Additional Pieces from 2010 Exhibit (Fall 2010)

In addition to the explicitly religious works, the exhibit also featured some pieces that were just fun.

Portrait of Pablo Picasso.  Now in the collection of Gillian Lisenby Walters.

A rather intense self-portrait

Untitled.  There has been much speculation as to the meaning behind this piece.  I intend to let the speculation continue.

Resistance Fist.  The red bracelet is designed to resemble the bracelets made by a group young women rescued from sex slavery in Nepal.  For information on donating to groups like this one, visit the website of 1040 Connections.

Superman.  For this piece, I experimented with a new technique involving shredding the post-its down to an absolutely tiny scale.  The piece at right is only about the size of a sheet of notebook paper.  It is currently in the collection of comic book aficionado and songwriter Gary Mitchell.

Boba Fett.  Now in the collection of Morgan Hendrix.

Chess Pieces.  This piece was done with my own family in mind.  We're chess nerds.

Lady Liberty.  A revisiting of an early version of the stylized Statue of Liberty.

The Pineapple.  Now that I think of it, I have no idea where this piece is.  It might still be in my collection somewhere.

Sunsets.  Another piece that has been left somewhat intentionally ambiguous.  Some viewers have found it playful.  Others find it melancholy.  It's one that I enjoy hearing people interpret.

Religious Works from Post-It Exhibit (Fall 2010)

Back in the fall of 2010, I had the honor of putting several of my works on display in the hallways of Duke Divinity.  Not all of them were explicitly religious, but I thought I'd highlight a few that had very clear religious intent:

Madonna with Child.  Now in the collection of Dr. Dave Moffitt.

A portrait of St. Augustine based on a Tiffany window of the famous North African saint and theologian.  Now in the collection of Duke Divinity Admissions.

The Lion.  Some have interpreted this as the Lion of Judah.  Others have suggested that it is Aslan from the Chronicles of Narnia.  I like to leave it open for interpretation.  Now in the collection of Heather Moffitt.

The Old Crusader-- I went through some difficult times during my first year of div school, and this image popped into my head quite a bit during that time.  I see it as a reminder not to try to carry our crosses alone, but rather, to rely on Christian community and the uplifting power of the Holy Spirit in difficult times.

I'm a bit of a Dante nut, so I wanted to depict Dante and Virgil somewhere in the exhibit.  This is the only piece in the exhibit not made entirely from post-its, as the lettering in the upper right was done with pen and ink and bears the famous caption over the gates of Hell: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here."  The piece is now in the collection of Bradley Lisk.

A portrait of Jeff Buckley in a slightly abstract style featuring one of the most famous words he ever sang.  Now in the collection of Sarah Stockton Howell.

The Phoenix.  For more on the significance of this piece, see "The Phoenix Prayer" from the 8,000 Miles blog.  Currently in the collection of Jon and Alyssa Lawrence.

A Trinitarian Reading of Pentecost.  This was one of the larger pieces in the exhibit and features twelve paper-doll apostles with tongues of fire in their halos.

Argonautica (Summer 2008)

In the summer of 2008, my friend Prof. Michael Barich of Kenyon College approached me about illustrating his book, a new translation of Valerius Flaccus's Argonautica (the classic tale of Jason and the Argonauts).  I worked closely with Prof. Barich on the illustrations, and the book is available for purchase via amazon.com or through the publisher's website.

Inspired by traditional Greek pottery and statuary, the cover is a post-it mosaic featuring busts of Jason and Medea in front of the Argo and the Golden Fleece.  The inside of the book features pen-and-ink illustrations and a map depicting the journey of the Argo.  I have a few copies that I can loan out on request if you'd like a closer look.

NOIR! (Summer 2010)

Probably the most photo-realistic portraits I've been able to make in the post-it medium, the NOIR! portraits represent a combination of digital imaging and stencil work applied to the standard post-it mosaic format.  Each portrait was designed using a block-by-block grid system similar in nature to a reduction print, and the five portraits together took an entire summer to produce.  The figures are all classic film stars, and each represents a standard character from the dark and gritty world of film noir.

The Femme Fatale
(Gene Tierney)

The Hard-Boiled Private Eye
(Dana Andrews)

The Starry-Eyed Heiress
(Jane Greer)

The Sinister Gangster
(Edward G. Robinson)

The Reclusive, Eccentric Billionaire
(Sydney Greenstreet)

Because these portraits are so interconnected, this is a set that I don't want to see broken up, so until I find a buyer willing to invest in all five, they will remain in my collection.

