Author: juliemlmitchell_lchs7g

Merry Merry Christmas!

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This year, more than others, I am seeing so much stress and sadness surrounding Christmas. It is heartbreaking, but understandable. This time of year seems to magnify all our emotions, good and bad. I’ve been lifting so many friends up in prayer, that they would get through this season with minimal pain, but it’s harder to pray for strangers. The other day my friend, who is lovely and friendly and joyful said “hello” to a stranger while out shopping and the woman sarcastically called her a jolly elf and swore at her. What?!
I knew immediately what piece of Jesus artwork I wanted to feature today. It’s the most joyful Jesus picture I can think of:
Jesus Laughing
This painting was hanging in my elementary school growing up. Jesus isn’t often depicted as smiling, let alone laughing- but more and more are being created, which I love. No doubt Jesus laughed a lot in his short life. The guys in my family take a fishing trip every other year and they come back with hilarious stories, so I know Jesus and his disciples had a blast on their fishing boats. Not to mention gauging reactions to miracles and schooling Pharisees.
There isn’t much information about this painting, but we know it was done by Willis Wheatley, a Canadian artist, in 1973. It was originally titled Jesus Christ Liberator. When Wheatley passed away, the United Church of Canada acquired rights to it, and they allowed some priests in San Francisco to mass produce it (the priests changed the title to The Laughing Christ). An artist in northern Michigan (holler!!) added color and really began mass producing (giving it one final name change: Jesus Laughing); now there are over 1 million copies floating around, including the one at Faith Lutheran elementary.
I hope the rest of your holiday season, and the rest of your year (decade!) is spent with a smile on your face and the joy of Jesus in your heart. May you laugh your way through Christmas and smile your way into the New Year. May nobody swear at you. May you have no need to swear at anybody else. In this season, I hope we will remember the baby Jesus from our nativity scenes grows into a joyful, laughing adult. And that is no joke.

The Mystical Nativity

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In keeping with our Jesus theme this month, let me present The Mystical Nativity by Sandro Botticelli:

The first interesting thing about this painting is that it’s the only work Botticelli ever signed. The next interesting thing is that it was influenced by Girolamo Savonarola, the friar who took over Florence when the Medici family was overthrown. He was quite self-righteous and had some strong opinions about how Christians should be living. Savonarola thought most of the Florentine Renaissance art showed “moral weakness” and ordered it burned. 

Sidebar: Here are some of my moral weaknesses: chocolate, caffeine, naps, bread, the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich, Netflix. To name a few.  

The jury is out on whether Botticelli was a follower of Savonarola, but either way a bunch of his paintings were burned (maybe he did that himself, maybe Savonarola’s men had it done.) The Mystical Nativity, however, did not burn, and there is evidence it was heavily influenced by one particular sermon Savonarola did about Jesus’ death. Funny, because it’s a nativity scene, but there are some foreshadowing bits like the cave in the back (reminiscent of Jesus’ tomb) and the sheet on which Jesus sits is representative of the shroud he is wrapped in about thirty-two years later.
Botticelli must have had an inkling the painting would create a ruckus because rather than paint it on wood as he normally would have, it is on canvas so it could be rolled up and hidden more easily. Which it was. For about 300 years before art lover William Young Otley bought it (nobody even knew who Botticelli was at that point!). Today it hangs in the National Gallery in London. Good thinking to put it on canvas, Sandro!

Infared technology has revealed the inscriptions on the angels’ ribbons as the twelve privileges of Mary, which Savonarola preached about. There is also a Greek inscription on the top, which was calls back verses in Revelation, another part of Savonarola’s sermon. At the bottom angels are embracing Gentiles, and if you look carefully there are demons escaping into the underworld, where they can just STAY PUT. Secret inscriptions? Somber foreshadowing? Demons in the nativity? This really is a Mystical Nativity.

Jesus For the Wine! Er… Win!

