What can it hurt?

Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at his disposition, and listening to His voice in the depths of our hearts. – Mother Theresa The bodybuilding exercises my friend Camille incorporates into our powerwalks along the St. Charles River include simple movements like sit-ups and squats. I wish we would skip the jumping … Read more

Portrait of the artist

Learn to live from the inside, the bull’s eye of your true being. -Sandra Walston There are always three people at play in my work: Toothpick, the inner artist child who conceives of the ideas; me, the adult with the hands and the materials necessary for bringing them to life; and Frankie, the inner writer … Read more

Start by listening

You’ve got to know yourself so you can at last be yourself. – D. H. Lawrence « Nous naissons tous bisexués, du moins psychologiquement, » explains Marie Coupal in Le Guide du rêve et de ses symboles. In its mother’s womb, Coupal goes on to tell us, the fetus possesses for a certain time both the male … Read more

Consider yourself warned

Reflected peace is the proof that you are right with God because you are at liberty to turn your mind to him. – Oswald Chambers Oup là ! and Mélanie dans les airs were made on the same day, and both pieces feature a young girl with big hair engaged in recreational activity. The similarities, … Read more

Dear dad

Quelquefois je m’avoue que ce qui me plait le plus dans cette idée d’éternité, c’est la chance accordée, en retrouvant les âmes chères, de s’expliquer à fond avec elles, et que cesse enfin le long malentendu de la vie. – Gabrielle Roy 1 Samuel of my father’s old Bible is riddled with little marks of … Read more

God speed

Christ wants a child’s heart, but a grown-up’s head. – C.S. Lewis In Le Vent dans le dos,a long sleek horse carries on her back a woman and a fox. The woman sits tall, her hand resting lightly on the horse’s neck, her blond hair flowing forward in the wind as one with the horse’s … Read more

Here and now

Be still, and know that I am God. – Psalm 46:10 During times of fear and anxiety, people have often turned to Psalm 46 for comfort. In his meditation on this psalm, Timothy Keller explains why. The psalmist, he tells us, is contrasting earthly cities to the heavenly city, the city of God; while the … Read more

With love, from Toothpick

A grownup is a child with layers on. – Woody Harrelson The moment captured in Au pays des cheveux gris is peaceful and quiet and soft, like the dawn. The five figures waking to this dawn are both sagacious and childlike: on their heads are piles of gray hair; on their skinny, imperfectly shaped bodies, … Read more

The Watchmen

The art of life is to live in the present moment. – Emmet Fox For Easter Sunday, a piece about resurrection. It’s called Les Veilleurs, and it was painted on 6 April 2020. It has the markings of my early paintings in the sense that what we see on the page mirrors very closely what … Read more

The rightful king

The real me is so different from the way I look on the outside. – Dolly Parton Brooklyn, April 2020. The city is quiet, a ghost town. Those of us who don’t have the luxury of escaping to houses in the Hamptons or other far away places are confined to our apartments where everything is … Read more