Post-It Jesus 2.0 (March 2010)

Produced for the New Creation Arts Group's 2010 juried arts exhibit (the theme of which was "The End of Words"), this piece was originally titled "The Incarnation" but quickly received the shorthand of "Post-It Note Jesus."  Based on the standard pantokrator style of Christ icon, this piece might very well be the most interesting thing I've really done with the medium.  Aside from its clear similarities to the first Post-It Jesus, the piece also combines the block-note format of earlier mosaics with the more intricate stencil work in my more recent projects.  Even though the piece didn't win, it did help me get my name out there as an artist at Duke, and it has since been featured in Divinity magazine as well as on the promotional material for the exhibit in which it was first displayed.

Now, even though I'm trying not to write too much in this portfolio, there's a heck of a story behind this one, so I think I'll go ahead and share it . . .

I hate to admit it, but, much like the first Post-It Jesus, the initial motivation for this one had quite a bit to do with impressing a girl.  More specifically, it had to do with proving to a girl that I was more artistic than my rival for her affections.  Of course, if there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that God has a funny way of turning things around on us, and sometimes something that started with the worst intentions can become something holy.  I think this piece is definitely such a case.  The center panel was actually completed in one flurry of an afternoon with most of the cutting being done with scissors instead of a stenciling knife (as this panel is very much in the blocked style of the earlier pieces but considerably more abstract than most of my projects).

I decided early on to make this piece a triptych, but then I was faced with a dilemma: what should be on the two side panels?  Initially, I thought about putting in portraits of saints, but this detracted too much from the image of Christ, so for a period of weeks, I was stuck with these two massive half-completed panels sitting on either side of my imitation-icon.  Eventually, inspiration did strike, but it was in an incredibly unlikely way: food poisoning.

I ate Sitar (the campus's Indian cuisine) for lunch one day and enjoyed a delightful samosa, but within a few hours, I had an unbelievable headache and stomachache.  The world around me was getting a little blurry, and I was starting to sweat a good bit.  Even though I initially wanted to tough it out through my afternoon classes, a few friends convinced me that the smarter decision was to go home and rest; they would hand in my work and take notes for me.

After an exceedingly wobbly bus ride back to my apartment, I collapsed into bed and entered a feverish sleep, and it was in this sleep that I had a dream:

In my dream, I was sitting on the couch in my living room, and I had the side panels laid out on the coffee table in front of me.  Just like always, I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what to put on them, but then a familiar figure burst into the room.  It was none other than Doug Campbell, my New Testament professor!  Dr. Campbell had apparently ridden his bike over to my apartment as he was sweating profusely and wearing athletic attire, and he was pointing erratically at the panels and speaking enthusiastically in what sounded to me like absolute gibberish.

I'm still not sure if it was supposed to be glossolalia or just a particularly thick version of his usual New Zealand accent, but either way, I couldn't understand what he was saying.  Finally, the imaginary version of my professor gave up and started pantomiming everything for me, and I managed to wrap my mind around what he was trying to say: fill up the space in the panels with tableau scenes from the life of Christ.  Okay, that's great, Dr. Campbell, but which ones?  Look to the Gospel of John!  Huh?  What does that mean?  Oh, wait, I think I've got it!

With that, I woke up out of my dream, and even though I was still feverish and loopy and barely containing the contents of my stomach, I knew what I had to do.  I lurched for my stenciling knife and got to work.  Several hours later, I had filled my side panels with scenes of Christ's baptism, walking on water, telling parables, and the crucifixion-- all of it framed by the words "In the beginning was the Word" in Greek.

And that's the story of the second Post-It Note Jesus.  Did I win the competition?  No.  Did I get the girl?  Also no.  Did I learn a lot about myself and wind up spending a surprising amount of time nurturing my relationship with God because of this thing?  Yep.  The piece was ultimately divided between two owners with my friend Kate Flynn taking the side panels and my friend Brad Hinton taking the center image.

3-Hour Tour (2008 - 2009 Academic Year)

The directional sign at the center of Infinity

My concentration project for Kenyon's Integrated Program for Humane Studies, the graphic novel 3-Hour Tour is probably my most ambitious (but incomplete) experiment, and I will admit that I still go back and work on the plot from time to time.  The project was a hasty one, with much of the necessary character design and development being done during the actual writing and illustration process.  With only a year to write and illustrate a graphic novel that was projected to be in excess of 400 pages, I knew all along that I was attempting the impossible.  Even after cutting down my course load and restricting myself to my drawing table for 14+ hours a day, I only completed about a third of the illustrations and ultimately wasn't very happy with any of it.  I actually breathed a little sigh of relief when my hard drive crashed the following summer, erasing the project from existence and granting me a chance to look at it with fresh eyes.

