nathan jara

Every year during the season of Lent, I like to try to do something to better myself or help me prepare for the culmination of the season, which is Easter Sunday. This time, I didn’t have to search for that something, but was given a challenge for Lent instead. My church pastor has developed a Lenten sermon series for each Sunday leading up to Easter this year. The series discusses the “I Am” sayings of Jesus and how we can apply and live these teachings in our own lives. For my Lenten devotion, I decided to create seven art pieces to visualize each week’s “I Am” saying. Each piece is done using charcoal pencil on 9 by 12 inch paper and depicts how I think each saying can be seen. I plan on combining all the pieces together at the end of Lent for a final series piece. Below you can see the first two of the series. Under each, I’ve listed the corresponding scripture if you’d like to dig deeper. Stay tuned for the rest of the series….and let me know what you think :)

The Bread of Life

John 6: 35-51

The Light of the World

John 8: 12-20

Living Social, an online service that offers daily savings is offering a deal today where you can donate $5 to the American Red Cross for the Japan relief effort and they will match each donation. So far they’ve raised almost $600,000 dollars. I just donated, so click on over and help out! But hurry, the deal only lasts for another 16 hours!

Also, check out the poster to the right. It was designed by Max Erdenberger in response to the tragedies in Japan. You can purchase the poster and make a donation this way too!

This past weekend I visited the Vatican Splendors exhibition at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh. The exhibition featured many influential fine art paintings, drawings, and sculptures by art legends Michelangelo, Giotto, and Bernini. The show also displayed historical artifacts, relics, and spiritual pieces. I really enjoyed the show. I thought the setup of the exhibition successfully gave the viewer a deep look into the richness of the pieces on display and a full feeling of the significance of the history of the Vatican. My favorite parts of the show included a journey through the history of Saint Peter’s Basilica, a mock setup of scaffolding that Michelangelo would have used to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and a group of chalice’s and patensused by past Pope’s for Holy Communion. After being in Italy myself, seeing these types of pieces out of the country’s physical context did take a bit away from the experience, but the exhibition did get me excited again to take a trip back : ) Sunday was the last day for the exhibition, so if you’d like to see the pieces you can either fly to Florida, where the exhibition opens at the end of the month, or take a trip to Italy ; )

So I’m happy to say I’ve finally been able to get back to some artwork over the past few weeks. Above is a calligraphy piece I did for some family friends for Christmas. It’s all by hand with ink, gouache, and marker. Let me know what you think.

If you have the Google Chrome browser, a friend at work shared a really cool website with me today. It’s called The Wilderness Downtown. The website allows you to type in any address, preferably one that has been cataloged by Google Street View, and create a movie in your hometown. The application uses the street view of the address you type in along with the satellite imagery of that area as the backdrop for an online film. The application was created using new HTML 5 techniques for the Chrome Experiments project, which is a web development project that continues to explore and push the capabilities of the growing HTML 5 language. Half way through, you can interact with the movie using an HTML 5 canvas and custom font. Try yours, it’s pretty spiffy!