Category Archive: Hillary Asbury

Everything I’ll Never Know

By Hillary Asbury –

I love libraries and bookstores.

I love the smell of books, the texture of their paper, and the elegance with which each book stands in its place. I love the organized chaos of full bookshelves. There is something humbling, and yet exhilarating, about being surrounded by so many books, so much knowledge and art. I step into a library and immediately think about how many words are housed under that one roof. I walk into a bookstore and am struck by the millions of stories just waiting to be discovered. There is so much out there, so much information that even if I were to dedicate the rest of my life to reading, I would never be able to read it all, not even a fraction.

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Real, Good, Liturgical Art

By Hillary Asbury –

I had a friend in college who was an abstract artist.

She was a phenomenal figurative painter and could handle realism with great sensitivity and finesse, but her pursuit of her abstract work was passionate and tenacious. She took it quite seriously. There were days when her creativity flowed easily, and days when she struggled to paint at all. In critiques, however, some of our classmates often questioned the validity of her work. They would say it was too easy, that you cannot pour a couple of cups of paint over a canvas and call it a painting. What they were really asking, though, was “is this good art, is it even art at all?”, and this would eventually lead us to the same question that artists and critics have been asking for ages.

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Can the Darkness Condemn the Light?

By Hillary Asbury –

Domenikos Theotokopulos, born in the 16th century and commonly known as El Greco, is a European artist with one of the most distinctive styles of his time. Originally from Crete, he studied in Venice, worked in Italy for some time, and went on to heavily influence not only the Spanish Renaissance and generations of artists thereafter (Picasso and Cezanne among them), but his work was a major factor in the development of the Expressionist and Mannerist movements.

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Illustration of the Month: Gifts of Christ

By Hillary Asbury –

I’ve always been pretty sensitive to violence. There are plenty of films and TV shows that I simply cannot get through without covering my eyes, and sometimes my ears. In fact, just the other night, I was watching a show, opened my eyes a little too soon during a particularly graphic scene, and almost wretched. I’m an artist; I’m very visual, and sometimes I think I can’t watch something like that without experiencing it in my mind. I see it happen (or read it), and I automatically go to that place with the character. I know it’s not real, but I react to it as if it is. I wish I were better at handling it, but I find violence, even if very fake, upsetting.

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Identity in the Depths

By Hillary Asbury –

Lately I have been reflecting on the unique challenges one faces when maintaining a creative career.

It’s a little odd, building a business by manufacturing products based on one’s private thoughts and feelings. My thoughts are inspired by many things—by experiences and certainly by Scripture. Those thoughts coalesce into a vision, and that vision eventually becomes a piece of artwork, which I will likely sell. Sometimes it feels as though I am selling my heart, my mind, my soul. It’s why, as a young artist, I found it difficult to let go of my work or sell it. It’s why many artists struggle to price their paintings.

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Art is a Language we all Speak

By Hillary Asbury –

My favorite thing about studying in Italy was getting the chance to travel and see religious art and architecture around the country.

The history was so rich, and I absolutely relished being surrounded by it. Everywhere I traveled there was a main cathedral, usually at the city center, always referred to as the “Duomo,” not for the often domed architecture but for the Latin word for “house.” As the city’s main dwelling place of God, it was often built imposingly large, made to be visible (and the campanile, or bell tower, heard) from any point in the city. It was a beacon, the center of daily life.

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A Little Art Goes a Long Way

By Hillary Asbury –

I have yet to encounter a single church body that does not utilize a logo or image of some kind to represent them. It may be a simple cross or dove, perhaps just a square of color overlaid with the church’s name. But there it is, a symbol of the church’s identity; it communicates their heart and mission, who they are as a congregation, how they want to be seen by the world. It’s a big task for a small piece of art, but its value is unmistakable.

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Victory

By Hillary Asbury –

The triumphant cross has long been one of my favorite representations of the cross.

There is something so elegant about what is says about our Savior. The cross sits atop an orb which represents the Earth—that’s all it is. It is so simple, but it says so much. It represents Christ as Savior. Christ as King over all. Christ victorious. Christ arisen. It tells of a God, a Creator, whose creation has rebelled over and over again, bringing death upon themselves and the world they were given. It speaks of a Creator who purchases and creates new life for a sinful planet.

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