Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts

Friday, March 8, 2024

The Best That Boast Can Laud (begins and ends with God)

Happy...Friday?!! Already😅🙏💗

So many sweet photo-op skies this week...
Below, just a few!









Col.1:15-17
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
  16For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.
 All things were created through Him and for Him.
17He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

All beauty we behold is divinely founded!
without God's mercy and might to hold it in place
it would all fall!

Artists, since the beginning mimic His creation,
all inspiration of God-breathed origin!

My poetic endeavors have been challenged this week
it seems. It flew by in a blink of blessing!

Mon.-Food safety and management course, 

Tues.-grand-sonny visit, appointment, small group gettogether,

Wed. finishing food prep and delivery for event mentioned here 
Thursday-Help my mom with spring-cleaning (forgot camera!!)😭
...and just like that!!! It's Friday!

Today I am prepping food and house 
for our youngest daughter's birthday celebration
on the weekend!
A whole bunch of friends staying over while 
Jim and I stay out😅💝

I began this poem yesterday morning!
The first line fell from Heaven as I stood admiring the sky
while rubbing sleep from my eyes...


Time’s fountain brims with life; it peals from belfries gold and gray
Its showstoppers run rife; God never takes a holiday
The Hand that tunes the tide that ebbs and flows with season-sweeps
Regales the countryside with color, crowned with boundless deeps
The best that boast can laud as brush and pen rush awe’s grandstands
Begins and ends with God; each work of art drawn from His hands

He grants the breathless dance of worship’s unrehearsed requiem
And cheers hope’s countenance with refreshment where mercies stream
In wonders of creation, from the wellspring of his Word
Reasons for celebration overflow and undergird
To kindle exaltation that is incomparable
Salvation’s invitation still extends to one and all

God’s goodness never ceases to thrill the soul that believes
Unrivaled masterpieces humble all mankind achieves
Thus, the best boast can muster as we meditate on This
Are endeavors to trust Him more because of Who He IS
His faultless Influence imparts the best that boast can laud
All art we woo from hands and hearts begins and ends with God

© Janet Martin

Every artist who ever has dipped pen or brush
 into inkwells and paint palettes
draws from scenes cupped and cradled in God's Hands!
Thus every work of art ought to be signed-
By His grace
For His glory!










Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Sacred Similes or Art-Accountability Awareness

Like a vast lake,
blush, blue and gold
unfolding overhead...

...where daybreak, like a threshold to pictures that dusk will seal
Ought first to be a blush-blue-golden altar where we kneel ...


Like canvases to sketch upon, Today is always new...


The art succeeding stretch-and-yawn is up to me and you
Where circumstance is but the scrim we splash with artistry...



Like a vast lake, blush, blue and gold unfolding overhead
Day breaks; and from yon welkin hold dawn’s fledgling wings are spread
Where, young and old alike embark, like a migrating surge
Of souls, pressing toward the mark of eternity’s verge
Where it is not made known to us how far the future splays
Until we tread the exodus of mist-like, numbered days

Like canvases to sketch upon, Today is always new
The art succeeding stretch-and-yawn is up to me and you
Where circumstance is but the scrim we splash with artistry
From mercy-granted trays that brim with opportunity
To sing a hymn, to breathe a prayer, to lend a helping hand
To be kind and humbly aware of time’s trickle of sand

Like a tree softly doffed of leaves, moment-momentum keens
The seed that grows into the sheaves that harvest-season gleans/weans
Like artists poised before pedestals as dawn hoists Today
We brush-daub-lob Originals that appear drawn away
But not forever; someday when our ‘painting-days’ are done
God will be the Appraiser, studying them, one by one

Oho, surely in light of this, there is no Commonplace
Each day is like a holy kiss from God, a gift of grace
Dawn’s debut, as it rends the air, propels eternity
Toward each one of us, bearing Soul’s immortality
Thus, whether young or old, before we start Art of Today
Not one of us should be so bold as to forget to pray

...where daybreak, like a threshold to pictures that dusk will seal
Ought first to be a blush-blue-golden altar where we kneel 
To thank God for His favours and to ask Him to direct
Where many tints and flavours taunt, flaunt, wink and interject
Then, beseech His whisper to wage, where brushstrokes heed command  
So all that remains on the page are imprints of His Hand
   
© Janet Martin

The trees are definitely being 'softly-doffed' today!



Today's post inspired in part by part of my morning Scripture reading...

Jer.17:5-10
This is what the Lord says:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who draws strength from mere flesh
and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
6 That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.

7 “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
8 They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”

9 The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

10 “I the Lord search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward each person according to their conduct,
according to what their deeds deserve.”

Also,
Partly by a line in the book The Irrational Season
by Madeleine L'Engle
"If you were arrested as a Christian, 
would there be enough
evidence against you to convict you?"

...and partly by an immense sense of standing on a fresh canvas of Time,
as I watched the sunrise unfolding

May You ask for and sense God's Hand over yours today!
Happy Painting!

Mine involves a scrub bucket and other
fall-cleaning essentials!
(like good music!)
Like this one!





