Catherine L. Gauldin Illustration

What is Christmas?

2010-12-23T12:40:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. The current year is about to come to an end; it’s time to reflect on the fact that we are all a year older and that much closer to our inevitable launch into eternity. While still in a contemplative mood I was relieved to receive this morning a last-minute online “Holiday Greeting” from Holland America Cruise Lines, signed “your friends at Holland America”. Actually I don’t have any friends at Holland America and my suspicion is that they want me to buy a cruise ticket in 2011 which I may or may not do but I appreciate the sentiment anyway: I’m sure it was sincere and heartfelt. I think I understand what Christmas means or at least what it is supposed to mean, but I have no idea whatsoever what the “Holidays” are intended to stand for except perhaps an excuse to run back and forth to the Mall. I also don’t know what to say when people ask me if I am ready for Christmas.

The truth is the Christmas I celebrate each year bears little resemblance to the version most of the people I know supposedly welcome into their homes. Mine is a very quiet affair, shared with a few friends and that’s about all there is to it. We spend time together, we eat a lot, we go to the theater and to the Symphony. We exchange a few gifts; we go to Church. On Christmas Eve we eat again and then go to a midnight service somewhere in the city. Personally welcoming Christmas Day makes its arrival a holy moment for me rather than just a holiday. My friends and I are thankful for each other’s company not just on one day but on all the days throughout the year because we understand a New Year can bring with it unexpected change and loss. In my house there’s no huge Christmas tree with presents spilling out from underneath and no family coming in from out of town. On Christmas Day I get up and make a pot of coffee. I suspect if people were honest most would confess their own Christmas bears little resemblance to the image they see on sentimental Hallmark cards, but as always the day has to be an individual experience or it has no real significance. The one and only thing that gives my Christmas or anyone’s Christmas any meaning at all is Christ.

My neighbors began to decorate their houses before Thanksgiving and now my street is lit up like an airport. I know them to be a nice group of people but since I’m not so sure about the rest of the world I began to wonder if people really give any thought to why they do what they do in late December or if it’s become custom to just follow tradition year after year while secretly yearning to be rid of the whole business when December 26th finally comes around. What is Christmas? Since the Pope and Billy Graham are probably busy I consulted Yahoo Answers and found these words of wisdom from a guy named Josh, posted over a year ago. His opinions are probably still current.

The What is Christmas List (according to Josh):
1. Christmas is about visiting families, giving, celebrating, and having fun.
2. Some religions believe that the birth of Jesus, was in October. Some religions believe that the birth of Jesus, was in April. Some religions believe that the birth of Jesus, was in December or January.
3. The reason why families celebrate Thanksgiving Day and Christmas, is because people get lonely, and it's time for people to get together.
4. Santa is like your parents. The original Santa Claus was Saint Nickolas, who was a carpenter, that made toys for kids, in a town.
5. Celebrating Christmas is better than having wars.
6. Christmas was named after Christ. "Christ"mas. Xmas. X short for Christ.
7. Having too many things against your religion is over doing it.
8. Jesus wants you to just be yourself. Jesus doesn't expect everyone to be perfect. Jesus gives people the free choice. Having fun is okay to do. We all need to have fun. Celebrating Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas & Easter is okay to do. Nothing wrong with that.

Josh was probably well-intentioned but his facts need a little revision.
1. Christmas is about Jesus, The Incarnate Word, Emmanuel, God With Us who came to earth to die so that those who believe in Him might have eternal life.
2. That Christmas Day is celebrated on December 25th is about as important as making the observation that correct punctuation is a good thing. When is less important than why.
3. Loneliness is epidemic, especially in large cities, but it’s an urban myth that more people commit suicide during the Christmas season than at any other time of the year. People commit suicide all year long because they have come to the end of their hope. Facebook and internet blogs are not a substitute for communication and it is indeed time for people to get together.
4. Santa Claus is not like your parents.
5. Celebrating Christmas is much better than having a war, but that fact doesn’t keep people from fighting with each other in their own living rooms on Christmas Day.
6. Just because the letter “x” is symbolic of the Greek Cross doesn’t mean it should end up on your Christmas cards.
7. Having too many things against your religion is called legalism. Christianity is more about what and whom you include in your life than about what and whom you exclude.
8. God doesn’t want us to be ourselves; He wants us to be perfect as He is perfect and He knew we couldn’t get to Heaven on our own so He sent His Son to die in our place and that’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.

The above image is a portrait of a friend’s daughter. She is dressed in a bedsheet, strategically draped and I then drew her as an angel.

