March, 2014 | Chris Cook Artist

Yielding:

“Every cloud has a silver lining”

“No rain, no rainbow”

“It can’t rain forever”

“It’s always darkest before the dawn”

Eventually, bad things have to give in and yield to the good. The sun will eventually cut through even the thickest clouds, flowers will emerge where the soil once looked barren and empty.

Chris paints this picture to reveal a beautiful sky behind a large mass of dark grey clouds. To me, it serves as a great reminder that no matter what life throws our way, better things are to come. Furthermore, the beautiful and bright sky was always there, but our vision is often hindered by the presence of the clouds overhead.

My encouragement to each of you, myself included, is to not lose sight of the fact that, one day, evil will yield to good, and great things will be in store for all who believe.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

John 1:5

Chris Cook is a premier southern artist and owner of Madison Studios, a web design, maintenance, and e-commerce and marketing company. For his artist biography, contact information, or to view more of his work, click HERE

Abandoned Peach Orchard

Georgia is the peach state.

Peaches are one of my favorite fruits.

Spring is right around the corner…Fruit trees are starting to bloom.

This is a picture of a peach orchard, long after the fruit was gone; the limbs litter the ground, and the birds have taken up their posts as sentries. Gone are the glorious and beautiful flowers; no longer are the limbs laden with the heavy burden of sweet and juicy peaches.

As spring approaches, I am reminded again about how God works things in cycles. If one were to look at this snapshot of these peach trees without knowledge or foresight about the cyclical changes that all things go through, they might feel discouraged. The glorious truth for those of us who know is that God has a perfect plan. While things seem to be dead, bleak, and empty, there are beautiful flowers and sweet fruit waiting to be seen and enjoyed.

Lent reminds us of the time that things seemed bleak and empty for the world. Jesus was nailed to a tree, and laid in a borrowed tomb. All seemed lost, but, as is always the case in God’s timing, there was a much sweeter and glorious plan at work for each of us.

Jesus is…

I want to try something a little bit different for this blog. Instead of writing my thoughts and insight, I simply wanted to post this picture of Jesus that Chris painted, and ask the viewers to answer this “simple” question.

“What is Jesus to you?”

Answer below in the comments. I can’t wait to see the responses.

Circle of Life:

I am not much of an artist in the sense of “paint brushes, strokes on canvas, and acrylic color palates”. My art tends to come with the way that I am able to use my words to talk about or describe something. (I studied culinary arts in college, therefore, I have a decent ability to put good looking food on a plate, but that is neither here nor there). That being said, I am one who appreciates art, though I may not always have the best idea of what exactly is happening on the canvas, or what was going through the artist’s mind as he/she created the piece.

Chris titled this painting “Circle of Life”. After singing Sir Elton John’s hit from the opener of Disney’s The Lion King in my head, I began to contemplate life as a circle/cycle, and to contemplate this painting as a representation of it.

I feel like the black and white, almost starry field that constructs the majority of the background helps to represent the vastness that is the expanse of a universe much larger than we’re able to experience in our lifetime. The figure in the top left of the picture seems to represent birth/beginning. The colored element is an adult male, (I assume that is Chris). There are other figures within the painting, and a definite wheel, reminding me of the cycles of our life.

Lent is a time when we are to be reminded of our human mortality. During the Imposition of Ashes, pastors typically speak words like “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. It’s a stark reminder that our creator works things out in seasons and cycles. This big ol’ wheel keeps on turning, and God has a forever plan in motion for it all.

Life on Earth When Jesus Was Here.

What was life like when Jesus was on the earth?

We do have the Bible and other historic writings chronicling the times in the middle east at the time of Jesus.