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It is officially Christmas season. I know this because of the Christmas gnomes about my house, my kids’ willingness to do extra chores (albeit for cash), and the influx of parties. Next weekend is the pinnacle of my party-goings, but the girls all have their own parties this year too. Hockey parties, school parties, friend parties. Parties, parties, parties.
Sunday, my pastor did a message about how easy it is to miss Jesus in the chaos of the season. So. Lest you think I am missing our Savior in all the celebrating, let me do this blog post on one giant party that Jesus attended. You know the one- the wedding feast in Cana. Here is Paolo Veronese’s painting of the soiree:

The painting hangs in the Louvre now as one of its biggest pieces, but it was originally commissioned by monks to hang in their church in Venice. (An aside: monks must have had a ton of money. They also commissioned The Last Supper for their dining hall in Milan. Shoulda been a monk- cha-ching!) The monks gave Veronese a couple stipulations for the painting. For instance, they required he use ultramarine, a deep-blue pigment made from a semi-precious rock. I’m not certain, but I’m guessing that’s what he used for Jesus’ robe.
This is clearly a painting after the Renaissance’s very heart. The architecture is textbook Renaissance, the instruments are textbook Renaissance. And speaking of textbooks, you might recognize the guests from your history books: Titian is playing the violin, Mary I of England is in attendance, as is Francis I of France, and a bunch of Veronese’s artsy colleagues. Among the 130 people at the feast are Mary, Jesus, and some Apostles. Jesus is situated under the butcher’s block, foreshadowing his future sacrifice. That day though? He was a hero! Running out of wine at a wedding was a huge faux pas, so Mary called on her son to fix the problem, which he did- changing water to red wine. Reportedly, guests were shocked, exclaiming, “Cana you believe this guy?!”

 The Wedding Feast at Cana hung in Venice for years, until Napoleon’s army plundered it. And this is the heartbreaking part of the story. It was a huge piece, so to get it to Paris they CUT IT IN HALF. Like a bunch of idiots. The painting took quite a beating over the next several years, and spent a good amount of time boxed up in storage, only to be stolen again by the Nazis. Eventually, it would up at the Louvre, thank goodness.

The Louvre restored the painting (which, ohmygoodness, was an art scandal in and of itself) with only two disasters (water splattered on it from a leak in the ceiling. Then, when they were hanging it, a support beam failed puncturing the top half.) The painting persevered, though! And that? Is nothing short of a miracle.

Why Did the Turkey Cross the Road?

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To prove he wasn’t a chicken!

Happy Thanksgiving Eve! I am hosting my first Thanksgiving tomorrow with a whopping three additional people bringing our grand total to 8 turkey-eaters. Needless to say, my stress level is at a minimum. In fact, it’s been fun pulling out the dishes and platters and cooking utensils that never get used on non-holiday days!

In honor of Thanksgiving, I wanted to share a famous turkey paintings, but all Google wants to pull up are famous Turkish artists. Maybe we’ll explore them next Thanksgiving. In the meantime, it seems appropriate to highlight John James: bird painter and turkey enthusiast.

Though John James sounds like a super American name, he was actually born in France as Jean Rabin. His dad was a ship commander and fought for America in the American Revolution (thank you!) Little Jean lived in the Caribbean while a bunch of political stuff happened, then went back to France with his dad. When he was eighteen, he set off for the U.S. and legally changed his name to John James Audubon. Yes, that Audubon!

Here is what you need to know about John James: He. Loved. Birds. Loved them. Lots of artists love art and then might become obsessed with a subject (see Monet, lily pads or Van Gogh, sunflowers), but Audubon loved birds first and simply wanted a more accurate representation of them to exist, so he began painting them. He is the first known bander in North America and discovered 25 new species of birds. His home was a virtual museum of eggs, and animals he taxidermized himself. Then, at age 41, he began publishing The Birds of America, in which he drew 435 birds.

Friends, I give you the image he chose to be the first in his giant book…. Wild Turkey:

I’d also like to lay to rest a rumor that James John Audubon was arrested. He actually had no part in “fowl play.” He did, however, kick his smoking habit “cold turkey.” Really though, he captured many unique birds. How do you catch a unique bird? Unique up on it, of course!