Wednesday, July 6, 2022

The Onus of a (Permanent Ink) Fount

The Best Laid Plan of me and you
can always only guess at the details
Thus, each of us should entrust Today into
The Divine Hand that leads with love that never fails

Below a few framed prints of yesterday...
Thanks to a huge fresh basil plant from our local grocery store
pizza was on the menu for yesterday's lunch!



Garden-fresh onions added some extra delish as well! (on one side😅)




...and later, peanut butter cookies!


This morning as I peer into its ethereal frame I see hopes of
a happy wedding day for my oldest sister's only daughter
💓🙏💖🙏💗🙏💝🙏


Each day lowers a frame to fill
The picture it will hold
Is always an Original
Spilled as moments unfold

From Goodness and Mercy, with love
Dawn’s fresh frame challenges
As we ponder time's palette of
Heartache and happiness

Colors of choice and circumstance
Mingle upon the tray
Where soon the frame that morning grants
Nightfall will draw way

The handiwork of Day Gone By
Sets in permanent ink
Before its paint is barely dry
Dusk claims More Than We Think

How swift the gifted frame bears Fact
As prayer, care, work and play
Fills galleries of Looking Back
That steal our breath away

Because what seems so commonplace
As day to day runs rife
Collects frames of grace-upon-grace
Into One Little Life

…where Far More than We Think becomes
The Onus of a Fount
That flows into The Sacred Sums

This morning as we peer into
A brand-new, empty frame
Pray, that at dusk the art we view
Honors the Giver’s Name

For oh, how very terrible
Would be a lifetime spent
Missing The Very Miracle
For which each frame was lent
…Love

© Janet Martin

Let's pray for the glorious miracle of love (like Jesus exemplified)
to fill today's frame with a masterpiece!
1 John 3:16-18
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.
 And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 
17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need 
but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 
18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech 
but with actions and in truth.

Thursday, June 23, 2022

God's Fingerprints



Now I see His (God's) fingerprints all over this experience. '
wrote my friend as she looks back on 3 years 
filled with tumultuous tests of searching for God's will 
and waiting on His timing...

It made me think of all of us in the middle of
a finished frame...
Some waiting/hoping to find their one true love
Some who have found and married their one true love
and are weathering the challenges/disappointments
that marriage is bound to bring
and some whose marriages are broken
Couples who would love to be parents but that dream is withheld,
Parents whose wisdom, energy and patience are stretched to the max
by 'dreams' not withheld...

Many of us find ourselves in some kind of 'frame' of waiting.
What good cheer to visualize God's fingerprints
putting what looks to us like broken or forgotten pieces, in perfect place
if we trust, seek and wait on Him...




Sometimes in the middle
Of a broken heart
We can't grasp the goodness 
In God's works of art

In dark disappointment
Of dreams not come true
We can't see the glory
Waiting to shine through

Sometimes in the middle
Of 'Remember When?'
God is gently drawing
Wonder's awed 'amen'

Sometimes colors baffle
Sometimes pages crease
Living in the middle
Of the masterpiece

Sometimes God's kind whisper
Transfigures pied glints
Unveiling a picture
Of His fingerprints

Janet Martin








Thursday, September 9, 2021

Art-Throb


The closing of another chapter in my child-care 'book'...
as tomorrow Little Girl becomes School-girl!
 
"You're so big and I'm so little" She said as she looked at the pictures
And I said 'yes'💕
(why do I feel so small and how has she gotten so big?!)




I wish that I could paint for you
A very lovely work of art
A keep-sake I would give to you
To show the colours of my heart

To paint the perfect shade of joy
And spill with artistic finesse
The preciousness of girl and boy
That fills my heart with happiness

For little tot can teach a lot
To we, weathered by Father Time
And if I could, I’d paint, not jot
The spot that overflows with rhyme

…where poem then, mingled with prayer
My aching art-throb must appease
And ink must etch in frames of air
A Masterpiece of Memories

…for like the bubbles that we blew
An era pops and disappears
Leaving behind for me and you
A gallery of rainbowed spheres

…where laughter lilts and echoes bob
Like butterflies and petal-falls
As pictures waft from love’s art-throb
To hang forever on heart-walls

© Janet Martin

Last week these two left just a few days before becoming proud 
new big sister and brother to a new baby sister!
This 'job' tugs my heart every which way but loose💗💖

(I tried a few times and EVERY time
just as I clicked he looked down😀😘)


...and last but not least Grand-sonny starts school today!
When my daughter sent me the pictures
I told her I don't know whether to laugh or cry💖💖💖


Sunday, April 18, 2021

Garden Stroll

For today's prompt, write an ekphrastic poem.
An ekphrastic poem is one in which the poet writes a poem based on another work of art, 
whether that's a painting, photograph, sculpture, mixed media, or other piece of art.

