorrow] instead of last Sunday.

prehistoric camera

recomposition with mower blade

Cheers!

The Joys of Pick-Up Soccer

Disclaimer: I am typing with one hand. Please forgive any typos or misspelled words.

So… I am trying to lose weight and exercise as all 34-year-olds should, so I have started playing soccer with a motley band of college students on Sunday evenings. Last week, I was tearing it up and schooling these younguns. [I scored four goals] This week, I was out there for about 5 minutes, going hard for a ball, when [I think] that I was tripped up from behind. That caused me to lose my balance while running nearly full tilt.

[I feel here that I should mention that we were playing on asphalt tennis courts and not on turf]

Somewhere during those last fateful moments [on the way down] I realized that no good was going to come of this. I tried mightily to careen into the fence to soften my fall, but alas, gravity had other plans for me. I simultaneously crashed my left arm and head into the conjunction of fence and court.

My head hit the fence post, splitting it open on the left side, and my left arm took most of the brunt of the fall and ended up pinned between the asphalt court and the fence. I was concerned about my head, because I knew that I had hit it pretty hard, but it never really hurt. It didn't take long to know that it was bleeding profusely. My first concern after figuring my head injury was superficial was to extract my arm from its weird location. I knew that I had hurt it, but I checked its range of motion and it seemed fine. The more time that passed, however, the worse it began to feel, especially if I moved it. The college paramedics arrived and checked me out and drove me to the ER. At that time I still thought that the head laceration was the most serious thing wrong. I knew I was going to need stitches. [Actually, they are staples, so I look like the Frankenstein monster]

Anyway, after x-rays, which was the most excruciatingly painful part of all, it was revealed that I had a radial head fracture. According to the AAOS [American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons], Radial head fractures are common injuries, occurring in about 20 percent of all acute elbow injuries.

Here is a picture:

So, yay for me.

Piece Christ

Howdy Folks,

I thought I would share a recent work with you, Piece Christ. This is the first piece I have done utilizing one of the crucifixes given to me by Sandra Bowden. It is currently on display at Union University as part of my exhibition there, Bits of Redemption. The exhibition contains 17 pieces of my found object assemblage work. I will be heading back there to give a lecture and reception and to bring back the work later this month. Some of you have probably heard that a few pieces [ok, 17 out of the 18 that I sent] were damaged in shipping. I joked that we could just call the exhibition, Bits, but I decided to take the 360 mile trip to Jackson, TN to repair the pieces. I am so glad I went as all the pieces save one were perfectly repairable. Anyway, It was a good trip, and all went well with the repairs. I also met several wonderful people and talk about the work on an informal basis with students and faculty.

Below the work, I have included the artist's statement that accompanies the exhibition. All comments are welcome.


Not everything is fragile, but everything is broken. Time, age, use, obsolescence… All things become lost, trashed or forgotten. The works in Bits of Redemption are composed of the discarded and forgotten pieces of our culture and the fractured, decayed elements of nature. Sticks, stones and bones unite with oxidized metals, bits of worn plastic and broken pottery. The process is redemptive. Pieces long forgotten and thought worthless are given value in their potential to unite with other redeemed bits to form a new aesthetic. Beauty is shaped from the raw substances and the forgotten evidences of our existence. This process of redemption becomes a physical metaphor for a spiritual truth. Christ takes our ugliness and brokenness and sees the beauty and potential in us. He redeems us back into a wholeness and unity with God. I am made keenly aware of this as I work, and a s a result every piece, for me, becomes a meditation on Divine essence.