incarnation

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

It was late Saturday night that Brenda and I returned from our big trip to Chicago. We had decided to go to my opening at Ann Nathan Gallery and celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary at the same time. The only catch was what to do with the kids. We worked it out with Roes and Pearl to take our place as guardians with the little girls staying overnight with our good friends around the corner.

It was late Saturday night when we arrived back in Grand Rapids at the Amtrak station downtown. From there we caught a cab which dropped us off on Lake Drive in front of Trinity United Methodist Church. My wallet (with over a hundred dollars in cash and debit card) dropped out of my coat pocket on to the seat of the cab but I wouldn’t know this until much later. We walked the remaining two blocks home thankful to be back in our neighborhood. When we walked through the door it was nearly 11:00 PM and everyone was in bed. The house was as neat as a pin. On the dinning room table was a paper bag with an assortment of home made cards to welcome us back home.

Our time in Chicago was a rare opportunity for Brenda and I to have an adventure with out the children. It felt like our courtship as we enjoyed relearning to be together with out all the dynamics of children in a constant swirl around us. We stayed over with old friends Tim and Sherrie Lowly which was great because their home is a place rich in music, art , conversation, and God…..all our favorite stuff.

The opening at Ann’s was painful for the first twenty minutes as the crowd was sparse and we felt alone and out of place but then familiar faces began to arrive and conversations with cups of wine warmed up the evening. We sold the painting of the girl in the red dress to a couple we had met before. The woman is an artist print maker and the husband a funeral director. This is their second Beerhorst painting to add to their collection.

Brenda and I had made up our mind that on this trip we would not go through the same rituals and territory that defined nearly all our previous Chicago visits. This time we wanted to learn to use the L trains and discover some of the other neighborhoods besides the River North Gallery district. We did this. It meant a lot unfolding and folding of maps as well as asking for directions. It included plenty of back tracking but it also meant we were opening up new territory. We were learning something new which also meant we were making mistakes.

Our explorations took us to Andersonville neighborhood and a great swedish restaurant. China town and the purchase of a beautiful kitchen knife and various little gifts for the children. And finally we explored the West Loop gallery district which is home to several galleries we had heard about but never walked through. West Loop leans toward younger emerging artists and more conceptual work.

Loosing my wallet seemed to be wanting to wreck the conclusion of a great adventure. Brenda suggested I sit down, relax and ask God for some help. I did this in the milk shake pink rocking chair I rebuilt last fall. About an hour later we got a call from the cabby who told me that he had found my wallet and could drop it off on his way into work that afternoon. He assured me it was still stuffed with money and it was, even after his unsolicited reward.

Like so much of our life our week end adventure was punctuated with risks, mistakes, and rewards.

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portrait of Grace with white rose and book

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

Brenda and I leave tomorrow on the train to Chicago for the art opening at Ann Nathan Gallery Friday night. We are celebrating 20 years of marriage. We were married January 2nd 1988. We had planned a honeymoon in New Orleans but got as far as Kentucky when I came down with the flue. We waited it out for a few days and then headed home. Sometimes things turn out different than what you planned.

I hope this trip goes better. We are hopping to sell some of the paintings out of the show. It is a portrait show and includes three other artists. We will stay over night and have plenty of time to explore and linger.

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fell asleep reading

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

I did this drawing over a year ago. I keep returning to this image of a person who has fallen asleep with a book. Perhaps it has to do with how I often keep so sleepy while reading to the children. Maybe it has to do with books as a portal into a different reality. Falling asleep and into a dream is another portal. I take a short nap in the afternoon after lunch and I a refreshed afterwards. What about that blue stain that envelopes the man’s head? I don’t know.

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house stack

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

The house smells like ginger bread ’cause Rose is in the kitchen making ginger bread people cookies. Yum. I have been feeling the pressue that comes with this season. All the expectations that can ride up your back. I am doing my best to stall chilled out and kind of failing.

I have a group show at Ann Nathan Galley next month. The opening is on the 11th Friday night. It always feels like a big deal to have a show in Chicago. I don’t feel much of a connection to that city but it is fun to go out beyond Grand Rapids once in awhile.

I have been in a woodblock and collage mode lately. It is a lot of fun to print on all sorts of different kinds of used paper and then piece them together and see what I can come up with. I like a certain amount of randomness and accidents. Making these prints feels like what my life is like…..lots of different odd pieces coming together in surprising ways.