This painting, almost 30 years old was at the time, a splurge!
I purchased it Brand New! (likely from Zellers) 
In 'young mom/homeowner' days that was quite an
extravagance, but I'm so glad I did. I still love it.
 (it was not expensive, by any means but still, an extra)
I feel so much more than meets the eye when I look at it!
(I took the liberties of adding a few extras to the poem,
perhaps the pond and arbor are just beyond the scope of the lens??)😉




It is so much more than flowers
More than birdsong that beguiles
She and Child to garden-bowers
It is Time and Touch and Smiles

She looks down at her sweet daughter
Who does not yet see beyond,
Picket fence, wisteria arbour
Ducklings paddling in the pond

She is not attuned to hours
Or the mementos they spill
Happiness is picking flowers
In a place where time stands still

The world fits inside her pocket
She fits into mother’s smile
They fit into a heart-locket
Forever Mother and Child

© Janet Martin

Thursday, April 15, 2021

For Sailors on Life's Sea

 Life is no pleasure-cruise; Soul’s sacred ship is not a yacht...

Below, a rough sketch of a picture that formed in my mind
as I wrote this poem...


The sea of life is filled with precious barks of humankind
Uncharted waters spill across eastern horizon-line
Where we, all deftly drawn toward where we have never been
Need to learn how to trust the Lord who orders the Unseen

For fear is like a fiend that wreaks havoc where moments break
It draws our eyes from God who promised never to forsake
Peter could walk on water while his gaze was fixed on He
Who beckoned ‘come’ though wild the tempest tossed the roiling sea

The stormy gale will not prevail though sometimes, so it seems
The love of God will never fail though loss may shatter dreams
Hope, like an anchor will secure faith’s bark in Mercy’s keep
To grant assurance as we face today’s uncharted deep

Life is no pleasure-cruise; Soul’s sacred ship is not a yacht
Time's rocks and waves may dash and bruise us in a course, hard-fought
But, as we cling to the life-line unfurled at Calvary
Love's firm anchor of hope secures barks of humanity

© Janet Martin









Thursday, February 25, 2021

Awe's Oceanic Aftermath=Art aka Worship

 

Completely and perfectly awed 
By the grand handiwork of God 










Dusk draws our eyes westward until 
Day falls beneath earth’s windowsill 
Night snuffs its picture like a flame 
That disappears from whence it came 

Where we are left to contemplate 
The crumb-sum on time’s dinner plate 
Like moments turned to memories 
From joy’s startling complexities 

How holes and hues of happiness 
Transform our views of more and less 
How wealth is not in what we hold 
But in the worth of moment-gold 

And how we are too very small 
To cup the wonder of it all 
Completely and perfectly awed 
By the grand handiwork of God 

Awe’s oceans seem to rush the heart 
Insisting on becoming art 
And so, we sing, paint, pen and gaze
 Until oceans turn into praise

© Janet Martin 





Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Hoar-frost Heaven...


These photos turned out to be just the start of Jack Frost's artwork
on Sunday morning!
By the time we left for church wonder was dizzy with delight, 
gazing hither and yon upon sheer perfection!
(More photos here)





Frosty fringes gild glossed hinges of a weathered winter-gate 
Gracing fences, tracing branches with vestige of crystal lace 
Teasing poets with a show of nature’s ‘look but do not touch’ 
Where the air is fairly bursting with the font of Jack Frost’s brush 

Worship thunders where awe wonders at frost-fretwork whisper-thin 
Earth showcasing interlacing detail of woven welkin 
Where nothing is ordinary or of very lowly class 
As we gaze in sheer amazement at a landscape etched in glass 

Hoar-halation crowns creation with boreal ambience 
Woodlands glisten with impressions of angel-host radiance 
Hill and hollow frilled and swaddled in a dazzling vertigo 
Once again and without question nature’s pageant steals the show 

Once again its flawless anthem raises praises to the One
Who is Alpha and Omega and will never be outdone
So we stutter from this gutter of utter depravity/dependency 
Where a vision of redemption grants a glimpse of purity 

© Janet Martin 


“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD,
 “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow;
 Though they are red like crimson, 
They shall be as wool.
Isa.1:18

Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean; 
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Thursday, May 23, 2019

Kind Word Art





No smiles for the camera today...
But my, she sure brightens a rainy-no-gardening morning!


A kind word is like sunshine
To kiss the bud of gloom
It breaks the shell where wonders dwell
Then swell into glad bloom

A kind word is like ointment
To soothe the wounds of woe
Its gentle grace will heal the place
Where harsh words dealt their blow

A kind word is like laughter
To cheer the dreary day
Like Baby's smiles, it sweetens miles
That had seemed dull and gray

A kind word is like flowers
A garden on the air
It calms distress with happiness
And brings hope to despair

 A kind word is a rainbow
Above the storms of life
A tender spark to break the dark
With love’s unfailing light

A kind word is a diamond
Drawn from a heap of stones
Where haters hurled shards from a world
Of base and broken thrones

A kind word is a picture
Of how heaven will be 
It paints its art upon the heart
In perfect poetry

A kind word is a gift, dear
That we can all afford
And what can ease life's miseries
Better than a kind word

© Janet Martin