Happy Thanksgiving!

One For the Monet

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Are you guys into the Enneagram Personality Test? I’m a little obsessed right now. Rather, I’m anxious to become obsessed with it, but haven’t quite taken the time to learn all the jargon. For my birthday I got a Barnes and Noble gift card and I am anxious to get over there and find an Enneagram book I can understand. Something with a chart. If it’s a chart in crayon that’s even better; I really need this broken down to something I can comprehend and bright, waxy colors help.

Anyway, I’m making all my family and friends take the test (you know who you are) and report back to me (I told my family I want their results by the holidays so we can discuss around the Christmas tree. What could possibly go wrong?!) My daughter is an 8 so I was reading about her personality type. It was spot on. There was a section about the likelihood of falling into addiction and I was happy to read 8s aren’t very susceptible (they like to be in possession of their faculties.)

Then I read my own addiction section (I’m a 9). I fell asleep before I could finish reading the ENORMOUS LIST of addictions to which 9s are prone!! Lethargy, for starters (haha), sex, drugs, and rock and roll; all alcohol, undereating, overeating, caffeine, gnomes (just kidding, but seriously… I can’t stop buying gnomes.) The list went on! All this to say, Friends, I was in good company. Because there was also a list of famous 9s (or so somebody assumed). I was delighted to see none other than Claude Monet, whose birthday would be TODAY! 

I specifically Googled “Claude Monet addiction” and the internet agrees: he did not suffer from any drug or alcohol addiction. It’s pretty apparent he was addicted to lily pads and haystacks, but that was most definitely to our benefit! Here is one of his famous lily pad paintings on exhibit at the Chicago Institute of Art.

This puts my little pond to shame. I mean, where’s the algae?

Claude Monet (his real name was Oscar!) was rich and famous by the time he started painting the lily pads in his garden. He had them brought in and his team of seven gardeners cared for them, though Monet always had an active role in his garden, particularly the architecture of it. Some of the lily pads were native to France, but others were brought in from South America and Egypt. The lily pads occupied much of his painting for the next twenty years.

This is one of his less famous lily pad paintings, but one of my favorites:

“Flowering Arches” Don’t you just want to attend a wedding there?!

Bon Anniversaire, Mr. Monet! From one neuf to another!

The DIA’s Creepiest Exhibit

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Remember a few weeks ago I promised a creepy Halloween post? Let’s get right to it because I’ve been saving this picture on my phone for a few weeks and whenever I see it I get the heebie-jeebies. And worse than that, it makes me say things like “heebie-jeebies.”

Chucky’s got NOTHING on this trio!

Don’t say I didn’t warn you!! How scared are you on a scale of 1-10? Ten? Me too. Happy Halloween!

These beastly puppets were on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Carla and I almost missed them, but they’re positioned next to the bathroom in the basement as not to scare the field trip kids, I’m sure. The proximity to the bathroom is handy in case you need to throw up after seeing them, or put a wet paper towel on your forehead lest you faint.

Punch and Judy have deep roots. The first Mr. Punch dates back to 1662! The marionettes’ show stuck around for years and even George Washington reportedly went to a show or two. Eventually the characters became hand puppets (less creepy than marionettes? Or more-so? Discuss.) Punch and Judy were the staple characters of course, but the supporting characters were quite diverse. There was a crocodile, clown, hangman, skeleton, and lawyer. (Insert lawyer joke of your choice here.) The Devil (seen above) was a popular character who often came to battle Mr. Punch and threaten the audience (in real life, and then I’m sure later, as they tried to sleep.)

As if this weren’t bizarre enough, common plotlines include the hangman showing up for Mr. Punch only to be tricked into putting his own head in a noose. Fun for the whole family, right? Apparently in the 21st century they finally did away with the hitting of the baby, but before that the DIA info board explains, “In one storyline, Punch accidentally kills his baby, then attempts to conceal the deed by killing Judy and others.” Are you also wondering how we moved from this kind of entertainment to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse?