“9And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. 10And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 12And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. 13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

14Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. “

2010-05-08T10:22:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day.

Shortly after my mother’s funeral a woman friend of mine came up and said to me “Welcome to the Sisterhood of Motherless Daughters”. The phrase comes from a book by Hope Edelman though the focus of that book was on daughters who have lost their mothers at an early age. There was no cruelty in the statement, only a truth born from experiences but it took me a while to fully understand what she was talking about. How can pain be unifying? How can such a devastating loss be anything but destructive? How can anything good come from unwanted, unsolicited separation?

It took me a while but now I understand that pain and loss and devastation if allowed to do their work can be cleansing, like fire. They clean away all that’s unwanted in the soul; things like fear, hesitation, resistance and leave behind a new resilience. It isn’t an easy process, this renewal, but it’s necessary. I still hear my mother’s voice urging me to tasks beyond my own level of confidence and I know I go forward into the world each day because I can remember her eternal and unwavering confidence in me. I’m also more aware of and humbled by the strength of the women I still have in my life, women who prove they are a new creation each morning born from the testimony of pain they’ve had in their own lives. The love my mother left me still clings to me and always will, and for that I am thankful and I understand along with other daughters that Mother’s Day is not a day of mourning for us because of remembered faces no longer in the world; it’s a day of life-affirming commitment.

My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. ~Graycie Harmon

Links worth clicking on: http://krysandlucky.wordpress.com/

The Art of Gilded France

2009-09-22T20:50:00.000-07:00

I am a Francophile, and that is defined as any American who can stand to be around the French for any length of time.

I love the French and admire the way they do things because they have a flair about them and add a degree of elegance to almost everything they touch. The Parisians in particular know how to do two things very well; they know how to cook and they know how to gild stuff. All over the city of Paris there are golden palaces dedicated to the pursuit of the cultured life and in them you can generally (and without any effort at all), find something good to eat.

I admire the French way of doing things so much that after seeing “Julie and Julia” I purchased on amazon.com “The Art of French Cooking” by Julia Child and those two other women. The fact of that purchase was a surprise even to me because my theory has always been that if something can’t be microwaved, it was never meant to be eaten in the first place. The book is an impressive 684 pages not including the index and as a Texan I’ve scoured the recipes for Julia’s French equivalent to Chicken Fried Steak but have yet to find anything that remotely resembles tough flank steak smothered in sticky white wall paste. The truth is I bought “The Art of French Cooking” just because I like having it in the house.

The Paris Opera House

The other thing the French are able to do is build buildings, and they like to slather gold on everything that isn’t tied down. “The opera house is a treasure-box of gold” begins a poem by Amy Lowell “Gold, gold, gold and to light the Beaux-Arts splendor of the interior of the building are an abundance of indecently clad human figures that hold aloft multiple and dazzling globes of illumination. They are like writhing, twisting torches of light and of course they are all covered in bright yellow metal. It is a wonderful sight…much too beautiful for it to be a fitting place for Gaston Leroux’s novel of a hideous Phantom that lives in the basement. There is in actuality an underground lake, just like in the story, or at least that is what they told us when we were there.

In August 2009 I took the picture that I later translated into this Pastel and Colored Pencil drawing entitled “Paris Opera House.” Everything about the building is grand..the Grand Staircase, the Grand Foyer, the Grand Chandelier. The interior of the Garnier is an interlocking maze of corridors, stairwells, alcoves and landings that during Opera Season allow the fluid movement of large numbers of elegantly dressed people and gives them the space in which to socialize during intermission. It is rich with velvet, is literally dripping in cherubim and nymphs and is downright scandalous in sumptuous Baroque Architectural excess. I am impressed by the building in the same way that I am always impressed by Paris and the French way of life. It makes no apology for it’s finely tuned exhibition of excess and neither do they. “Gold in a broad smear across the orchestra pit: Gold of horns, trumpets, tubas; Gold -- spun-gold, twittering-gold, snapping-gold”

I never tire of going to France, and who knows, before my next trip like Julie, I may let Julia teach me how to cook.

The Art of Flowers

2009-09-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

My Garden is a Pleasant Place
by Louise Driscoll

My garden is a pleasant place
Of moon glory and wind grace,
O friend, wherever you may be,
Will you not come to visit me?
Over fields and streams and hills,
I'll pipe like yellow daffodils,
And every little wind that blows
Shall take my message as it goes.
A heart may travel very far
To come where its desires are,
Oh, may some power touch my ear,
And grant me grace, and make you hear!.

