Lynn Underwood

Art, science, and personal experiences all help us better understand who we are and how we can flourish

Tag: visual art

  • Stitched with compassion and wire

    art by lynn

    “Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.” – JRR Tolkien

    The little things. 

    In the midst of the many really bad things happening in our world now, it feels easy for me to just give up, toss in the towel. What good can I do?  

    The drawing above is of a nut person, given to me as a gift. It was carefully created by my friend Jane from bits and pieces of nature. It is hanging on my kitchen wall. She sends these out at Christmas as gifts. Each of us has ways of being in the world, and actions that are ones that only we can do. I do not make nut people and carefully package and send them out.  I am not called to run for political office. I can admire those who make a difference in ways that I do not. But we all, through all the small things we do in life, by standing in our own shoes and listening for what is next for us, can help to ‘hold evil in check’ as Tolkien wrote.

    I can ask a friend how she is doing. I can bake something nice for family. I can smile at the cashier at the grocery store and ask them how their day is going. I can paint a picture and share it. I can really listen. I can send a few cards via snail mail. I can mend a hole in someone’s sweater. I am trying to discover how on earth I am going to get my latest book project out into the world to reach those who would find it helpful in their lives. I am daunted by the task, but is there one step I can take towards that this week? Each one of us has something we can do today that can make a difference for good in the world.

    “In our imperfect world

    we are meant to repair

    and stitch together

    what beauty there is,

    stitch it with compassion and wire….”1

    1. From the poem ‘“Holding the Light” by Stuart Kestenbaum ↩︎

  • The peaceful beauty of snow

    art by lynn

    The snowfall here this morning is so quiet and beautiful. For those celebrating all the holidays of December and even those just not celebrating at all, I send out good wishes for peace, joy, and comfort in this season.  Around us and beyond are disasters and people behaving badly. But also, there are so many good people standing up for kindness, caring and compassion. Let’s all be beacons of hope in the midst of all of this. Shining strong and bright. Knowing that even the little acts of kindness that you and I do echo out into the world.

  • I love weeds

    art by lynn

    I collected these on my afternoon walk. I couldn’t resist picking them and drawing them. There is beauty all around us. With the terrible and distressing events happening in our world, the beautiful weeds still bloom. I know I need a reminder to look for them and celebrate their beauty in the midst of everything.

  • timeless in belfast

    I remember living in Belfast during the ‘Troubles’. I wanted to visually capture the sense of driving home from work at the university in our little Renault 4 with baby in the car seat, the city bombs going off in the distance, frequently followed by army vehicles with guns pointed towards us. Beautiful mountains and ocean surrounding the city. I don’t have the skills to do these memories and feelings justice, but the process of trying was good for me. I saw Picasso’s Guernica in Madrid many years ago. He had the artistic skill to capture the horrors, but my artistic efforts still stretch me out in sympathy. So many have gone through situations worse than my Belfast experiences, and are still in the midst of them. My heart goes out to them in these fraught times in our fragile world, as I try, each day, to figure out what I can do to make a difference.

  • What can I do now?

    We so often think we need special talents and tools to do something good. But just using what is in front of us, stretching out to express what is in our hearts in the moment, can lead to small good things.

    While talking on the phone with my daughter recently, I picked up a ballpoint pen, and a sheet of printer paper. In front of me was a vase of ranunculus flowers given to me as a gift.

    It is not yet spring here, but the flowers on the table were a taste of spring. All my feelings came together: listening with care and concern to the words of my daughter, feeling the love from the person who gave me the flowers, appreciating the unusual beauty of these flowers, feeling the urge to express some of this, not only in my words of response to her but beyond that.  The perfect expression was not there – the perfect tools, the perfect talent, the perfect response to love flowing in me.  But I could say and do something.

    In these especially chaotic times, there are limits to what we can do. Each moment is an opportunity to do something: love in ways we can, express what we have within us, act in ways that contribute something good, acknowledge the good in others. I need to remind myself of that, and keep doodling – in my actions and words as well as in my drawings- using what talents and tools I have in front of me and not waiting for the perfect opportunity.

     

  • asking

    drawing by lynn

    “I asked the earth, I asked the sea and the deeps, among the living animals, the things that creep. I asked the winds that blow, I asked the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars….My question was the gaze I turned to them. Their answer was their beauty.” – St Augustine.

     

  • exactly

    Exactitude is not truth – Henri MatisseLynnUnderwood

    Currently I try to spend time most days doing and studying art. I get better in many ways through practice and study, but I will never get to a photographically accurate image I expect. I do hope, however, to get close to the truth — of the subject, or idea, or myself.  I did this self-portrait yesterday of me in the sunshine, using a hand mirror. It has ‘mistakes’ in it, and it is not exact. But I still hope that it gets at some truth of me.

    If you do a creative activity of some kind, can you be pleased when you capture some feeling or express something imaginatively? Cooking or woodworking may be a creative activity you enjoy, or you may play music or write fiction. I hope my ‘mistakes’ can encourage you to continue be creative even when you are not exact.

  • to see what we see

    drawing by lynn
    drawing by lynn

    We must always tell what we see. Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see.”        –Charles Peguy

  • art and love

    …To see in contemplation, is not limited only to the tangible surface of reality; it certainly perceives more than mere appearances. Art flowing from contemplation does not so much attempt to copy reality as rather to capture the archetypes of all that is. Such art does not want to depict what everybody already sees but to make visible what not everybody sees….

    To this end we have to consider a certain aspect of the term “contemplation”…. The ancient expression of the mystics applies here: ubi amor, ibi oculus — the eyes see better when guided by love; a new dimension of ‘seeing’ is opened up by love alone! And this means contemplation is visual perception prompted by loving acceptance…affectionate affirmation.”

    -Josef Pieper, Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation, Ignatius Press 1990. pg 74

    painting by lynn
    painting by lynn

  • representing reality

    art by lynn
    art by lynn

    I have been reading a great book by the artist Ben Shahn, written in the 50’s entitled The Shape of Content. I find myself these days wondering why I do art, and what I am trying to do with it.  What is its purpose? Shahn was a wonderful graphic artist and his words inspire me.  When I was helping to find cover art for a book on the science of compassionate love, I offered this piece. The visual image on the cover was important. To pin compassionate love to the board like a butterfly was impossible. Visual art can stretch our thinking. It was a necessary complement to the scientific and analytic content of the book. I think somehow art can make a difference – that is one of the reasons I still do it.