Is There Life After Church?

As Christians watch more and more mainstream churches stagnate or close their doors it appears that some of them aren't prepared to go down with the ship in the traditional patriarchal manner.

Some really good and decent people are trying to grapple with the baffling question of what went wrong by incorporating rock music, multi-media, female pastors etc, etc. into their churches hoping to resurrect a dead horse.

My personal opinion is that we won't really be able to understand Christ's message of peace, compassion and equality until every Christian church is closed.

We need to start again.



In the image the divine feminine has surfaced from the deep waters under the church (symbolized by the fish).  The people in the water would rather drown than accept the milk she provides.

But there is hope - symbolized by the new birth that is happening.





***

Smiling for the Camera

My Dad and I became good friends during his last years but it wasn't always like that.

I was about 5 in this picture and my body language speaks volumes about the dynamics of the relationship.

eek


On a happier note, (I think),  I just got a business licence!

My new business is FRANCIS MCGLYNN ART CO.

(Okay, I'm a Frances not a Francis but I named my business after my beloved grandfather who used to paint pictures of boats on the factory walls when he was on a break.)

I'm going to try to sell prints of a few of my pictures in an online ETSY store so that I can afford to get some of my work framed.

Or that's the plan anyway.


Haahahahahahahahahahaha!


Oh well as my Mom used to say, "Nothing ventured nothing gained!"


I'll keep you posted.

Still Lost in the 50s

This is one of my favourites from my '1950s' series of pictures.

It is from a photo of my 'oldest' friend Jane holding her doll Alice. We've been friends for almost 60 years.

(Me and Jane not me and Alice.)

The Madonna symbolism was not unintentional.  As soon as I cropped the picture I realized what I was looking at and although that imagery is not as important to me as it once was, the large cross standing between the child and the bleak outside world gives the picture a feeling of hope.



"... and, lo, I am with you always, 

even unto the end of the world."

Matthew 28:20

She Who Heals the Sea

I sometimes think the Life Force, (that from which we come and to which we return), is neither good nor bad, male nor female.
 

It just is.  

Eternal but not unchanging.

I suspect that we have the ability to unleash and or harness Its power depending on which of the archetypes, (gods) have control of our collective unconscious.

The dark side of the alpha male archetype has had control for a long, long time. Wars, oil spills, genocide, misogyny, terrorism, soulless corporations and weapons of mass destruction are some of His calling cards.

For thousands of years there has been no strong archetype with the female attributes of birthing, feeding, nourishing and caring for the Earth and everything in it who has been strong enough to defeat evil and harness the positive male characteristics of protecting, building, defending, providing, etc.

But She is afoot.  

Or in this image 'aboat' might be a better term.

Archetypes grow stronger with each prayer, each new convert. It isn't too late.

Spread the word.

***

The Green

Me and my mom in 1955.



The oil pastels help me not to be TOO  anal about details.

They are too clunky to do much more than the basics.


In real life the door actually had windows.


I was surprised to see the windows in the old photograph

because in my memory the green was just

the colour through which I passed daily.



Things like windows and door knobs didn't

make it into my long term memory.


Just green.


Kind of nice, now that I think about it.







.

And the Winner Is!

My Brother, My Sister

The human/animal/spirit beings are going to a new home!

The names went into the cauldron at Mayholme where I do volunteer work!

Then my friend Laurie picked a winner!

Congratulations, Debra!

I'll be in touch!

Victoria Day 1954

This image of my mother and brother from 1954 made me realize how much Canada has changed in 60 years.   We were definitely a British outpost in those days and Victoria Day was the only day we had fireworks.

Somehow or another over the years we, (politely), shed our colonial identity, got our own flag and now celebrate Canada Day with fireworks. 

But we'll never give up our Victoria Day/ 24th of May long week-end!!!

Be like asking us to give up the maple syrup or hockey!


Anyway I'm just not making it to my blog - or yours very often these days.  I'm not sick or depressed or anything like that, just busy doing art & other stuff..


I'm on a semi-temporary leave of absence I guess you'd say... ...

Talk soon!

The Good Little Girl

I'm sure you are all wondering if this angelic child could possibly

be the same little girl who used to execute her Betsey Wetsey Doll.
 

 7thdecadegirl.blogspot.com/2012/01/die-betsy-wetsy-die.html

 

Bwa ha ha.

 

Das Haircut

My father wasn't one to spend money when he didn't absolutely have
to spend money. 