The world laughs in flowers.
I encourage the laughter of the earth in that I have for many years made it a point to cultivate a large garden full of roses, crepe myrtle, begonias, gardenia, Amarylis,...whatever will grow and bloom under the hot Texas sun, and not a few varieties that don't. Sometimes it's much easier to draw flowers than it is to try and grow them, expecially when the temperatures outside in August can exceed 100 degrees, but the physical experience of gardening is the spiritual one of being linked to the soil and through the soil to a place more primeval when we depended on the earth for our food and survival.

The garden is a metaphor for life. It is an illustration of the long progression from birth to death; there's also something mindless and comforting in the tasks associated with keeping a garden. The formula is a simple one: a little soil, some fertilizer, water and the plants themselves yield a continuing feast for the eye all summer and spring and when the plants die back in the winter, there is always the assurance that more will emerge in the springtime to begin the cycle of life all over again. "Who loves a garden," wrote Louise Seymour Jones "finds within his soul..life's whole."

The Art of the Golden Hour

2009-08-24T07:27:00.000-07:00

August 2009

The “Golden Hour” in photography and painting is defined as “the first and last hour of sunlight during the day, when a specific photographic effect is achieved with the quality of the light.” It isn’t a subjective statement when Artists say “the light is good at that time of the day” because it brings with it a diffuse glow to the world where everything is enveloped in a comforting blanket of soft illumination. Since the Sun is nearer the horizon, the sunlight subsequently has to travel through more of the atmosphere and that reduces its intensity and makes the sky appear more brightly lit. As more blue light is scattered, the light from the Sun turns red and the shadows lengthen. There’s of course a physical explanation for the phenomena, but Artists simply know it to be beautiful…and fleeting. It’s a thing to be enjoyed for the moment and let go so it can later transform itself into the sunset and ultimately into the darkness.

"Oregon Twilight", Catherine L. Gauldin 2009

On a recent driving trip through Oregon we eagerly waited for this hour because the sky is so expansive there and there is very little to obstruct the lightshow that occurs at the end of the day. That part of the country is primarily farmland and when the Sun goes down, it turns the fields of grain into an amber ocean that stretches far off into the distance. I took the photographs that inspired these two Pastel and Colored Pencil drawings when the sky was so overpowering it made us exclaim “There now, there it is; isn’t it lovely!” Yes, beautiful and reassuring to think that no matter how hard life seems at times, we can also count on the fact that darkness consistently leads to daybreak..more golden days, golden minutes, golden friends.

"Oregon Sunset" Catherine L. Gauldin 2009

A friend said to me last week “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could pick a time in our lives when we were the happiest and just stay there?” It’s a sad conflict to finally understand that to do that would free us from pain but would also isolate us from growth and commitment and the privilege of never knowing what the next moment is going to bring. Even times of great heartache can be gold, so what is the point in trying to stop them? Pain is a part of life and beauty sometimes so sharp it hurts.

I await the next golden hour of the long progression of my life and know that it will come when it is least expected. That is the great lesson and adventure of existence.

Festina Lente
“Make haste slowly”

For an example of the Golden Hour in Art, see Robert Wood’s THE GOLDEN HOUR

The Art of Faded Things

2009-06-30T05:58:00.000-07:00

Let Me Grow Lovely

Karle Wilson Baker

Let me grow lovely, growing old-

So many fine things to do;

Laces, and ivory, and gold,

And silks need not be new;

And there is healing in old trees,

Old streets a glamour hold;

Why may not I, as well as these,

Grow lovely, growing old?

Faded Fifty-Nine
This image is actually of a 1960 Ford Thunderbird. I've always liked the lines on this car because my Dad had one when I

was a very young child.

He so loved that car that when on a recent driving trip I saw a rusted version of my childhood memory on the side of Hwy. 59 near Texarkana, Texas, I stopped to take the picture that became this Pastel and Colored Pencil drawing. The owners had written "does not run" in white marker on the windshield, as if they thought that after almost 50 years this neglected relic might still be thought of by anyone as useful. I could still see the bones that I remembered. They were there, unaltered by time and the same can be said of people as they age.

My father's family used to say "Jim thinks that is a great car, but it's really just a Ford." They were wrong. It was a beautiful car and a classic in form but still it's hard to face what time does to both people and objects. The passage of the years can be unkind to both but there's comfort in the thought that hidden underneith a patina of rust and neglect the familiar lines of a beautiful object can still be discerned if only people are willing to look beyond the obvious. Therefore, let us grow lovely with time and find comfort in the hidden beauty of faded things.

