illustration

The Champion Table

After about five months the Champion Table is finished and in its new home outside of Chicago. The woods in this table are Kansas Black Walnut and White Oak (the base uses oak from Kansas, the top uses oak of lesser known origin, beyond my friend, the lumber man), the top features also a small amount of Ebony and sulfur. The design is original, and evolved throughout the building process. Central, is a crucifixion theme and the arc. There are other symbolic elements as well, throughout. I am deeply grateful to the Champion family for the opportunity to build a significant piece of furniture for their home and living. I am also humbled and thankful for all the encouragement I have received throughout the building process. Ultimately I am glad in my heart, laboring to make something that celebrates the goodness of God.

Walking Man nimmt ein Sabbat

Go On, Bezalel

“See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills…” Exodus 31: 2 & 3.

Bezalel is kind of an early renaissance man, thousands of years before Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, or Durer. More importantly he was faithful to God’s design of him as a craftsman. He was found worthy to build the design of God concerning the tabernacle and all of its parts. As a craftsman and artist, it is hard to comprehend anything so significant to my earthly labors as to manifest on earth something that was authored in the very heart and mind of God.

Elizabeth Duffy asked me about influences and progenitors in her interview with me last year. Here is an excerpt of my response pertaining to Bezalel: I hope, maybe, to be in the line of Bezalel, who fashioned so much for the tabernacle, making the sacred things that were part of the “technology” of worship of His God for his community. Personally, I couldn’t ask for more than that. Bezalel is valuable as a paradigm of an artisan of broad experience and skill. He could work in many trades and arts with skill worthy of God’s Tabernacle. My good friend reminds me of the value of a man of that breadth of experience and skill in contrast to a culture that places a premium on experts of high degree in a single field. When I wonder if I am hurting myself by embracing so many disciplines, I am grateful for Bezalel and his place in God’s story, and a few other men I have encountered who are champions of excellence in this way. The drawing, an imagining of a portion of Bezalel’s tent-workshop, started two or three years ago, finally over the past two months I was able to finish it. It is composed along the lines of another drawing, Go On, Adam, Breathe. An potential series of drawings? The drawing to me feels so limited, compared to the vastness of what could be explored and depicted, as a task to learn about Bezalel, his labors, and his relationship to his God.

Provision

I have been printing an edition of Flying Fish, a copper-plate engraving about the miracle of provision experienced by Thor Heyerdahl and his crew in the Pacific Ocean on their balsa log raft, the Kon Tiki. This print is for sale at the Baumwerk Etsy store.

…a Walking Man drawing for my friend Steven.

Place

“Rootrill” I hope that you will forgive me for posting an eleven minute song in the twenty first century. Mostly, I hope that you enjoy it.

arc contain glow

seen through scene

bois d arc meteorite

slanting even evening light

ancient bone star dust

deere ghost sheep goat add straw and mix well

cross turn

years unfurl in the eternal present

young hands dextrous

core sample of stored solar energy

made vacant for gold

quince roots herbs leg

reamed tapered tapped turned twisted sunk fitted formed around

concentrate earth line essence

absorb the sun and use it for life

pull transfer motion

dividing even unto cambium and xylem

layers and layers

learn purpose practicing discipline

stop motion

frozen movement osage root as it once reached

three forms of light

hand in hand you who once swayed

ancient releasing story

the turning of light upon the solar bank countless voices scratch and turn

golden hands once full wait for wisdom

new moon forest window

tall down cut stack turn stack down

erth-maker here we bend here we grow

establish converge into order dust scratcher

welcome the new bird and fare thee well

Walking Man of the Roots

Walkning Man of the Roots, detail

Carving Mr. Edom… Still

Slowly carving away at a block of linoleum featuring Obed Edom and the Ark of God’s covenant with Israel.

A Vessel, Strange and Unknown Finds Walking Man

A vessel from the earth, strange and unknown, baring forth both blood and fire, finds Walking Man

When You Spoke, guitar, accordion, banjo, and voice.

Walking Man, Root

A new drawing of Walking Man with some contextual review. And a traditional tune called The Gobby-O, played by the skin of my teeth on the tenor banjo, with spoons and guitar.