Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Invented arts.
At night the camera is bored with the dark, and invents a new art from the patterns of neon lights in the saloon windows.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow
All history is hand-made.
The call of nostalgia
Sara uses her cell phone in a phone booth. We just had dinner at the Pedal Pusher Diner, where they play Buddy Holly songs and serve soda fountain specials, like a "Brown Cow" ... a Coca-Cola, ice cream and chocolate syrup. What will evoke nostalgia from these times fifty years from now? The iPod? Abu Ghraib prison pictures on the cover of Newsweek? Shreck?
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow
It was up to us
Et In Arcadia Ego
When we stop
What have I forgotten?
The simple altar has all the necessary parts of a moment outside ourselves. There are candles, to remind us that light comes and goes, and is not the real story. There are collection plates, to remind us that money comes and goes, and is not the real story. There is a Bible. There is a piece of handkmade linen on a handmade oak table. What have I forgotten? Oh, yes, the sun.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow
His finger
In the middle of the American continent, we are so far from the ocean that it is just a word. Ocean. A word for other people. But we have sky. And winter. This sky is dark with rippled clouds. They look like rumors of the ocean, echoes and imitations of a vast watery field somewhere else, in someone else's world.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow
This tree wants to give up, but won't. Not for years. While the trunk says ?I am tired. Let me sleep?, the branches stand up, and lift up the twigs, which reach inside the sky. They are finding a handhold there. The grass seems not to notice, but it does. It knows what is going on.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow
The boy hides his face from the photographer. He is now hiding his face from you, which makes you the author of this work, and the accused. The horse leaves the frame. He will still be leaving the frame years from now, long after the boy has grown up and given his face to the world.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow
Life comes into the picture at a trot, and steals the show. But the undulant clouds and sere purity of snow fields retain their value long after the trot of life is spent. With the trick of art, we can piece them together into a lie of frozen time. Somewhere far from you, the clouds have moved, the horse has slept, the snow has sighed and turned over in its bed.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow
The clouds and snow in the stubble field form stippled frosting patterns behind a serene beauty. I can go on and on about Sara's beauty, because it is mostly beneath the surface. The beauty you can see is a token of God's appreciation of humanity. The beauty you cannot see is God's appreciation of the human soul.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow
Monday, January 16, 2006
Back to the drawing board
Sunday, January 15, 2006
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