I have thought about this enough to draw my own opinions. I am not an old world history expert but I think the following of the time:

there was knowledge that “this was the time” of the coming Messiah and it was well know (see Daniel 9:24-27)
there were probably lots of men claiming that they were the Messiah and knew the prophesies – thus could imitate the signs and actions
there was an accelerated number of demons present on earth, demons being cast out… I am open to anyone out there that knows more on the subject to correct me
it seems that the demons also knew quite well who Jesus was upon encountering him – while the “religious leaders” of the time seemed to have more trouble in acknowledging him
lots of confusion, violence, evil, power hunger, pride, repression…

The religious establishment seemed to be expecting Him too, but from all that I read of their interactions with Jesus – they assumed that he would “come to them” and “work with them” and that they would be in the center of his work here. That did not happen. Jesus found himself in conflict with them throughout his ministry. There is way too much here to write about here and to show you on a canvas…

This painting is made of six equal sized little paintings all on one canvas. You can draw what you want from each or of the totality of the painting as a whole.

Enjoy,

Chris Cook

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Barns, Barns, Barns…

Tennessee Barns: 1 through 5.

Why paint the same picture 5 times? Good Question. As I was about the finish Tennessee Barn #1, I was really liking the way it looked compositionally and the color scheme as well, but, I had an idea for another color pallet that I “could have used”. I pulled out a second blank canvas the same size and roughed in the same composition and left it there while finishing the first.

I thought about Monet, and how he painted the hay stack picture over and over again – using roughly the same composition, point of view… but at different times of day to get different light. What a marvelous idea… but he painted those paintings “En plein air” that is a French expression that means “in the open air,” and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors (on the spot).

Unfortunately, I was painting this in my art studio in Madison, Georgia while that barn is sitting in a sharp curve in the road just outside of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I had made a quick photo on my iPhone from the side of the road years ago, so I could not observe the barn at different times of day – I abandoned that idea and went with “I could have painted this in a different color pallet idea” that I had originally.

I repeated this idea until I had exhausted color pallets I felt were appropriate for this subject. Now I have a wonderful set of five paintings of the same subject if someone wanted to make a grouping on their wall, or a nice set of different color paintings of the same subject to suit someone’s idea of “I like those colors”.

I went on to paint another barn from Blowing Rock, North Carolina two times with two different color pallets. You will just have to go to my website to see those.

Enjoy,

Chris Cook

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Night Noise

Night Noise.

This painting is from the distant past, but I still have it hanging in view of my desk here at my office so that I can see it daily.

This work started with some small pencil sketches to work out the composition. My concept was to visually create that feeling we all get when we hear an unusual noise at night. We would like to ignore them and think to ourselves, “it was probably just the wind”… but more often than not, we feel compelled to investigate the noise. I don’t know about you, but I am usually a little anxious… walk slowly and quietly looking around… opening doors slowly… sound familiar?

In this composition, I used a second person to increase the drama. A noise outside that gets you and your spouse out of bed must be more than something to write off as the wind. The second person stays cautiously back a little peering out as well. The outside is dark and unknown, a little creepy, while the interior is bright, warm and safe. They are both venturing out… will they go out or just say all is well and go back inside where they can go back to watching TV or back to sleep?

That is all up to your imagination. I just like to create works that give you a chance to think, or to create your own story with. Either way, hope you enjoyed my story.

Chris Cook

Paul

Paul In Thought.

This painting idea came to me through a Bible verse –

New International Version: Romans 9:3 “For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race…”

But also through starting with a blank canvas and using a method I learned about through my favorite Abstract Expressionist – Robert Motherwell’s method of starting a painting with no pre-conceived ideas… which he learned from the Surrealists Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, and Roberto Matta. From them, he learned the concept of “psychic automatism”, a form of doodling in which the artist allows an unconscious, spontaneous impulse to lead the way.

Wow, how we can learn and pass down ideas from the past into the future.

Anyway, all that said, I started doodling without conscious thought and had a basic structure in place. After first passes of paint, I felt I saw John The Baptist, but just his head… I painted a quick “platter” underneath to depict the story of when his head was presented. I reconsidered as that is a nasty subject matter for a painting, so with more washes and paint slinging, I started thinking of the verse above that really reveals Paul’s love for others.

Look close at the painting and you may see the process described above.

Enjoy,

Chris Cook