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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woman with mirror and bird

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

This is the night before our Family Art Show. We have really worked hard getting ready for this one. It can be stressfull doing a show but it is also exciting. Something happens to our house when we fill it with art and take time to arrange everything. It is a little like what the kitchen feels like when you come home from the farmer’s market and you have heaps of fresh fruit and vegtables laying on the counter.

The painting of the girl holding a mirror in one hand and a bird in the other is one of the new pieces that you will see if you stop by this weekend. You might wonder why she is holding a bird and a mirror. What is the connection? I like a picture to be haunting. When listen to a Leonard Cohen song. They hang around in with you a long time because of the way the songs make sense in your heart but not really in your head. Some times art works better when there are a few things “wrong”.

Have you ever noticed that just before you embark on an important event you are assailed by all kinds of fears of possible failure. I have this alot. I can feel it wanting to grind away at me tonight. I am choosing to be hopefull tonight and in the words of my wife Brenda’s hooked rug, I am “Expecting Good Things”.

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girl sleeping before open window

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

I have been painting out side as often as I can. I have a portable easil and paint box that fits into the bike trailer. I leave early in the morning and am gone for maybe and hour and a half or two hours. I love this going out and painting landscape. It is a good struggle that helps me see and appreciate the world around me. It uncovers hidden beauty.

This painting of the woman who is reclining on the sofa has a scene of Grand Rapids in the background as seen from the Wealthy Street overpass. This is one of my favorite views of our city.

The city lays down like a young man’s dream.

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Beerhorst Family Art Show Sept. ‘07

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

We have never done a Family Art Show this time of year. This is something new for us and we are excited about it. One of the things I love about these show is that it is something we come together on as a whole family. Rose is making more variations of her sockmonsters. Pearl is making more of her wonderful thick pot holders bursting with unsual and beautiful color combinations.

Brenda is at this very moment sitting in a comfy old winged chair making flower pins from pieces of wool left over from her hooked rugs. It is a cold rainy day and Brenda is in that old chair working away. Dinner is done and the dishes washed and put away. The little girls are what you would expect after two solid days of cold and rainy weather keeping them inside. There is a compression that happens with in our family from time to time that is almost unbearable. The little puddle of calm Brenda has in her chair over by the window is hard won and very neccessary. After I finnish here I will attempt some work in the studio for maybe an hour or so. There is no electricity out in the carriage house so this means I drag an extension cord out there from the basement so I can use a lamp next to my easil. I love natural light but some times to carve out a little time in the evening to paint means a light bulb.

This has really been a tough day for us. Lately it is as if God is alowing us to feel our total dependence on him. I know that this is a very important and valuable time but it is also hard. Maybe it is a bit what a pregnant woman feels when she is so uncomfortable as her due time draws near. She is carring a heavy burden that makes so many of lifes everday activities more difficult and awkward and yet she can bear with this hardship beause of what she has to look forward to. Similarly I know that there is some real beauty and wisdom on the other side of this valley we are walking through right now.

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apple pie

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

Earlier in the week Pearl and I picked a couple of big bags of apples from a old apple tree in our neighborhood. It is one of those city fruit trees that no one seems to notice or do anything with. The apples are bumpy and blemished from neglect but still work great for cooking. They are even beautiful in their bumby irregularity and spots.

We are in a time right now as a family of financial vulnerability so picking up apples from a neglected city fruit tree makes a lot sense for us right now. God always provides for us. And it seems like times like these when things get kind of scary his provision becomes even more tangable some how. It is as if God allows these situations for us to be reminded of our total dependence on him. It is in these times that we seek him out. These times are very uncomfortable but good. It’s like those nights that are hard to fall into sleep because you are so full of worries and then you begin to pray and end up falling asleep knowing that somehow things are going to just work out some how and the next day of so something happens to give you hope again.

That pie tasted so good. It tasted good becuase we were hungry. It tasted good becuase we went through the trouble of picking the apples our self. It tasted good becuase it was home made. It tasted good because it was so clearly from God’s hand. I really appreciate this hard time we are in right now for the way it makes me feel more alive.

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