Some years back, when I was training as a Stephen's Minister, a fellow trainee and I started a running joke about cows. The details of how it started are a bit fuzzy. It had something to do with settling boundaries.
At the time I was a professional studio artist, creating works for gallery shows, and was painting a series of cows and rural landscapes. The concept of boundaries in our training was being presented as fences. Within the fence you were free and could roam around at will. Outside the fence, you had problems. Jan and I started a riff about cows frolicking in the pasture. I gave her a drawing of a cow outstanding in its field. She shot off puns like rapid fire. I sent her an e-card featuring a cow lurking in the grass with the tag line 'moochas grassius'. She would send something back about partying 'til the cows came home. We were somewhat of a trial to our trainings, but we did have the concept of boundaries nailed down.
The painting series of pastoral landscapes was a success. All the cows sold and I was on my way to expending my gallery representation. But as the philosopher/songwriter John Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you are making other plans."
At the time I was a professional studio artist, creating works for gallery shows, and was painting a series of cows and rural landscapes. The concept of boundaries in our training was being presented as fences. Within the fence you were free and could roam around at will. Outside the fence, you had problems. Jan and I started a riff about cows frolicking in the pasture. I gave her a drawing of a cow outstanding in its field. She shot off puns like rapid fire. I sent her an e-card featuring a cow lurking in the grass with the tag line 'moochas grassius'. She would send something back about partying 'til the cows came home. We were somewhat of a trial to our trainings, but we did have the concept of boundaries nailed down.
The painting series of pastoral landscapes was a success. All the cows sold and I was on my way to expending my gallery representation. But as the philosopher/songwriter John Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you are making other plans."
After years of estrangement, my mother contacted me and needed help. She was starting to lose her memory and wanted to ask for forgiveness before it was too late. That began a journey of a new pastoral type - shepherding my mother through ravages of Alzheimer's.
Mom has been gone a few years now. I'm moving back into art, but in a new way.
A way of healing, prayer and ministry. I'm a pastor of art. The pastoral artist.
Mom has been gone a few years now. I'm moving back into art, but in a new way.
A way of healing, prayer and ministry. I'm a pastor of art. The pastoral artist.
Primarily a painter, Donna Kemper (who currently lives in Grand Rapids, MI) also works in drawings, mixed media, and more recently in linoleum cut prints as well as installation pieces. Her artworks tend to establish a link between visual art and contemplative spirituality, connecting with something larger than ourselves in an understated way. She started her art career in the 80s but put it aside in the early 2000s to care for a parent she hadn't seen in over a decade That experience deeply affected her spiritual and art practices. Previously working in a representational style, her work is now drawing more from abstraction (color, calligraphic and gestural mark-making) while retaining a link to nature and the landscape. Her works directly respond to the surrounding environment and use everyday experiences from the artist's life as a starting point. Things that might go unnoticed in their original context become a point of meditation - looking for the sacred in the ordinariness of life. |