Live painting done for Holy Week

“The Light Shines in the Darkness,” painted at Resurrection Catholic Church, 2009 © Richard Fudge

General idea for the piece is from following scripture:

John 14:6 – Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 1:4-5 –In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

While reflecting on this scripture and the crucifixion, I felt inspired to visually illustrate Jesus being the Light. Sort of like there is light releasing from Him into darkness. I painted the left panel Palm Sunday, the right panel on Good Friday, and the middle panel on Easter. At each service, I started with a blank canvas with just a pencil sketch on it. I was able to complete each painting by the end of the mass (about 1 and a half hours). I sold the painting almost before the paint was dry. So I'm planning to have prints made. It's very exciting.

Gardening for men

I have a BIG yard. With nearly an acre of land and two dozen tress, picking up fallen branches and cutting the grass is some hard labor. It can take 3-4 hours to do it properly. In the dead heat of the summer, I dont even bother to cut the whole thing at once. I let the "back 40" go longer too.

Anyway, between the 3 wheelbarrow loads of branches and mowing, I did some checking up on my gardening. I think more husbands should do a little gardening. I'm not talking about wimpy, constant attention, costly plants. Better Homes and Gardens type flower beds. I'm talking hardy plants like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, "Yippie-ki-yay!" kind of hardy. Mean flowers that can choke out weeds. The Chuck Norris-es of the plant world like sunflowers, black eyed susans, daffodils, day lilies, and wild flowers.

Black eyed Susans got those shiners from kicking weed butt.
"Miracle-Gro? Whatcha talkin bout Willis!"

I like my plants to be almost a weed themselves. Stuff you can plant and let it take care of itself. I want to just shove those bulbs or seed in the ground and yell like a drill sergeant, "GROW. ON THE DOUBLE!" Let the nurseries baby their plants. I just want some flowers because if it blooms then I dont have to mow it.

Seed bombs - now that's manly gardening.

I had a relative that lived in the country. She had a wonderful flower bed. Half of the stuff she wasnt sure what the name was because she had found it out on a walk in the pasture and just dug it up. I like those old fashion plants that my grandmother had. No nonsense plants.

Mr 7ft tall Sunflower looks down at the little weeds and laughs.

Now, why bother? Points with the wife. Wives always want flowers. "Honey, you never buy me flowers anymore." Most men dont care for "wasting" money on cut flowers that die in 4-7 days. How much thought does that take anyway? "Here love, I got the milk, eggs, Coke... oh and the roses." Picking out a bottle of wine takes more effort.

So I pick flowers. Not all the time, but probably half the time those are the bouquets i give Erin. Hey, that's effort. "Here honey, I selected this, planted this, cared for this, and I'm giving you a small portion to enjoy inside."

So hardy that the sale of OxEye Daisy seeds is prohibited in CO, IL, IN, KS, MO, MT, OH, WA, WV, WY and Canada.

“Impressions of the Cross” at The Stirring Art Gallery

Event description:
“Impressions of the Cross” is a group art exhibit at the Stirring Art Gallery featuring local artist Kyle Holley and his unique clay crosses with impressed designs and patterns. Kyle Holley creates what he likes to call “Impressions Pottery.” He grew up in a family of potters and can remember as a child going into the yard to find rocks, sticks or anything else that would leave a neat impression in the clay. Over the years, Holley worked in about every method of making pottery. However, he never found the same excitement or pleasure that he did as a kid simply by experimenting with pressing things into the clay.

In addition to Holley, ten other Stirring artists have submitted many original paintings reflecting their own personal impressions of the cross. The total of over 140 cross-themed works reflect the many different interpretations and perspectives of the cross that each of us has.

When:
Opening Reception
6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 9th

Viewers are invited to attend The Stirring worship experience at 7:00 p.m. During this special service, local artist Richard Fudge will create original artwork live on stage. Following the service at 8:00 p.m., guests can view the exhibit talk to the artists, and purchase work.

“Impressions of the Cross” will be on display from April 9th to June 7th.
The gallery is open 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Sundays. The Stirring Art Gallery also can be viewed during Hope Church’s regular office hours.

