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Girl with Red Book painting in an environment, originally uploaded by {studiobeerhorst}-bbmarie.

This little painting was in the Wonder Wagon during Art Prize. I have only recently brought it into the house and found a nice place for it by the front door in our foyer. The little shelf underneath is laid out with a few objects of beauty and curiosity that provide some more context to relate back to the painting. The frame has been made out of scrape wood with the top cut to a peak which refers to either a house or an alter. The reading of a book, a young girl lost in the pages of a story, the suspension of time that happens while reading, study and meditation as a narrow passage back into God, these possibilities are forever fascinating to me. The background is a view from the upper window of the carriage house studio and shows our driveway emptying out into busy Fuller Street and our neighbors houses. This little painting is a frozen moment, a moth trapped in amber, a place to pause and reflect and allow life to drop further into places of depth, meaning and beauty.

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Self Portrait with Pin Cusion, originally uploaded by {studiobeerhorst}-bbmarie.

I have had this painting now for 5 years. I posted it to my Etsy shop this morning and in the process of writing a description it caused me to reflect on what this piece may say about me.

I have always considered the pin cushion as a reference to the heart and the suffering mine has endured over the years. The first and most dramatic blow to my heart was the death of my mother when I was nine years old. The feminine aspect of articles on the dresser may refer to this early hardship. The thread and needles speak of mending, perhaps my personal desire to be healed. This also could reveal my desire to be one who brings healing to the people in the broken world around me. The hand held mirror in this painting was one I had for a long time and was an element in other paintings as well. It was very old and eventually fell into ruin. The items that become still life elements seem to taken on more life after being in a painting. It is as if the process of being painting makes something or some one holy.

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Prayer Collage in Progress - this ain’t photo-shop!

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

I just completed the finished work for a magazine illustration. The article was about developing a life of prayer by including the small and regular things of life. It was funny in a way because Brenda and I had prayed that we would get some more illustration work and later that day an art director we had never heard of before sent us an inquiring email after she had discovered our work online. As it turns out, she had prayed that same morning that God would put her together with the right artist for this particular article. (She shared this with me after I confessed that her getting in touch with us was a direct answer to our recent prayer.) I find that very cool.

As it turned out it was a tough job because it took me quite a while to get it right. I am so used to strictly fine art and doing what ever I please it can be a difficult adjustment to be making art to serve someone elses specific need. It is a good reminder that just because God has created an opprotunity in our life in some obvious way does not mean our experience will be an easy one.

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The Dreamer

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

This is a painting that has been develoing slowly over many months. It’s not that I am working on it every day but rather from time to time it gets up on the easel. I always have a group of pieces that I am developing and some times a painting can sit around un noticed for a long time. Or perhaps it is not that I am not noticing it but maybe I just don’t know what to do next. Some times I feel like I am a painting that is sitting in a forgotten corner of the studio and nothing is happening to me. I feel like I am languishing. I have felt that way a lot lately. These small portraits are very dense with details, the fruit of a long labor of love. I am putting them up on the web site to share them with you.

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collage card

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

Brenda and I were making collage cards today with the idea of taking them down to the farmer’s market tomorrow in hopes of selling them there along with some of the other fun stuff we have made. We are a 5 minute walk from the market and have really enjoyed going down there though out the week and taking in the sights and smells as well as enjoying the conversations. So if you are in GR come down tomorrow and say hello.

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art studio

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

This is a shot of my new art studio in the carriage house behind our new house here in Grand Rapids. It is very rustic. There is no electricity, just a hurricane lamp for when I need to find something at night. The window in the back looks out into the fabulous garden of our neighbor Shirley. The window has no pane of glass, just a board that slip out and gets se to the side in the morning and put back at night. I like how rough it is because it feel like an adventure just being in there. I have a little more privacy then I have had for the last few years when I just worked in the middle of the house were traffic came and went.

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portrait of a girl with red tulip

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

This is another new painting that I begun while in Brooklyn and finished (I think) yesterday here in Grand Rapids. This was done from some drawings I had done a few years ago of my daughter Pearl. The back ground is mostly taken from an early rennesance painting. I really like the way landscape gives a painting a setting as well as feeling of deepth. The blouse she is wearing was part of the inspiration for this piece. It reminds me of queen annes lace. I really love the details of clothes that have decorative potential.

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man reading

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

This is a painting I finished just before we moved back to Grand Rapids. The idea is a book as a portal to another place. Perhaps the place is one of insight or maybe it is God. Maybe the book will bring you a much needed encouragment or perhaps help you make a connection you have been looking for.

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Link

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

This painting is titled Link. Perhaps the title has to do with the way the shapes and lines in this piece seem to be interwoven together and connected as if this were what one was seeing under a high power microscope of some kind of organic tissue structure. I have continued to enjoy looking at this painting for the way the particles appear to float inside the picture plane. The layering and suggestion of depth seem to reflect something of what my life feels like, several pulsing layers coexisting with each other, the different aspects of my life that interlock with one another to create the pulsing web that is my life. Painting is a mysterious thing the way it comunicates to us without sound and in complete stillness and yet if you are quiet before a painting like this one it is as if it begins to dance and hum in a very real way. Jacques Deval has said that “God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved birds and invented cages” and I would say that when I take time to look into Brenda’s paintings the cage door swings open again.

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