Upon Mount Sinai

In 1988 I made this print. It is a copper plate engraving, hand printed and water colored. The lines are cut by hand into copper using a burin which has a diamond shaped point. A Jewish friend showed me how to draw the Hebrew characters indicating the Ten Commandments. They are also written, not in the King James old English language but in the common everyday speech of The Book. "Thou Shalt Not Kill" translates to"Don't Kill". "Thou Shall Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife" translates to "Don't Be Envious Of Anything Your Neighbor Has". A child should be able understand them.

The plate has been steel faced so that a large edition (400) can be printed. In intaglio printing the metal wears down so that the image begins to fade slightly each time it is printed. The electroplating slows this down.

God Is In The Details

I posed for the hands of God by making a drawing of my left hand with two different finger positions. The one with the fingers spread was drawn on tracing paper and flipped.

Moses Gave Them To The People Of Israel

In Exodus there are 15 commandments.

The Eye Of Providence

What else are you gonna do at 4 in the morning? Pray. Mount Sinai was drawn surrounded by clouds and triangular rays of light. A subtle eye shape can be seen above the mountain. The all seeing eye can be traced to Egyptian mythology and Buddhism. It can also be seen on the U.S. one dollar bill.

I'll miss the polaroids

The life of a mannequin is difficult. The first pose was a challenge to hold. Here, Jonah is thrown out of the ship. My roomate poses as a shipmate. I pray as Jonah in the whale.

The Polaroid was great medium for artists. It's now defunct. A Japanese Co. bought the rights to it. Maybe it will reappear. My roomate became dissillusioned with the "life" of a struggling mannequin. He slept most of the day and kept me awake watching TV at night until he found another line of work with CNN. Hi Jim McGinnis, where ever in the world you are.

Jonah Prayed

Jonah prayed and I did too. This was a difficult time for me. It was the late 80's. The intaglio copper plate was engraved at a Lynnie's farm in Massachusets. I was farm sitting, picking vegetables for pasta prima vera and letting the sheep in and out for grazing. Alone, I had a lot of time to pray and meditate and had beautiful vision.

CWRU, Design and Color 101

Angie put a lot of thought and originality into adapting the Tesselation Linocut project to her own purpose. Her boyfriend has a cat. She created a marquee type frame for a mixed media cat picture. One could call Angie the "John Waters of Tesselation": over the top and riveting. She's also blogalicious.

Check out more of her artwork and that of other CWRU art studio classes at our exhibition (April 28 reception 5-7PM, closes May 2)at the Art Studio Building.

Arts 101 Tesselation Linocut Project

Tesselations are in my mind a miraculous design phenomena. In this project linocut printing and collage are used to explore the splendor of pattern, texture, and color harmony.


In this demonstration, Victoria uses 2 colors of paper and 4 colors of ink. She plans to display the artwork on her dorm door.

Arts 101 and 201

I teach at Case Western Reserve University. Two levels of Design and Color are taught simultaneously in the same room. 101 is two dimensional and 201 is three dimensional. Sara is hot gluing a Styrofoam piece which was shaped with a hot wire cutter. She is working on an assemblage project. An arts 101 student looks on. Stephen happens to be wearing a Salvador Dali tee shirt.

Design and Color I

Jinmeng is a biochemistry major and hopes to minor in art. I say go go go. The Cleveland Institute of Art gives a degree in medical illustration. I think she may go into surgery, since she offered me a free operation







Krista is working on the last project of the semester: Color Harmony And Gray Values. It is a wonderful project.

Kristen has a passionate love of art, is an avid postcard art afficianado and has decided to enter the art education field. She also has a blog.

Year Of The Rat

"Pirat" was commissioned by the Artefino Gallery to celebrate the Chinese Zodiac year 2008. The public art project was created by Cleveland's St. Clair Superior Development Corp. http://www.stclairsuperior.org to promote their neighborhood. Chinese food and art are my favorite attractions there.

The Chinese zodiac rat possesses attributes of wealth, aggression and charm but also death, fighting and atrocities. Let's pray that the Olympic games in Beijing do not turn into a bloody mess.