Festina Lente..

Make Haste Slowly

The Art of the Equine

2009-06-16T10:32:00.000-07:00

“My Beautiful! My beautiful! That standest meekly by, with thy proudly arch’d and glossy neck and dark and fiery eye,"
The Arab’s Farewell to His Horse by Caroline Norton

THIS is the beauty of the horse. He is tall and lithe, well-formed in the shoulder, head high in the forehead and wide between the ears. I approach and he hears my voice. He raises his head in response, his neck arched, his eyes are wide apart and searching, his ears finely cut, his limbs long and supple. His tail dusts the ground, his coat is gloss; it reflects the sun like a pool of clear water reflects the sky. His hooves are hard and his nostrils delicate. There are a thousand hoofbeats in a clap of thunder and he alone is a drinker of the wind.

I can’t remember a time in my life when I did not love horses.

Where is there another animal so noble, so refined or so deserving of the gratitude of mankind, for the horse has been the servant of man for thousands of years and yet they offer their service willingly, heroically. These most recent images are additions to a series of Pastel and Colored Pencil drawings I have done from photographs I’ve taken at various horse shows in my area.

I enjoy the excitement of watching horse and rider compete in the arena but the real area of interest can always be found on the perimeter where both animals and their human counterparts can be observed in their more natural and comfortable postures.

Pretty Little Horses, all in a row
“Count the white horses you meet on the way,” begins a poem by Luna Deava, “Count the white horses, child, day after day. Keep a wish ready for wishing- if you wish on the ninth horse, your wish will come true.”

Perhaps that is true, but all who truly love the equine form will continue to dream of pretty horses and count our riches in horseflesh.

Festina Lente
Make Haste...Slowly

The Art of Trees and Life

2009-03-08T11:47:00.000-07:00

"It takes a noble man to plant a seed for a tree that will some day give shade to people he may never meet."
David Trueblood

What is the value of one human life?

In terms of purpose and potential, it is immeasurable. We are told in Genesis 2 how the nature of man is unfolded and given direction, how we must learn through life to find balance between our two opposing sides, how we are connected on one hand to the material world as we are made of the dust of the earth and on the other hand made in the likeness of God, who breathes into us the breath of life. “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (Gn 2:15), thus in the sense of purpose we are given a position of unique responsibility in the Universe and the choice to be either a dedicated gardener in the fields of Creation or to remain unchanged by the eternal recitation of life that daily unfolds itself at our feet. This story of Man in the Garden illustrates the strangely mingled obligation of high appointment and the consequent shame of failed intentions. “Thou art the man,” said the Prophet of God. “the story is told of thee.”, so Man rebels against his appointed place in Nature, and Paradise slips away.

We are the inescapable custodians of Nature.

As Spring approaches I tend to think that Paradise is not something we have lost but is rather something that oftentimes goes unnoticed. Bliss after all can be found in the first unveiling of the infant leaves, ecstasy in the overlayering of vivid color on a winter landscape and rapture reawakened by the emergence of the morning of the year. As an Artist I must continually remind myself to remain observant of Nature and always appreciative of even its most overlooked intricacies.

The coming of Spring also brings to my mind an exquisite short story entitled The Man Who Planted Trees also known as The Story of Elzéard Bouffier, The Most Extraordinary Character I Ever Met, and The Man Who Planted Hope and Reaped Happiness. It is an allegorical tale by French author Jean Giano, published in 1953 and tells the story of one shepherd’s long and successful singlehanded effort to re-forest a desolate valley in the foothills of the Alps near Provence throughout the first half of the 20th century. Over a period of forty years, Bouffier continues to plant trees and the landscape through the dedicated efforts of one person is turned into a kind of Garden of Eden. By the end of the story, a vibrant ecosystem is established where life is able to flourish. The simple message presented is so touching that many readers have believed over the years since the story was first published that Elzeard Bouffier was a genuine historical figure and that the narrator was the young Jean Giano himself. While he was alive the author did little to dissuade false impressions but in 1957, in a letter to an official of the city of Diagne, he explained himself:
“Dear sir,
Sorry to disappoint you, but Elzéard Bouffier is a fictional person. The goal was to make trees likeable, or more specifically, make planting trees likeable (this has always been one of my most fondest ideas). And if I judge based on the results, it seems to have been attained through this imaginary person. The text which you read in Trees and Life has been translated in Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, English, German, Russian, Czechoslovakian, Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, Yiddish and Polish.
I freely give away my rights, for all to publish. An American has come to me recently, to ask my permission to make 100,000 copies which he would distribute freely in American (which of course, I granted).”