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bless you 1

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

When some one sneezes and we say “bless you”, usually I don’t think it means much though it is a gracious gesture. But to say “bless you” or to pray for some one to be blessed can be very powerful. I have begun to reread the Prayer of Jabez book and I am being reminded of what blessing really means. In the book Wilkinson tells us that to be blessed means that God gives you favor. He encourages us to ask God to bless our life because this is what God wants to do and yet we need to ask to activate these good things God has waiting for us because as Jesus says, “We do not have because we do not ask”. So following this reminder I have begun to ask God for his blessings to be released into my life and a very cool thing happened Saturday morning.

The day before thanksgiving the frame of my glasses broke. I was able to keep wearing them but they were fragile. I finally made my way out to Kentwood where our optomitrist has his office on my bike to pick out some new glasses but didn’t like anything they had to offer. I spent a long time in their catologs ’till I found something I liked which they then had to order. This meant another bike trip out for a fitting. After the second trip out to have the frames fitted I asked if they would be able to just send me my finnished glasses inorder to save me another long winter bike ride. They agreed for an extra $2. Well it was last Saturday and we had a family gathering to go to in Muskegon with a borrowed car and I still had not gotten my glasses in the mail. I mentioned to Brenda how I had hoped that my glasses would come today and about a half hour later there was some one at the door which turned out to be Dr Scholton our optomitrist with a small package. He said that he was in our neighborhood and thought he would just drop off my glasses. I was stunned. This small gracious gesture has stayed with me all week making feel blessed, letting me feel God’s favor active in my life.

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superior canal

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

Monday morning and the Beerhorst Family Art Show is now over. It was a great weekend with a good batch of visitors. Good converstations, paintings sold, prayers prayed, cookies eaten. Many Sock Monsters and potholders went out the door.

I am very thankful for the support that meets our family through these open house projects. It is a good experience to make things and then share them with your local community. It is a little scary because you want people to respond favorably so you will be reasured that you are on the right track. You can’t control how people will react to your work.
Some times people don’t even notice. Somtimes they do notice.

I want to visit other peoples events in their homes where a culture experience is available. Try things and invite us because we are interested in what you are doing, what you are dreaming, what you have made.

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the joy of making things

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

the compression that winter brings
picking up toys
apologies
walking to Family Fair grocery store
flocks of sparrows pecking at what the chickens left
early morning ink drawing
Shepherds hair
parsnips and stew meat
God hungry
watching movies squished together on the couch
Rose and all her green tea
Brenda’s eyes
crunching through the snow
wondering were Brooklyn went
Pearl strumming an Em chord
buckwheat pancakes with apples and cranberries

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Family Art Show

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

We are in the mysterious process of getting ready for our next Beerhorst family Art Show. We almost always feel unprepared nomatter how hard we work at getting ready. It is a feeling we have just learned to live with over the years. Like so many strong feelings it trys to betray us.

I am really excited about this open house because there has been a strong outpouring of new ideas around here lately. What often seems to happen in the process of pulling out art made in the past along with finnishing up new projects, is that new connections are made. New ideas and possibilities present themselves as the house and studio are cleaned up and rearanged. It is a little like opening the wood stove and poking around the coals and chunks of wood till they burst into flames again. With the new inspirations, the trick then becomes in taking care of the details that need to be done to get ready for the show while at the same time following some of those new creative trails.

It is always our hope and prayer that people will come to our open house with the courage to invest their hard earned money in art work that they will take into their lives. And the art will some how help them to live with more potency and exhuberance. We really believe God inhabits the art and crafts we make because we have asked him to.

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Lilly Lipke and Brenda 1986

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

This photo is of Brenda and our friend Lilly Lipke about the time Brenda and I began going out. Infact she was with Brenda at the Intersection bar the night I first got Brenda’s phone number. Lilly took her life last week and we have been struggling to come to terms with this harsh reality. I have been wearing a pair of clogs all summer and fall that Lilly gave to me. I love them especially now because the represent some kind of tangable link with a friend that no longer exists in this world. Lilly was wonderful in many ways; she was beautiful, smart, artistic, a wonderful cook, and funny. She was also manic depressive and could be very difficult to be with. She has broken our hearts by leaving too soon. Her life was an important one. We miss her. I just can’t get my head around the fact that she gone

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scene of our city Grand Rapids MI

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

I have been working on this painting for a long time. I got it back from a gallery this summer and choose to begin working into it again. I have been up on the Wealthy Street overpass drawing and doing quick oil sketches many times this late summer and early fall. I feel as though I have married myself to this view and the relationship keeps getting deeper and deeper. I love the way it feels when I am up there and a large heavy truck rolls by and I feel the entire brige shake with the weight. I like it when people honk or otherwise call out some encouragement. I love it when art rises up out of the streets. Somtimes I wonder if the process of this painting and the painting itself could be a prayer for this city for it to flourish and to be blessed.

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