Art

October 15

I am thankful for art. I love good art and really appreciate the talent that artists have. Me, being the only one in my family with no art skills, can certainly appreciate the gift. And enjoy.

This is a picture of the doors that I featured in my blog on July 16 in the blog about teamwork. We had prepped the doors with white primer and then the artists took over. This is their final creation (although my daughter Beth says her's is technically not finished). The doors were screwed together with hinges (Anne Wolfe and my contribution) to give this final visual creation, which also serves as a message board for a new coffee house at our church called Brew Unto Others. From left to right in order, the painting of the cross was done by my daughter Beth, a blackboard was painted by Anne Wolfe, as well as the next two doors, a showering man and a man looking through a window, and the door on the far right of coffee beans, vines, and a window was painted by my wife Bebe.

Below is a photo I took of eight drawings my son John Tulley did of prisoners. I am amazed at how good he is as an artist. There seems to be some kind of art gene in my family. As I've mentioned before, my sister Mary Beth Martin is also an accomplished artist. Bebe has an artistic aunt. So it's no wonder that Bebe, John, Beth, and Mary Beth have that talent. How that gene skipped me is interesting but I'm OK with that. I love photography and use it for my artistic expression. But I do admire the ability to paint and draw.

October 15bprisoners,jr tulley

art

art has the ability

to touch

to move

and inspire

it grabs the observer

with awe

and a spark of fire

art goes beyond

the ability

to perceive

what is there

it demands individual

insight

unique

and to the bones

bare.

© rt tulley

Archives

October 14archives,old garage, breaux bridge

I am thankful for archives. Archives are the storage of items with historical perspective. To me, that applies to us personally in that our archives are memories of events, people, or things that have "historical" perspective in our lives. Archives are important because they predate the things that happened to us prior to today and may have had importance in where we are in our lives currently. That can be applied to bad memories as well as good memories. Those memories can help us to move forward and build upon the good things that we have experience previously or stand as bad instances from which we can recover by moving beyond them.

This is a photograph of an old garage I found in Breaux Bridge. It has two areas for storage of "archive", an open one on the left and a closed on on the right. Bicycles and several other items have been stored on the left side. The right side could hold a car or other items. I developed this picture in HDR using Photomatix to combine three exposures, which gave it a surreal kind of look.

archives

i have a grand old archival system

that stores away many items of old

it’s got a complicated retrieval system

indexes and cross references untold

they should be there at a moment’s notice

to be retrieved for good

but one little problem is in my brain

the index system does not work as it should.

© rt tulley

Core Values

October 13core values,peeling paint

 I am thankful for core values. That is, assuming that we all have some sort of good values which are deeply implanted in us. I think that we all do to some extent. The key is to try to enhance them and bring them out. Core values are the foundation upon which our character is built. If we have good core values, they will remain no matter what happens to us on the outside. Even when our lives, our health, our dreams are crumbling around us, we will still have those values which will make us stay true to what is "right". In the Bible Jesus talked about the foundation upon which a house is built. The one that is built on sand erodes; the one built on solid ground stands firm. So it is with good solid core values.

This is a picture I took in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, of a door which has peeling black paint on the outside but has a firm "core" of reddish paint underneath, which is unblemished. I thought this was a good representation of good core values which hold firm even though on the outside everything is falling apart.

paint

my house has been painted

so many times and many more

i see colors of white, beige, and pink

layers and layers to the core

a hail storm damaged one color

and another one was so scarred

by a hurricane that came and went

another by a fire was charred

yet on the inside layer

i look and am very pleased to see

the primer coat is undamaged

it has held strong many years for me

i realize that the many times

i painted without a strong undercoat

that i was foolishly wasting time and effort

if only a little time to devote

to making the foundation much stronger

and to strengthening of the core

my paint jobs would have lasted longer

and held strong for many years more.

© rt tulley