The Great Beast

Exploring the Recurring Theme of the Great Beast and the Prone Man

I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the recurring image of the Lion/Dog-Chimera/Beast standing guard over the prone man in my work from the past 2 1/2 decades. The Beast Himself shows up in many other works, but today I am concerned with His appearance specifically over this lying-down (dead?)man; an obscured self-portrait echo of Hans Holbein’s Dead Christ.

When I first started making these images, I was very uncertain of the beast. Is he good or evil? Is he standing guard to protect the man from being devoured or to devour him himself? As time has gone on plenty of uncertainty remains, yet I feel that the beast transcends the duality of good and evil- I could even venture that he transcends it as goodness.

Pushing a bit harder, I might say the beast is the Angel of the Holy Spirit- if that’s too far, I can retreat to the ground that he is “messenger”.

Entering into the imaginal space of these images, the land of spiritual vision, allows their merger with memory and experience. That’s a leap into what some call the realm of the unseen. As for me, I say it is a seen realm, but with other eyes. They are my memories and experiences.

The man, is he alive or dead or both. He begins to be folded into the Earth in later drawings. And fully inhabits the worship life cycle of growth and decay by the last image. The relationships have matured a little bit perhaps? Time will tell.

Gilding A Divine Oath

The painting is back on the easel after a resting since spring. Gilding the letters of the divine and sacred promise to the land at the threshold of the picture was the first order, now I am glazing the purple field behind them, before addressing the errors in the gilding.

All the work is prayer- engaging EVERYTHING through the materials their resistance the colored dust the stillness the distractions the sable bristles the sticky oil the waiting the music in the background looking at Giotto interruptions aching neck lunch the glory the emptiness the inspired seeing fires skunks under the floor cold hands the failures and doubt exaltation pulling off a difficult passage looking at Gerard David the heavens the earth instinct the breathe the blood the sighing lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.

The Cosmic Tree

“I cannot bear, nor even hear the voices of men

unless they be in song and sore-amazed at the nearing nearness,

soaring -soaring in awful timbre about the unified flame”

from the Diary of a Tree Standing on Its Head

Go On, Adam, Breathe

“Go On, Adam, Breathe” a new linocut

This linocut of the Creator God breathing life and spirit into Adam is based off of an earlier drawing I made a number of years ago.

I’ve also printed a few colored versions from this block as well. All of these prints are available for sale in my store, baumwerkshop.com.

Black Walnut Bedroom

I would like to share these images of a black walnut bedroom, including a king-sized bed, side tables and a dresser, designed and built with my best friend Cody Rolph. We started this project in 2017 and finished it in 2020.

The design and joinery of the pieces in this group hopefully don’t arbitrarily feature pretty slabs of wood, but intend to capture or rather release the light and cadence of the old trees we collaborated with to build humble furniture. We try to see our human efforts humbly in the light of the wrought out witness which the trees spent their lives fashioning.

One of the trees we used for this came from the Walnut River valley near Augusta, Kansas, where it was uprooted and set for a number of years suspended by its roots and crowns. My personal experience suggests this process of drying “in the log”lends a quality to the color- different to other air drying methods. Another walnut tree we used came from Cody’s land in a draw on the county line between Greenwood and Elk counties. A third came from a farm near Winfield, KS- on the banks of the Arkansas River- where we scavenged the rejected leavings of a logging operation. All of these trees have peculiar and noble stories and voices, as expressions of a land and of its mineral and even spiritual atmosphere.

There are over 500 ebony and walnut butterfly joints throughout the pieces. Many of these serve a structural function, in knitting together knots and fractures throughout the slabs. We made the decision to use them aesthetically and rhythmically as well, in an attempt to interact with the movement and tension present in the slabs and their juxtapositions. Every butterfly was individually made and cut in by hand. This isn’t necessarily a testament to skill, but to the frail beauty of hand made lines versus machined perfection. The long labor isn’t to impress, but hopes to be a contemplative act of prayer in process, and to invite and serve that same response in the viewer.

In the same contemplative spirit, all of the structural joints are “through” mortise and tenons, with hand cut dovetails on all of the casework and drawers. The hardware are re-purposed spikes from a derelict centenarian railroad bridge located on Cody’s land.

Thank you for taking the time to look at these images of my friend Cody’s and my celebration and wonder at the crystalized voice of our God in the ligneous song of our brother-trees. Thank you especially to Steve Hebert for having the gifts and knowledge to be able to photograph these pieces for us.