Seeking the Sublime in the Everyday

 The New York Times Acrostic for May 7 had this quote; Art is memory made public. Books turn to dust, negatives decay, civilizations burn.  As long as art endures a song or a view someone once thought worth keeping is saved and stays shareable.  Others can say, "I feel that too."   I love that.  It comes from the novel, Utopia Avenue , by David Mitchell. That rang a bell for me because Joseph Cornell, one of the stars in my pantheon of art heroes, lived on Utopia Parkway, in the borough of Queens, New York City. This collage is a tribute to Cornell--you can see that the doormat has his name--with a drawing of his home on Utopia (!) Parkway--an ordinary little house in which extraordinary things were created.   I downloaded  Utopia Avenue  onto my iPhone and found that there's more to the passage; it was edited to fit the acrostic form and one sentence left out was, "Time wins in the long run."  TIME.  Having just passed my birthday ...

  As I seek ways to save the world, I'm learning about  people who have done extraordinary things. Last week my friend, Noushin Framke gave a talk at our church about Presbyterians in Iran. That sounded odd to me too.  Did you know that one of the top schools in Iran started out as a Presbyterian mission school, built and run by missionaries? This is Alborz College. In the Early nineteenth century, in a time called "The Great Awakening," many highly educated and  committed people felt the call to spread the word of God, thereby saving the world, according to their lights. By 1870 a group called the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions had focused their efforts on  Persia, Syria and Egypt. They named this the Mission to Persia." For the next hundred years or so, the only Americans there were Presbyterians. but Persia, new known as Iran, is 99percent Muslim and Islam has rules against converting away from the faith.  So the missionaries, inst...

I have two pieces in a show titled "Bending the Arc" at my church, sponsored by our Facing Racism Action Group. I had to shoot this from an angle to avoid reflections. Years ago I began a series of collages highlighting "great moments in American history", with the birds of John James Audubon looking on. I depicted, without irony, Washington and Lafayette, then the Louisiana Purchase, the voyage of Lewis and Clark, the Transcontinental Railroad. I really meant to celebrate our heritage but as I read about each event it was like looking under my heroes' skirts; there's always another story. Here's my blog post from Washington's Birthday, February 2020; When that other George, King George III of England, was told that at the end of his term of office President Washington would relinquish power and retire to his farm in Virginia, he said, "Then he's the greatest man in the history of the world." Yes, the father of our country was a great m...

 We have been enduring endless rain here in NYC but before the powers that be hear me whining let me take a moment to appreciate what the rains have brought. The trees have burst into leaf. I don't have a favorite color because I love them all but Oh, Boy, that GREEN! It really lifts my spirits.  So I have to say I'm thankful for the rain. As I give thanks for the rain and the green leaves I'm reminded that I also feel grief and fear about the state of the earth, in particular about the overwhelming flood of plastic in the landfill, the oceans and even in our own bodies.  How can I work to stem the flood?  How can I even start?  Well, here's one long story. Arthur and I love fresh pineapple but I hate cutting up a whole pineapple. My supermarket sells pre-cut pineapple in a plastic container but I resist. If you can't bear the cross then you can't wear the crown and if you won't cut up the fruit, you don't deserve the sweetness. So thank you, Westside Ma...