The concept was actually a fairly good one.  Using Dante's Divine Comedy as a guide, I chronicled my main characters' journey through several various religions' afterlives.  These afterlives ranged from Hinduism to Greek Mythology to even the traditional Christian Hell, Heaven, and Purgatory as outlined by Dante.

My main character was a somewhat arrogant and smart-alecky bar owner named Sam Seawell who had simply grown bored with life and was tortured by questions about what came after death.  (In other words, even though I tried to take as many cues as possible from Dante, there was also some blatant author insertion going on.  Keep in mind that, when I was developing the initial concept, I was an agnostic, so my worldview was considerably different than it is today.)  Sam attempts suicide but ultimately botches it and winds up in a persistent vegetative state.  Frustrated with his arrogance and with his contempt for life, the death deities from all the various religions get together and decide to show him what he has to look forward to (in the hopes of teaching him the value of what he already has).  As his guide, they appoint Hela, the Norse death deity, but because her face is so difficult to behold and understand, she wears a Greek theater mask throughout the vast majority of the story.  Meanwhile, in the waking world, Sam's fiancee, Evie, is having to fight the legal battle over how long to keep Sam hooked up to the machines that are keeping him alive (even though she is not sure herself whether or not to grant his wish of passing on).  While most of the story follows Sam's journey, a significant portion is also dedicated to Evie's life story and her struggle with this life-or-death decision.

Much of the plot is based on a theory that I have about Dante.  Throughout the Divine Comedy, there are three forests that play a significant role.  Dante begins his journey lost in a forest shortly after the beginning of his exile from Florence.  He passes through another forest in Hell where suicides are sent to be turned into the very trees from which they hung themselves.  Lastly, he travels through the Garden of Eden atop the mountain of Purgatory before he can enter into Heaven.  The first and last forests symbolize major transitions for Dante.  The first forest shows him lost in his new life away from Florence and away from his now-deceased love, Beatrice Portinari; this is a place of great hopelessness about the future.  The last forest, however, represents the completion of his journey through Purgatory, effectively establishing Dante as a purified man despite his still being alive; he is now dead to his old self and able to enter Paradise.  What does it mean then that forests also have the connotation of suicide?  If the forest in Hell is for suicides and the forest in Purgatory is a place of death to the old self, then shouldn't that first forest have a connection to suicide as well?  I theorize that, for Dante, the first forest is very much a metaphor for a suicidal depression, and that is how I justify my exploration of the subject of suicide and euthanasia throughout this piece.

Evie with Sam's body

While working on this project, I was cranking out dozens of drawings every day and editing them using GiMP and ComicCreator software.  At this point, my experience with GiMP was still miniscule at best, so a lot of the coloration and effects used on the drawings are a little over the top.  Additionally, the ComicCreator program is fairly simplistic and was never really intended for a project of this size, so this limited my options quite a bit.  Still, I don't consider this that bad for a first attempt, but I do acknowledge that I could have benefited from more time, more planning, and consultations with other artists and writers.  Of course, it doesn't help that I was writing about incredibly deep subject matter that is still very much outside my understanding.  As much insight as I would like to think I have, I still haven't exactly lived these characters' experiences, and I think that hampered much of this project.

The Council of the Demons in Hell

I may revisit the project eventually, but given how my religious views have changed, I'm not sure if my approach to the subject matter might be completely different now.  As a Christian, I'm not quite as comfortable with the pluralistic "all afterlives are true" worldview that I put forth in 3-Hour Tour.  Additionally, my attitudes toward the Christian portions of the afterlife may be a little different now than when I first began this project.  I might not take Hell and Satan so lightly (even though I certainly treated them with gravity in the first run too-- in fact, sections of Satan's dialogue left me shivering).  Also, the ultimate message of 3-Hour Tour was all about embracing life and enjoying the here-and-now.  In fact, the conclusion even involved Sam finding God not in Heaven, but in the eyes of Evie.  This concept completely squares with Dante's beliefs, and it offers an interesting take on the idea of humans being made in the image of God, but it may be a little farther than I'd be willing to go now.  After all, it sort of implies that the meaning of life is really just finding a significant other, and as wonderful a thing as that is, there's a little more to life than just that.

