Nude Debate Part 4:My Responsibility as an Artist and A Christian

On and off for the last nine years I have been doing my best to dissipate stereotypes and educate on an individual level. I have been an activist for the acceptance of individuals as they are; each with their own beauty to be embraced, their own culture to be protected and savored, their own history to be learned from. I do not pardon behavior that is self-imposed to continue victimization or self-destructive. Part of that was to learn about the beauty of my self when I thought in the eyes of people I had none.

I began by self photography. Then as I watched the light and how it changed the way things appeared seeming to embrace form as oppose to clashing with it .. I began sketches of the play of light against skin and fabric. An artist friend excited about this exploratory sent me photographs of himself for me to practice on. They were benign and dramatic black and white images that lent themselves to graphite studies.

Late last summer I began small oil studies of human figures, drawn to it with an obsession that was one of wonder and exploration rather than some misguided carnality.

My goal has been in the last year is to paint museum quality oil paintings in a free style that can be done quickly and consistently. This I have been able to do with landscapes. But with the human form its not so easy for me.. Especially the face. I get bogged down with cartoon like detail that makes for a stylized face that doesn’t look like the person it is intended to look like. So the past few months I have been working on this.. the structure of the female face.

A few months ago I realized why I was moving in this direction. In my life everything has been done, experienced and the roads I have traveled, while not always main stream, have all had a purpose of a Spiritual Nature for a specific job that God seems to be leading me in. My music is the same, my poetry, my other writing, my teaching.. all in the same direction. Honor God, and prepare, for the big one! The big job… that one thing you were placed here on earth to do.

To Be Continued