As you can see, Punch often carried a stick for beating pretty much everyone, which is where the term “slapstick” comes from. The puppets’ features are bright and exaggerated so they can be seen on stage from far away. The DIA did not post the artist’s name who made these particular puppets. My guess is they simply rose from the ashes one Halloween night.

Sweet and Sandy

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Earlier this week my friend and I went to my hometown of Bay City to tour a sugar beet factory. Growing up, people in BC loved to moan and groan about the smell of sugar beets- it’s not an awesome smell. In fact, in her autobiography Madonna famously (well, famously if you lived in BC) said she was from a smelly, little town in Michigan. That’s us!! Honestly, it only smells for a few weeks of the year, and only if the wind is particularly shifty. Now the odor makes me nostalgic!

I learned that on average it takes about 7 average-sized sugar beets to make one 5-pound bag of sugar. The factory we toured produces about 1.2 billion pounds of sugar a year. Billion with a B!

I’m thankful for sugar for many reasons, one of which is sugar art! Jonathan H. Cheeseman, a Lansing based artist, uses sugar to create amazing pictures. One of his pieces is featured on a billboard for “Art in the Sky” an initiative led by the Greater Lansing Arts Council to feature local artists on billboards around the city. It makes driving places much more fun! Here is Jonathan’s billboard:

I wonder how much sugar it takes to make a billboard-sized drawing?

This reminded me of a video we showed the kids in church at Easter. Sand art is becoming increasingly popular since Kseniya Simonova won Ukraine’s Got Talent. Less tasty than sugar art, but equally cool. Below are both the Easter story (told in sand) and Simonova’s incredible talent.


And I think I’m being fancy when I pack a bucket of sand and make a “castle” at the beach! Ha! On a billboard, at church, on TV… sugar and sand are making waves in the world of art!

Iceland: Land of Ice and Art

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On the count of three, I’m going to name all the Icelandic artists I can think of. It’s going to be fun. One… two… three!
That was awkward. 
My parents and sister recently went to Iceland and their pictures are otherwordly. Natural beauty abounds, but what about man-made beauty? Who is representing Iceland in the world of art? I knew of not one individual. Of course, Iceland only has a population of under 400,000 and most of them are probably too busy staring at the beauty out their front window to paint a picture. 
Nonetheless, Google tells me there are some people who tore themselves away from the Northern Lights, Blue Lagoon, and Game of Thrones scenery to create some art of their own. No doubt with some Bjork on the radio for inspiration.
Olof Nordal: I was especially excited to read about Olof Nordal, because she was educated in Michigan! Not far from me at all. She is a sculptor and multi-media artist, but frankly I liked her photography best. Here is a sample of her photography and sculpture:
“Leader sheep.” I can see why.

Let’s “face” it… this is so realistic it borders on creepy.
Nordal studied in Michigan, as I mentioned, but also in Amsterdam, and at Yale. But she’s Icelandic, through and through. In fact, she is fascinated with Icelandic folklore traditions, often reflected in her art. (Or so I read. I am not as familiar with Icelandic folklore traditions as you would think.)
Here is another Iceland born artist I really like, but whose name I will never be able to say properly: Heimir Bjorgulfsson. Not surprisingly, I love Bjorgulfsson’s art in part because he often features animals. The bright, fun colors don’t hurt either. 
“Mining for silver when you could be mining for gold” 

“The man on top of the mountain”
I used to dislike surrealism, but I’ve got to say, artists like Bjorgulfsson are making me rethink that stance. He likes to mix the natural with man-made (like the hammock, for instance, in the first picture). Though he lives in LA now, putting animals in locations they wouldn’t actually live is so very Icelandic of him. Most of Iceland is unsuitable for zebras and people alike.

For a country with so few people, Iceland has a strong presence in the art community! Here is a link to more Icelandic art if you’re interested: Icelandic Artists
Also? If you haven’t heard of the Icelandic band “Of Monsters and Men”, let me help you. Click here.