Where:
The Stirring Art Gallery in Hope Church
(located upstairs inside Entrance 1)
8500 Walnut Grove Rd., Cordova, Tennessee 38018
www.hopepres.com • www.thestirring.net • 901-755-7721


Kyle Holley:
Clay has the wonderful ability to accept anything that you are willing to press into it and forevermore hold onto the design as if it were with it all along. Holley is continuously searching for that next design just waiting to be captured by the open canvas found within a slab of clay.

Kyle Holley didn’t start making crosses until 7 or 8 years ago. Before that, he had made about everything that you could make out of clay except crosses. His mother, in that infinite wisdom of mothers, told him one day, “You should make crosses. Everyone loves crosses and besides that, they sell really well.” Although he just didn’t feel that was his calling, he gave it a try. That was 8 years and many thousands of crosses ago.

“I would have thought that I should have run out of new ideas and definitely lost interest in making them but I think God definitely has His hand in what I’m doing and thanks to Him, the ideas never stop flowing and each week a new batch heads out into the world hopefully to help spread His word a little further,” say Kyle Holley.

The Old Rugged Cross ministry:
One evening, Kyle Holley picked up a copy Billy Graham’s autobiography. If you know anything about Billy Graham, you know that he only really has one message and that is about the importance of the cross and sharing it with other people. While reading his amazing story, Holley came to realize that through his work he was not just selling thousands of crosses, he was making a great witnessing tool available into the hands of thousands of people all over the world.

With renewed vigor, he set out to increase production and also decided it was time to start giving some of his success back to the people who made it possible. He came up with the idea of his own ministry called “The Old Rugged Cross” a name that he borrowed from the old Baptist hymnal. This was his grandmother’s favorite song and as a child she would have him play it on the piano while she sang along. She was one of the most inspirational people in Holley’s life. Through this ministry he donates small crosses to groups who use the money to support mission work around the world or for their own ministries.

Background on The Stirring Art Gallery:
Various works by local artists are currently on display at The Stirring Art Gallery, located inside Hope Church. Many of the paintings were created live on stage during The Stirring service. Each month, a different local artist volunteers to paint during the service. The completed painting(s) and several other selected works by the artist are then displayed in the gallery and available for purchase by contacting the artist.

The Stirring meets every Sunday at 5:30 p.m. at Hope Church at 8500 Walnut Grove Rd. in Cordova, Tennessee. For more information, visit www.thestirring.net.

Live worship painting for Palm Sunday

This was the starting point. I did the sketch at home before the service.


During the service.

Painted during the 10:30am mass at Resurrection Catholic Church
in Memphis, TN on April 5th.

I find it slightly funny that I just painted a palm for Palm Sunday. I'm going to paint the other hand on Good Friday and then the feet on Easter.

My largest live woship painting project to date

I'm going to work on this Palm Sunday at 10:30am, Good Friday (i dont know the time) and Easter Sunday at 10:30am during the mass at Resurrection Catholic Church. I will be there for the rest of the month of April if they will have me. These canvases are each 36"x36" or 3ft x 3ft. That's 9 square feet a piece and a total of 27 square feet. So I know there will be some additional touch up work.

Prayer painting completed

To Send a Prayer series, #1, by Richard Fudge

I tend to paint to music. Probably because I got use to doing that when I paint at the Stirring. I also think that music can be very inspiring and helpful if you need to stay in a certain frame of mind. For example, if I want to express anger in my painting, I keep the hard, load angry songs playing.

So for this series on prayer, I've been trying to build a playlist that fits the theme.

"New Redemption Song" – Over the Rhine
"Thank you my angel" – Over the Rhine
"Sending me angels" – Delbert McClinton
"Alleluia" – Erin Fudge
"Wish you well" – Katie Herzig
"Down to the River to Pray" – Alison Krauss
"Help!" – the Beatles
"Thank You" – Dido
"Did you get my Message" – Jason Mraz
"Don't Speak" – No Doubt
"Cold Shoulder" – Adele
"Night Terror" – Laura Marling
"Machines" – The Jealous Girlfriends