The classic "Ox-Herding Pictures" used as a Buddhist teaching device but reinterpreted here with the 3-Hour Tour characters.

While the project is unfinished and due to be revisited, I still wanted to include it here.  It was a very important part of my college experience and a very formative project for me.  In fact, this project was the starting point of one of my favorite stories from college:

Charon the Boatman from 3-Hour Tour

I had only just recently reaffirmed my identity as a Christian.  In fact, it had been less than two months since I had accepted my religion and the call to ordained ministry.  Knowing this and looking to give me as many faith-related outlets as possible, one of the campus chaplains invited me to contribute to an event called The Good Friday Project that was all about human suffering.  The Good Friday project was a multimedia experience where artists, playwrights, authors, and other creative folks came together to share works about suffering and death and despair in solidarity with the ultimate suffering Christ experienced on Good Friday.  We thought that 3-Hour Tour would be a good fit (despite its ultimately hopeful message about the good in humanity), so I put together a powerpoint of animated images from the novel that gave a whirlwind version of the story set to music.

Lucifer from 3-Hour Tour

The night of the Good Friday Project rolled around, and I started getting nervous.  The other artists and writers and filmmakers were all really intense people who had put a lot of thought and energy into their depictions of human suffering.  They approached the event with all the gravity and seriousness it deserved, and they treated the subject matter with an absolute starkness that was as intimidating and disquieting as the crucifixion itself.  It was an amazing and moving way to remember the sacrifice of Christ, and I quickly found myself feeling inferior.  "I haven't lived the same pain these people have.  Will my own work measure up?  Is 3-Hour Tour really appropriate for this event?  Is it too uplifting and optimistic for such a solemn service?  Am I going to break the mood?"  I gulped as my turn came around.  I started up the projector, and the music began to play as my drawings and words moved across the screen, and then that's when it happened . . .

Four depictions of Yama from 3-Hour Tour

The projector stopped working.

I tried in vain to fix it, but the images would not play, and we were left with my musical selection (Jeff Buckley's hauntingly peaceful "Lover, You Should Have Come Over") playing in the darkened room.  As we gave up and started to shut down the projector, I suddenly had the most inappropriate response that I possibly could have.  It was the single worst thing that I could've done at an event like this.  I started laughing.  At first, I managed to stifle it a bit and hold it in, but as I thought about the situation, I couldn't keep the gut-busting guffawing laughter inside of my mouth.  Even worse, my girlfriend at the time was at the event, and on seeing my reaction, she started laughing too!  I eventually had to excuse myself to the vestibule and just let it all out.  This was the sort of laughter that makes tears well up in your eyes.  It was wild and joyous and soul-satisfying.  In fact, it was one of the most peaceful feelings I've ever had.  It was as though God had whispered to my heart something along these lines:

Hey kid, you don't need to take yourself so seriously.  Sure, it's a solemn occasion, but I'm the sort of God who moves in mysterious ways, and sometimes that means giving you just the right humiliation so that you get your priorities back in order.  It was Jesus that died on this night two millennia ago, not you.  Good Friday may be a time of great suffering, but it's also a time of great joy because it's a suffering that you will never have to know.  So go ahead and laugh.  Your silly little presentation broke down amid all these great, serious artists and writers, and that's okay.  In fact, it's funny.  So just laugh with me and take joy in me.

Evie and Sam

When I finally came back into the room, a few people whispered their sympathies to me about the projector, but I was all smiles at that point.  The event had been put into perspective for me, and I realized that I had been worrying about the wrong things.  I was grateful to whatever little gremlin had glitched up the projector and "ruined" my presentation.  God's funny like that sometimes.

I'm still not really sure what's going to come of this project, but it's already played a very significant role in my life, and even if it never gets released, it's taught me some valuable lessons along the way.

"Meanings of Death" Final Project (Spring 2007)

My lone A+ at Kenyon was hard earned, and strangely enough, it was in a class all about death.  Meanings of Death with Professor Royal Rhodes was among the most useful courses I've ever taken since it covered cultural perceptions of death over virtually all of Western history (and a little Eastern as well).  This is one of those courses that I keep in my back pocket and refer to constantly in pastoral situations.  Everyone considering the pastorate should be required to take a course like this!

