Visiting Ridgewood

This past Saturday, the writer's group on campus here visited Ridgewood retirement center and delivered handmade Valentine's cards to all of the residents with a bible verse written on the inside about Jesus' love.

I didn't even have to look for Marxy! He was right there. He nodded that I could take his picture. I showed him what it looked like after I had taken it (oh the marvels of digital cameras), he looked right at me and nodded his approval :)

Marxy has Alzheimer's.

Being there with my camera, it made me think of the video Marx had made when he found out he had this disease. He did different workshops with residents at nursing homes and the one in the video he took photographs of the people and then also did a drawing of the photographs and hung them all up on a wall, like a gallery. The exercise was to help raise their self-esteem again and show them their beauty--many of the elderly had a negative opinion of themselves. I'll see what I can do to get that up here...

Although I did not go there with that same intent (we were delivering Valentine's! And it was fun!), I did take a few pictures.

They were so delighted to have us college students go and visit!

Here, they were creating rain-sticks out of toilet paper rolls and tin foil:

The woman standing is Jan, an assistant, and she's so good with them!

Giving Valentine Cards:

This lovely lady loved to sing. We told her she had a pretty voice, and this was the surprised look she gave us:

Austin, explaining the verse about Jesus:

This little lady was sweet--she asked for a copy of her picture.

-Amber Dawn

Ash Wednesday and Art for Lent

Ash Wednesday is this week, and I plan to share photos of Marxhausen's artwork honoring Lent every week leading up to Easter. Be sure to check back this Wednesday to see the first photos in this series!

-Duncan

Cow's Knees

Marxhausen would often take his class to a run-down barn near campus. At first glance, a lot of the objects around the area looked forlorn and ugly, but Marxhausen taught his students how to find beauty in these things.

Aesthetics…has to do with beauty. Beauty is not just necessarily things that are pretty or cute or nice.

There was a rough, metal pane the cows had rubbed their knees against every day for decades whenever they got a drink of water. When he first took a closer look, Marxy discovered those cows had created a rainbow of colors on the metal. He said an artist would be proud to achieve that subtle range of color in a painting.

This 5"x 5" piece by Marxhausen shares a similar quality: what at first looks like a rough, sickly brown object, actually has a range of vivid colors. Marchausen also talked a great deal about how different light sources can completely change how we perceive objects, so I included two views of the same object, one with a stronger light source.

- Duncan

Comment from the original site:

This is true! Beauty IS all around us. Thanks for the reminder. :)

February 8, 2010 | Amber

My Own Little World

We all have our own unique, little miniature world.

Quote by Marxhausen during interview for "Time Lines."

You've probably seen a lot of t-shirts with funny messages printed boldly on the front. Some of those shirts can be insipid, but one I've seen which I can identify with says this: "I live in my own little world, but that's okay, they know me there."

Often, I find myself slipping off into my own little world, sometimes even something in a conversation can spark my imagination, and suddenly I'm gazing at nothing. I agree with Marxy that everyone has there own little world; it's just that some people spend more time there than others. For an artist, this time spent reflecting on what our eyes have taken in is even more important.

When Leonardo da Vinci was in the process of painting his ill-fated masterpiece, The Last Supper, one of the monks grew impatient because Leonardo spent so much time staring blankly and seemingly getting nothing accomplished. Leonardo defended himself in a sharp letter to the monk's superior, explaining that these times of mental contemplation were even more important than applying the paint.

One of my Professors explained that painting is an intellectual process; you have to have a plan.

It seems to me when Marxhausen went into his own little world, it was because he was observing something fleetingly beautiful in nature. He spent hours talking about his ideas of beauty and light in interviews for documentaries, and that was a recurring theme. When he spent time in his own little world, Marxy could find art in pencil boxes, coat hangers, and piles of napkins.

- Duncan