Tag Archives: beauty

Jul19

Above the Vineyard

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As an artist I find myself cheerfully playing the role of a storyteller.

The year 1888 was a big year for artists and that is the year the first camera hit the market. This invention freed us from the need to reproduce what we saw and allowed us a new freedom to make the story we tell more personal. To filter our work through… well our creative selves. It’s in that spirit, with that wonderful freedom that I have found myself ‘On the Michigan Wine Trail’ (OTWMT) telling a story, not so much as a reporter, but as an artist. It was with the excitement of learning more and exploring my subjects deeper, that I crawled into a sweet little single engine plane and explored my favorite little slice of America, the peninsulas of Leelanau and Old Mission.

I had in mind a series within the series OTMWT. I wanted what I saw from above to inspire a series of paintings that were very geometric. I wanted to see how the vineyards looked from above so I could filter that new vantage point through creativity and into the paintings.

The photos serve as a reference to jog my memory. This makes the story I am telling my own and not the cameras.

Cheers to art, beauty, and diving into a subject deep and in more detail!

I hope you enjoy!

Apr2

A Day at Ekodaga

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I love the countryside of Ethiopia, with its rolling hills and open spaces. I relish in escaping the urban chaos of the capital, Addis Ababa. So it was with a smile on my face that I arrived in the rural village of Ekodaga to the north.

I had come to this Tesfa Foundation School to teach an art class. Ekodaga is a very small village, a cluster of huts about a half-hour walk from the town of Chancho. There is no road leading to Ekodaga, just a vast field with some cows, a few shepherds, and in the dry season, our mini-van, much to the dislike of our driver.

Happiness came over me when I saw the school. A school where none had been before. A school the Tesfa Foundation had built. It is painted bright blue and green. There is no electricity, but with the African sun shining brightly through the sky lights, that doesn’t matter.

The children had prepared for our visit, welcoming us with a traditional coffee ceremony and song and dance. Their little faces with big beautiful brown eyes had broad smiles spread across them, and something else, too: pride. Pride that comes from a village that has a school, and they were attending that school.

After spending some time getting to know the children, we focused on the business of making art. After I explained the lesson and did a brief demonstration, the children plunged head first into their art. The lesson was to think of their surrounding landscape and paint it. Once they began, we rarely saw their eyes again, just the tops of their heads as they immersed themselves in their little masterpieces. It is pure joy working with kids who have not yet learned to be self-conscious about their artwork.

Reluctantly, when our lesson was complete it was time to leave. I felt that familiar tug on my heart that means I’ll be back another day, but not soon enough. I was sad as our mini-van pulled away, leaving my new friends behind. I was comforted by the work we do at The Tesfa Foundation, knowing that without our generous funders, this organization, and the hours of volunteer labor, these kids would not be in school at all, and my visit to Ekodaga would have been very different.