Before my brothers were old enough to care how they looked this
was a common enough scene at our house.

The red in the picture isn't blood.  It just signifies my own alarm
at the predicament of my sweet baby brother.


Fortunately my mother and I went off to the local Merritton Beauty
Parlour which was in those days like going into a private club just
for girls and women. 

No boys allowed!


On the surface the 1950s were so innocent. 


***

My Brother, My Sister

 

I've recently started reading Anne Baring's Book  

The Dream of the Cosmos, A Quest for the Soul.

She speaks of the soul as a cosmic web.

Not something we 'have' rather something we,

(meaning all living things: men, women, animals,

plants, water air, the earth), are a part of.

She says it is an ancient idea that

needs to be resurrected if we are to survive.

The pink blanket behind the two figures

represents that cosmic web of souls. 

The figures are part human, part animal

part spirit.

 

The title of the picture is "My Brother, My Sister".

It is about 20 1/2" by 14

 

AND

 

seeing as I haven't had a contest in awhile

I think I'll have a Valentine's Day Draw.

 

If you would like to be the proud owner of  

this strange, unframed, unmatted sketch

you just have to follow my blog and leave

a comment or tell me how talented I am

on my face book wall.  

(Don't leave it on Google+

as I've never figured it out.)

 

Good luck.

Hope somebody enters.

:)

There's a Blind Fish on My Head

There's a blind fish on my head.
 

Every thought I have is swallowed by the fish

and comes out the other end as words.
 

My words cannot be caught or taken back.

 

Damned old fish.

Little Girlfriends

That's me on the left.

Heather is in the middle and Wendy is on the right.

They lived 2 doors down and were my earliest friends.

As I was working on this picture I started to smell their house.

It smelled friendly and comfortable, like toast.

Other memories of three little girls who were loved and protected

surfaced as I sat at my drawing table.

But I was also aware of the shadow that was looming over us that day.

It got into bed with me later and I tossed and turned for hours reliving ugly

events that I still don't like to think about.

 

In those days divorce was illegal and very rare in Canada.

Their father took his new wife to Ohio in the USA and raised a second

family. 

 

The girls and their mother eventually moved away from Merritton

when I was about 10.

 

It was the beginning of the end of my childhood.

Crossing the River Styx

I received a letter from the University of Guelph a few days ago telling me

that my veterinarian had donated a sum of money to the School of

Veterinary Science  at U of G in memory of my little cat Claude.  I was

very touched by this but it set me thinking about death and the two cats

I lost in 2013. 

I think it would be very arrogant to assume that we will only encounter

other human souls when we leave 'this vale of tears'.  I also suspect that 

it is wrong to think that our life force is of greater importance to the

universe than the life force of any other creature.

 

From that thought came this image of the deer, the cat, the bird and the

person sitting on the edge of eternity together as equals.

 

Note:

Because I borrow so heavily from medieval art and nursery rhyme illustrators I figured the picture had to impart a moral so along the top I supplied one.  It says:

DON'T TRY TO CROSS THE RIVER STYX WITH A DEER, A CAT AND A BIRD ON THE BACK OF A SEA MONSTER OR IT WILL START TO SNOW AND YOU WILL FALL OFF THE EDGE OF THE WORLD.

Which is always good advice but actually has nothing to do with the picture.

And besides sketchbooks should always have mysterious musings that no one understands. 

Forbidden Apples Sold Here

The subject matter isn't important here.

I mean anyone can tell at a glance that it is Adam, Eve, Yahweh and Ishtar in the Garden of Eden and the serpent, (Yahweh hasn't taken its legs away yet), is selling forbidden apples for $5 bucks each.  

 

Of greater interest is the fact that I may have solved the problem of muddy glazes!!!!

 

I decided to lay a glaze over the ink before I put down the colour.

Then I glazed the picture a second time.

 

Absolutely thrilling to see the colours stay so true.

♪♪♪  How I love my sketchbook  ♪♪♪

 

 

PS I forgot to mention the hungry birds who want to steal the apples from the serpent. Too obvious?

Buying into the Establishment. Finally.

I've never been one for a sketch book.

Sketchbooks always seemed like a tiresome means to an end work of art

which, if it was planned, wasn't real art anyway so why bother.

Maybe it was coming of age during the time when the ideas of Carl Jung

coated the universities like sticky fly tape.  Maybe I identified sketchbooks

as being 'establishment'. Too reminiscent of the old way of doing things.   

