mid-week birding

Trumpeter Swan, Bath Ohio

Great Blue Heron, Beaver Marsh, Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Bald Eagle, Avon Lake Ohio

Blue-winged Teal, Beaver Marsh, CVNP

Wild Blue Phlox, CVNP

Virginia Bluebells

Virginia Bluebells with Karma Principessa di Parma, Greyhound (Levriero)

Eastern Bluebird, Bath Ohio

Savannah Sparrow, Bath Ohio

They may know Paul, but not Art

Gordon Smith.  “Eggbeater Jesus” or “Cosmic Christ”.  1966-73 & 2016-22.  Huntsville Alabama.

Yesterday, i saw a video of two comics who were visiting a church, at random, in Whitesburg Alabama. For a lark, the one mentioned [a possible]First Baptist Huntsville to a congregant. He just made a guess of its existence, there is no shortage of Baptist churches in the South, and they number them like New York City numbers elementary schools. And she said, Eggbeater Jesus? Well, it exists and is a roadside attraction. Huntsville calls itself Rocket City. Apollo's Saturn rockets were made there. So when the Baptists were going to build a new church, they chose a glass mosaic that spanned seven arches after the seven churches mentioned at the beginning of the Apocalypse/Revelation. As soon as it was installed, pieces started to fall. After so many years, they decided for a fix. They were told, it wouldn't work. It would have to be redone, and it was redone by Italians.

So, i started using the computers' search engines, using the terms: Protestant art, American Protestant art, American Christian art, Contemporary Christian art, Baptist art, Southern Baptist art. The searches did not help. They found the Reformation's rejection of Catholic art, depictions of John the Baptist, and a few others that didn't fit. In a couple of scholarly articles that needed subscriptions, and showed part of a page; the names Warner Sallman, and Thomas Kinkade [sic] were mentioned.

I touched upon this before [click], also, and.  We do not do church in the same way.

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postscriptum noon 24 April 2023:

Now, there is some comparison to Notre Dame's 1964 “Touchdown Jesus/The Word of Life”. Which is better art, and religious but not ecclesial, and it stayed in place without crumbling. With Jesus there are many other people, representing what is in a library: historical figures, writers, saints of learning, et cetera. 

 

I was once on campus in 1988(?). Touristed with my nephew, and kicked an imaginary field goal on the football field. This was before inexpensive, digital cameras. I cribbed the foto supra from nd.edu. I have seen other fotos of it. Light, and angle, and perspective make different colors appear. The mural is made of panels of 81 different stone varieties.

 

Millard Sheets was an artist that did many outdoor mosaics, and murals on prominent buildings. Sheets was a California regional realist painter. I haven't studied if it is so, but American regionalist art has some affinity to the spirit of Vatican II.

 

Also, there was another Touchdown Jesus. It had other names: King of Kings [official], the most descriptive was “Big Butter Jesus”. It has a few quintessential American Evangelical Protestant qualities. They do not do subtlety. They go for loudness on a budget. It was in Monroe Ohio, next to Interstate 75, north of Cincinnati. It existed from 2004 to 2010. This was part of a 'megachurch' [non-denominational (Baptist)]. The statue was in the baptismal pool. Other fotos show a pale yellow color. Closer views showed the surface to appear as applied pats of not quite solid material. The skeleton was shaped like a goal post, and most of the volume was styrofoam, the surface was fiberglass. The overall texture, and color reminded people of the giant butter sculptures in state fairs. It was struck by lightning, and became Fireball Jesus. [click] It has been replaced by another huge statue, Hug Me Jesus, designed by CAD software. It is better, sort of like a South American Mountain Jesus as if designed by Mormons, and the Macy Parade.

foto by Rob Lambert

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n.b.:  not one of these three fotos are mine

weather changes in April

Daffodils, unless protected by shade and micro-climate, have wilted. I am waiting for the morrow, i have had snow cover up daffodils before, and they have sprung back after the melt. I do not remember snow on spent daffodils.

I type this Monday evening, A couple hours before, there was snow pellets/graupel. The five previous days, the temperature was kissing 80°F. There often is funny weather around here. click

(Sunday) Our little Principessa does not take sun and heat well.  Wearing a white shirt is much cooler than exposing black fur to the sun. Every once in a while, she flops down. Here it was in magnolia petals.

(Monday) Karma leading through the Latvian portal.

Birch catkins in the Latvian Cultural Garden.

Birches on the traffic island by the Shakespeare Garden.

Well, as a Slav, i think i am almost required to enjoy birches. Robert Frost loved birches too, 

"When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,"

Monday, midday, and these tulips were in color, but closed tight at Rockefeller Greenhouse. Many tulips were still green, and many had been eaten before they budded by deer. The grotesques are from the Pennsylvania train station. Workers were there, and almost no visitors. It began to rain.

Inside the greenhouse, jasmine was in bloom. The scent was light.

daffodil deputy

There are some peculiar, or rare, job descriptions. Johnny Carson used to have guests on who had those jobs. But, does anyplace in America, other than Cleveland, have a daffodil deputy?

 

difference a day makes

This morning Karma sits in an orchard of newly opened blossoms.

blossoms of brookside

Tokyo, and Washington DC had excellent early blooms of sakura (cherry blossoms). Athens Ohio's bloom was evident Easter Sunday on the banks of the Hockhocking. To-day was the opening of a few blooms in Cleveland.

Some picture takers came to see the progress. Her dog is looking at me, and my hound.

Karma is looking at a stone script she cannot decipher.

Greyhounds are long, and narrow athletes.

A giant sign was put up at the closest point to the freeway.

Fabrication, and installation is still being done. Eventually there will be lighting, perhaps landscaping. We were wondering why they had carved the hill, now we know.

Holy Friday 2023

 

This year the procession started from St. Michael the Archangel Cleveland, it then proceeded to St. Colman, and concluded at La Sagrada Familia. This is what Catholics do (or once largely did) on the Friday of Jesus' crucifixion. In alternating years the start and terminus is exchanged between Michael's and La Sagrada. Colman's is in the middle (geographically), a few years ago it was St. Patrick's.

I was outside waiting for it to start, and a fellow asked me about it. He did not know the day. I told him. He said he saw a hearse (during his walk), and thought it was a funeral. I said, "no", answering to what he thought, it was part of the procession;but he was right, it was a funeral procession, but the body was not now on earth.

There are two kinds of rude idiot photographers. One type has expensive equipment, and the other has a telephone. Both like to be as close as possible, and being an obstruction is the bonus.

This year they turned on to Clark, a main street. The path has been subject to changes.

Bier carrying the Corpse.

Women of the parish carrying the Sorrowful Mother.

The women of Jerusalem. Veronica holds the veil.

click past years: 2008, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2022

Procession with St. Michael's in the background. This church was the tallest building in Cleveland for a time.

A new generation rides.

preparing the carpets

Las Alfombras de Semana Santa, a cartouche is drawn on plastic, and then colored sawdust and/or sand are applied until complete.

This is one of the annual events i enjoy to see each year. I am saddened more people do not see this art and devotion. An earlier pastor, Fr. Reidy, brought this Meso-American cultural celebration to La Sagrada Familia. He is now at a parish in Brook Park, and they did one here.

Click previous years: 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022

Some are made by an individual. This one a Guatemalan family did.

The Virgin of Guadalupe is a favorite subject. Here she comforts Pope Francis.

John and Karma came last year with Cassius.

There are five rows this year. Not shown is a partitioned area for the repose of the Sacrament on Holy Thursday.

In the sanctuary the vesting for Sorrowful Mother for to-morrow Black Friday.