An animated adaptation of the story was created by Frederic Back in 1987 and the short film was distributed in two versions, French and English and each were narrated respectively by noted actors Philippe Noiret and Christopher Plummer. The film won the Academy Award as well as several other awards that year.

Plant Hope: Reap Happiness. I am continually awed by life around me, and persist in my belief that in spite of our many flaws, humanity is still admirable. One human life; one untapped wellspring of divine potential. “For a human character to reveal truly exceptional qualities,” begins the story, “one must have the good fortune to be able to observe its performance over many years. If this performance is devoid of all egoism, if its guiding motive is unparalleled generosity, if it is absolutely certain that there is no thought of recompense and that, in addition, it has left its visible mark upon the earth, then there can be no mistake.”

What then is the role of Man in Nature? It takes God to make a tree but human hands to plant one.

“There is no better time than right now to be happy. Happiness is a journey, not a destination. So... work like you don't need money, Love like you've never been hurt, and dance like no one’s watching.” The Daffodil Principle

Festina Lente
Make Haste..Slowly

Transitions

2009-02-13T08:42:00.000-08:00

January 2009

“Yet, though I cannot see thee more,'Tis still a comfort to have seen;And though thy transient life is o'er,'Tis sweet to think that thou hast been.”
From A Reminiscence by: Anne Bronte (1820-1849)

Transitions in life are traumatic.

The death of a beloved is a shattering experience but in time there’s no choice but that the pain be absorbed into the essence of memory, sweet memory that deepens the clarity of the wine of life. For the past two months, since the time of my mother’s death in December I have had to put my business on hold in order to attend to the mulit-layered details of settling her estate and getting necessary paperwork finished so my life can resume.

Art restores the soul of the Artist, and drawing has always been a place of refuge for me, a comfort, a solace and now it’s time to get back to work, and through work I look forward to moving in time towards a richer period of healing. As I look back on the changes I made in my business in 2008, I’m satisfied with the decision to continue my profession as an Architectural Illustrator but also to branch out into the realm of Art produced solely from the love of drawing. As Artists and Creative people we have no other choice but to try and translate the images of the world we see around us. It’s a personal translation, and thankfully it is so.

NATURE is restorative after deep loss and last year I discovered a latent fascination with capturing images of wildlife in pastel and colored pencil on paper. A trip to Yellowstone in September 2008 yielded several drawings I’m pleased with, including this image of a young wild goat standing on a fallen log. I used a limited palate of colors to produce the drawing, and photographs I gathered on that trip to the Pacific Northwest yielded quite a number of interesting compositions. The entire collection is posted on the Yellowstone Album on my website.

Wildlife is all around us
I also enjoyed drawing this picture of this little squirrel who I believe was overly anxious at the prospect we might be there in his territory with the intention of stealing the stash of food he was so intent on gathering and storing for the impending winter months. Squirrels seem to me to be a little paranoid and startled when you stop to watch them. They have no reason to be of course, but when this little fellow hid behind a giant oak tree on the grounds of the Columbus County Courthouse and barked at me as I took his picture, I decided to call the image I KNOW THERE'S A CAT AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE.

Equine Art
I also rediscovered a love for drawing horses and spent an increasing amount of time at horse shows last year, taking photographs of beautiful animals and their riders and then translating the images into colored pencil drawings. Of the several drawings that are illustrated on the website, this one is my favorite. It is called SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON and it shows a rider on her beautiful chestnut horse, headed back to the barn after winning a yellow ribbon in a jumping competition.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon Pastel and Colored Pencil on paper 16 x 20

Keeping On

In 2009 I will continue along this trend and look forward to producing more Equine images for a specific clientele. I’m especially interested in trying to capture the exciting action of the Sport Horse; Jumpers, Dressage and possibly Thoroughbreds at the racetrack. Who know where this will lead. All of the equine images produced so far can be seen on the EQUINE ALBUM on my website.

A new year yields new possibilities and who knows what the future will bring. That's the great and painful adventure of life; the giving up, the giving back, the need to nourish the creative impulse, the desire to interpret moments in time. The grief that comes with loss can't be denied but in the pursuit of Art there is some relief to be found.

Festina Lente

Make Haste...Slowly