Or maybe (and most likely) I was just too lazy.  Who's to say?

But I've changed and here's a picture of my new sketchbook.

 

Pretty cool, eh?

I think the idea that I might like to have a sketchbook started percolating in my brain when I first saw the lovely paintings that Ana does in Introverted Art.

http://introvertedart.blogspot.com

They are as light and bright as a soul set free.  And Ana talks about her sketchbook freely, not as an extra unwanted appendage forced upon her by a pitiless society with preconceived ideas of how an artist must act, but as something very special to her.

Then serendipitously when I was in pricing paper in November I saw that the art store had a 2 for 1 sale on sketchbooks.  Big sketchbooks.  Big enough for me to get inside and scribble on the walls.

So I bought one, (two).

But I didn't really get it.

I tore all of the pages out of the first book and used them as individual sheets.  And like Humpty Dumpty I found that when I came to the end of the book I couldn't put it together again. It was very annoying but I was in the process of discovering something and I suppose the lesson was worth it.

Somehow as the new year was almost upon me I began to see my sketchbook not as a tiresome means to an end but as my final product.
 

SO

No more wall art for me.

I'm all about sketchbooks now.

 

Thanks, Ana!

White and Protestant

So here we are.

My brother and I were fighting all the time in those days.  I mean we still don't understand each other and have little contact  but in those days it was an out and out physical war.

We have a huge bench upon which to park our bottoms but for some reason we have chosen to sit as if we had to share a stool at kresge's lunch counter. I am purposely taking up more space than I should have and am smiling at the camera enjoying my brother's discomfort. 

My mother who is far better educated than my father and secretly longs to be on the stage, looks dowdy and heavy, her fist is clenched in her lap, her legs pinkish with varicose veins.  She stares grimly over our heads as if she is looking for an escape route.

Her next pregnancy probably isn't the escape route she is dreaming of, but at least it will give her something to do.

It is 1956.

 

My world is white, Protestant and traditional working class.

 

Like that was going to last.

Fin de Siècle

The wheel of life completes another cycle at midnight.

The joys, the sorrows of the old year are over.

It is time to let go, move on.



To face what lies ahead with courage.



(I'm talking to non-Leaf fans here.  There is no doubt in MY mind that

they will win the Stanley Cup.)




Best wishes for 2014, everyone!



***

The Tree of Souls

Are they coming or going?

It probably doesn't matter.

We leave the Source of all Life and we return to It.


Always.

Angry Faces

Hasn't been the best of times.

Kinda more like a bah humbug festive season this year.

Thrusday night I made an appointment to have my tiny, bossy cat Claude put to sleep hoping that by Friday morning he would be better and the vet would say his cancer had gone away.

It didn't and he didn't. 

The house seems so empty and of course just when I need to get out and tromp around in the woods there's an ice storm and Flynn and I are house bound.

Consoling my self with some angry faces on my drawing board.

Wishing everyone a happy and joyful Christmas

but personally I'll be glad when it is over.


***

What Are Friends For?

Narcissus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was raised to be polite to people and to ask them questions about themselves when conversing.

And that works okay, as long as the other person plays by the same rules.

The danger is that a narcissist simply talks about him or herself and at the end of the interaction the polite person is sucked dry of any feelings of self worth.  

 

Sometimes a 'friendship' with a narcissist can develop if there is enough entertainment value in the relationship, you have shared experiences and/or there are open doors that that would otherwise be closed to the polite person.

 

(I didn't say polite people are smart or even overly moral people.)

 

Anyway, I've had a lifelong 'friendship' with a narcissist.

 

Or I did.

 

After dropping contact with me during a very bleak period in my life a few years ago she suddenly phoned yesterday.

And immediately launched into a monologue about her relationship with her husband & how it has been hell for years & that's why she hasn't been in touch but it's okay now, and her mom has Alzheimer's but she doesn't care and hey she's got this great little website going now, blah blah blah.

No apology. No how are you.

In the old days I would have spent hours listening.

Because that's what friend's do. Right?

(Remember what I said about polite people not always being smart people?)

 

Okay, okay.  I listened yesterday too.

I'm Canadian. I can't help it.

But the difference is that I could feel myself getting more and more enraged as she blathered on.

And then I had a meltdown.

I didn't say anything like I should have said, but I said enough.

And then I hung up.

 

Score one for painful personal growth.  sigh.