Admittedly, the course was a little rough at first since I have some significant family deaths in my history.  Also, the summer before, I had worked in a veterinary clinic, meaning that I periodically got a little dose of death when we had to put down an animal (something that was always commemorated with about half an hour of silence around the whole clinic).  Prof. Rhodes's class was crucial in helping me process many of these experiences while also preparing me to talk more openly about the end of life and the issues surrounding it.  (Again, every pastor needs this!)

For my final project, under Prof. Rhodes's supervision, I assembled a pantheon of death deities from all the various cultures we had discussed.  I started with a stenciled Grim Reaper influenced by Christian iconography (particularly the Day of the Dead).  I wanted a character that was menacing and yet engaging.  The spiral patterns and ankh on his robes are all symbolic life imagery, which is either ironic or appropriate (depending on how you view death).  The eyes involved a lot of very close-up spraypaint work, while much of the rest was done from a distance to produce the cloudy effects of the piece.  This would serve as the background on which I would mount my pantheon.

This is Yama, a death deity revered in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism who appears in the Katha Upanishad and other historic religious literature.  I opted to use a Tibetan rendition of Yama that I found in my research.  This drawing (like all the others mounted on the piece) is done in pencil and charcoal.  On a more lighthearted note, a few friends have compared this drawing to Bowser from the Super Mario franchise.

Anubis is the Egyptian god of death, embalming, and mummification who famously weighs the hearts of the deceased against a feather in the afterlife.  His head is that of a jackal, as these were animals associated with burial grounds.  I tried to make the colors on Anubis as flat as possible to match the distinct ancient Egyptian style.

The figure on the left is the Azrael, the Angel of Death in Islam, but the flaming sword in his right hand was inspired by angelic imagery in the Old Testament.  The figure on the right is Hermes/Mercury who, in addition to being the Greek messenger god, was also responsible for leading souls to the underworld.

The figure on the left is the Hindu goddess Kali, a consort of Shiva, who has been described in more modern poetry as being like "the darkness between the stars."  She is certainly one of the more intimidating figures!  On the right is the ever fashionable Baron Samedi, the ever-fashionable Voodoo death deity also associated with crossroads.

The Greek god Hades is often described as having a "helmet of invisibility," but this is never depicted in artwork.  I decided to go for it though.  Hades carries a cornucopia (as he is also a god of wealth), and his scepter sports an eagle.  The scepter was intentionally drawn to resemble a two-pronged fork, as this is also a symbol associated with Hades.

While Hades is the god of the Underworld, the proper death deity is Thanatos (pictured at right), who is the twin brother of Hypnos, the god of sleep.  I wanted to leave Thanatos's eyes blank so that he would look as statue-like as possible, suggesting a sort of preservation in death.  Contrasting this, a butterfly is perched on his finger to symbolize rebirth.  (Also, though I don't have an individual shot of her, the final project also featured the character of Lady Death from Marvel Comics positioned to the right of Thanatos.)

I openly admit that my version of Charon (the ferryman to the Underworld in Greek mythology) is completely ripped off from the Led Zeppelin "Stairway to Heaven" poster.

Hel is the Norse death deity, and I developed a fascination with her while working on this project.  Along with Fenrir the wolf and Jormungandr the Midgard Serpent, Hel is one of the three children of Loki whom Odin found despicable and threw down from Asgard.  She landed in the realm of the dead (which shares her name) and governs over that land.  I felt tremendous pity for her since she is supposed to be half-human and half-corpse, so I tried to make the human half as sweet and attractive as possible, using the face of actress Bryce Dallas Howard as a model.  She would later be a main character in 3-Hour Tour, my attempt at a graphic novel.

 The deity on the far right is Osiris, an Egyptian god who was killed by his rival Set and sent down to the underworld.  He was the first figure in Egyptian mythology to go through mummification in a sort of resurrection ceremony conducted by his wife Isis, and he eventually fathered Horus, who was able to subdue Set.  Over Osiris's head is an owl, a common symbol of death that is also associated with the Mesopotamian death goddess Ereshkigal.


So yeah, that's my pantheon of death deities.  The project remained in Prof. Rhodes's office for quite a long time, and he relayed several stories to me about people being either profoundly comforted or profoundly unsettled by its presence.  Invariably though, anyone looking at the piece would say something along the lines of, "If I were to die, I think I'd want to be greeted by ___________."  I think the characters we gravitate toward in this piece can tell us a lot about ourselves and our views of death, so feel free to spend some time looking over it, and if you want to talk about it further, shoot me an email.