My Father's World

Maltbie Babcock, a talented priest in New York in the 1890s, would often take breaks from his job during the day to walk, hike, or run through the wilderness. He felt he could be closest to God when he was surrounded by his beautiful creations. I often feel that way too. Babcock wrote the hymn, "This is My Father's World."

Keep Going

This could be a painting of Agnes Caldwell, a nine-year-old pioneer girl who trekked across hundreds of miles to reach Zion. Or, it could be a portrait of anyone who has wanted to give up, but has kept going, and met their challenges head on and won.

The Song of the Land

I just picked this up today from the American Fork Steel Days art show, where it received 1st place in the professional drawing division. Hooray!

Walt Whitman wrote "Leaves of Grass" over a century ago, yet he really had a grasp of the unity that we'd need to feel as a people today. He praised the laboring people of the land using the metaphor of music. He wrote of the sweeping strains and pulsating rhythms of a mighty nation at work and at play. “I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,” Whitman proclaimed. He acknowledged mechanics, carpenters, masons, shoemakers, woodcutters, mothers, “each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, . . . singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.”


--"I Hear America Singing" from Leaves of Grass.

The Star Spangled Banner

The Dawn's Early Light

If you're a fan of Francis Scott Key (as I am), I hope you like this one. I enjoyed trying to create the colors of the morning, but still having remnants of the battle at Fort McHenry that happened that night.