The Scriptorium Daily

Category: Art

  • Check Out My Toy Train

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    by

    Fred Sanders
    in

    I’m not saying you have to get me a Lionel toy train with a gold engine and red cars and a remote control device with dual speed levers. All I’m saying is, if I had a train like that I would hug it with both arms and have the biggest smile on my face you…

  • Snow White Ornament

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    by

    Fred Sanders
    in

    Phoebe Age Four produced this drawing and testified that it is a picture of Snow White. Trying to throw her arms around the world, Snow White has an expression on her face which is open to interpretation. Is she as happy as she wants us to believe? Why is her smile unsettled? Her head and…

  • Bike or Scooter

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    by

    Fred Sanders
    in

    Dear Applicant, We regret to inform you that your request for a patent on the Bike Scooter has been rejected. The review commission’s main objection to the application is the incoherence of the device itself. You did not include a description of how the device works, and the the schematic drawing included is not rendered…

  • The Prodigal Bride

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    by

    Fred Sanders
    in ,

    Take the book of Hosea and re-tell it as a cryin’-in-my-beer tear-jerker country song. Cowboy Hosea ambles up to the jukebox, plunks in a couple quarters for that special song from their honeymoon, then turns to his honkeytonk gal and drawls, “You done me wrong, Gomer, but I still love you like you wuz the…

  • Desert Scene

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    You may think of the desert as an empty or lonely place, but this desert is a HOT SPOT in more ways than one. It not only sustains life, but a thriving community of many species living in harmony. The dominant figure is our host, a saguaro cactus (cereus giganteus) spreading out his four arms…

  • Bilateral Asymmetry in a Preiconoclastic Encaustic Pantocrator

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    The following remarks should be considered as an extrapolation of certain lines of thought suggested by Manolis Chatzidakis’s seminal article “An Encaustic Icon of Christ at Sinai” published in The Art Bulletin (Vol. 50, No. 1, 113. Mar. 1968), 197-208. My own modest contribution to the critical discussion does not proceed using the modes of…

  • Big Orange Cat Head

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    by

    Fred Sanders
    in

    Phoebe Age Four goes for uncharacteristically expansive forms in this assemblage of shapes. Perfect bilateral symmetry dominates the arrangement of the two ears, two eyes, two whatever you call those things on a cat’s muzzle. (Lips? Do cats have lips?) And exactly four whiskers on each side. But for all the symmetrical geometry, this drawing…

  • T. S. Eliot: Things That Can Just Barely Be Said

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    Fred Sanders
    in ,

    T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) is so hard to read that every class session on his poetry might just as well start with the question, “Why bother reading something so difficult?” I think you have to start by admitting that poetry this difficult actually might not be worth reading. Writing incomprehensible poetry is actually pretty easy.…

  • B.C. by Johnny Hart: “This Warm, Mischievous Feeling”

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    Fred Sanders
    in ,

    Johnny Hart (1931-2007) died this past weekend (Sat. Apr. 7). His comic strips will continue to be published indefinitely, which is possible because his unsigned collaborators live on. It’s hard to believe, but B.C. ran in daily papers for over fifty years (from Feb. of 1958). Hart belongs in that Charles Schulz pantheon of classic…

  • Resurrection Bunny

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    by

    Fred Sanders
    in

    Let us agree to call the rabbits in this drawing: Witnesses of the resurrection. One perches atop the cross with his back to us, the other leaps forward into our space with a smile and with unavoidable eye contact. The black outlining can scarcely contain the ragged red-brown coloring that unites the bunnies and the…

  • Viewing the Crucifixion

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    by

    Fred Sanders
    in

    A bolt of lightning splits the stormy sky and flashes toward a monumental cross. To one side stands a Roman soldier with a sword in one hand and a long spear in the other. He smiles smugly to have completed his dirty work. It’s not a good thing to do, but he’s good at doing…

  • Three Crosses Two Ways

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    Fred Sanders
    in ,

    The fact that Christ was crucified between thieves, one on his right and one on his left, was not lost on the writers of the gospels. They recognized it as a shockingly literal fulfilment of the prophecy that God’s servant would be “numbered among transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). The fact that one of the transgressors recognized…