Elegmentary, My Dear Watson

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It is rainy here in mid-Michigan. The kind of weather that drives everyone to my favorite coffee shop and when you decide it’s soup for lunch. The sort of weather that makes you want to curl up with a book in front of a fireplace. To be fair, almost all weather incites this feeling for me. Not just any book would do though, it would have to be a really good, can’t-put-it-down kind of story. Brook Watson’s biography would do. If he had a biography. Instead we have this:
Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley
I promised you more (crooked and poorly cropped) paintings from the DIA! This painting is based on a true story. The man being rescued is Brook Watson. He was an orphan, who wound up as a crewmember of a merchant boat. He really did fall overboard and was attacked by a shark off the coast of Cuba. He was finally rescued by his friends on their third attempt, but the shark had a leg up on him and well… that’s my way of saying he bit off Watson’s leg. 
But Watson prospered despite this traumatic injury! In fact he went out on a limb (I can hear you groaning!) and became super rich and Lord Mayor of London (no word on whether that is the same as being just plain “Mayor”.) He and Copley became friends and Watson commissioned this work, which Copley actually completed three times. The other two paintings (which are the same, but different) are hanging in the National Gallery and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Art historians find the diversity in the boat interesting. There are men of different races and wealth. The black man may look particularly familiar to you. It’s the same model Copley used for the portrait I wrote about last week that Carla and I loved so much. Here it is again:
Remember? I wrote about his watery eyes? Still love it.
Of course, Copley painted Watson and the Shark at a time when aquariums were not as abundant as they are today. There was also no Shark Week on the Discovery channel, so a lot of guesswork went into the painting of the shark. It has lips for example, and forward-facing eyes. Eh. I think we still get the terrifying effect of a shark swarming while you’re trying to have a naked dip in the ocean.

A Visit to the DIA

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I haven’t been to the Detroit Institute of Arts in about twenty years, even though I live within 100 miles of it! It’s a travesty. So, when my friend Carla pointed out they have a great exhibit featuring art by some big name Impressionists like Cezanne, Degas, Van Gough, and Monet, we snagged the opportunity to take an overdue visit to the incredible DIA!
Here are some amazing facts about one of the country’s best art museums (I’m not being biased! It floats around in ranking on all the “Top Ten Best Art Museums in the U.S.” lists.)
– It houses about 65,000 pieces of art (not counting the drinking fountains, which are works of art too, if you ask me.)
– It has more than 100 galleries, a 1,150-seat auditorium, 380-seat lecture hall, art reference library, and cute café that smells amazing.
– Van Gogh’s self-portrait is there, which is the first of all his paintings to enter a U.S. museum.
– Punch and Judy are retired there. More on this around Halloween.
We saw many of our favorite pieces (The Thinker, Portrait of Postman Roulin, Madame Paul Poirson) but the real joys were discovering paintings I hadn’t known about before. Just as I was telling Carla I wasn’t a fan of Picasso, we saw this painting from his early career, that I loved!
Before his portraits were all angles and cubes.
 It was placed directly beside these two and we marveled that they were all done by the same man.
Not my style.
No, thank you.
Here was another portrait we agreed was just beautiful by John Singleton Copley. The face was so realistic we could have sworn his eyes were actually watering.
“Head of a Man” You must go find this when you’re at the DIA!
We found a whole family of talented artists in the American gallery. The Peale family had art in their genes, the same way my family passes down the ear-wiggling gene (you’re welcome, daughters of mine!) Here are three works by three separate Peales. (Sorry for the crappy crop jobs, btw. I take all my pictures crooked, then don’t fix them. It’s just one way in which I like to express myself artistically.)
Rembrandt Peale- Self Portrait. With a name like Rembrandt, you’re bound to be good at art!
“Still Life with Wine Glass” by Raphaelle Peale. Another strong art name.
“James Peale” by Charles Peale. This one made me weepy.
Needless to say, we took one million pictures. Most of mine were in burst mode of my freckly arm, but I do have more to share if you tune in next week!