Canvas Painting Ideas With Quotes

But it so happens that everything on this planet is, ultimately, irrational; there is not, and cannot be, any reason for the causal connexion of things, if only because our use of the word "reason" already implies the idea of causal connexion. But, even if we avoid this fundamental difficulty, Hume said that causal connexion was not merely unprovable, but unthinkable; and, in shallower waters still, one cannot assign a true reason why water should flow down hill, or sugar taste sweet in the mouth. Attempts to explain these simple matters always progress into a learned lucidity, and on further analysis retire to a remote stronghold where every thing is irrational and unthinkable. If you cut off a man's head, he dies. Why? Because it kills him. That is really the whole answer. Learned excursions into anatomy and physiology only beg the question; it does not explain why the heart is necessary to life to say that it is a vital organ. Yet that is exactly what is done, the trick that is played on every inquiring mind. Why cannot I see in the dark? Because light is necessary to sight. No confusion of that issue by talk of rods and cones, and optical centres, and foci, and lenses, and vibrations is very different to Edwin Arthwait's treatment of the long-suffering English language. Knowledge is really confined to experience. The laws of Nature are, as Kant said, the laws of our minds, and, as Huxley said, the generalization of observed facts. It is, therefore, no argument against ceremonial magic to say that it is "absurd" to try to raise a thunderstorm by beating a drum; it is not even fair to say that you have tried the experiment, found it would not work, and so perceived it to be "impossible." You might as well claim that, as you had taken paint and canvas, and not produced a Rembrandt, it was evident that the pictures attributed to his painting were really produced in quite a different way. You do not see why the skull of a parricide should help you to raise a dead man, as you do not see why the mercury in a thermometer should rise and fall, though you elaborately pretend that you do; and you could not raise a dead man by the aid of the skull of a parricide, just as you could not play the violin like Kreisler; though in the latter case you might modestly add that you thought you could learn. This is not the special pleading of a professed magician; it boils down to the advice not to judge subjects of which you are perfectly ignorant, and is to be found, stated in clearer and lovelier language, in the Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley.

Unlike my father, who blindly churned out one canvas after another, I had real ideas about the artistic life. Seated at my desk, my beret as tight as an acorn’s cap, I projected myself into the world represented in the art books I’d borrowed from the public library. Leafing past the paintings, I would admire the photographs of the artists seated in their garrets, dressed in tattered smocks and frowning in the direction of their beefy nude models. To spend your days in the company of naked men – that was the life for me. ‘Turn a bit to the left, Jean-Claude. I long to capture the playful quality of your buttocks.

Never fear having your ideas stolen. Your creative idea is a image you are painting like a picture on a canvas, they may "steal" your idea, however they cannot steal your paints.

Cath didn’t feel like a mistake to him. She felt like a beginning. A clean canvas, ready to be painted. A gorgeous new idea.

My hands are flowing like sunlight. The shapes and colors are astounding. I don't understand these images that are empowering me. My brush touches the canvas like photons to the earth, and a new world develops, free from my control, yet intrinsically dependent upon me. I am sweating with elation. I have no idea what I am doing, or what it is my hands are trying to see. There is so much strength in this clarity I am overpowered by the independence of it.

To return to the moment of radical innocence. To paint. To stretch canvas. To find the point of originality. It wasn't a hippie idea. Both of us always hated the hippies, their flowers, their poems, their one idea. We were the furthest thing from hippies. We were the edge, the definers.

I used to flirt with fundamentalism, and I had this idea that creation was something that happened. Now I see creation as something that is happening. Hundreds of millions of stars are still being born every day. Creation is an ongoing process. The Artist has not yet cleaned out the brushes. The paint is still wet. Human beings are the small clumps of clay and breath, and we have been handed brushes of our own, like young artist apprentices. The brushes aren't ours, nor the paint or canvas, but here they are in our hands, on loan. What shall we make?

I want to back up to this whole caring about me thing,” he said, surprising me as he made his way back to the canvas. “I know you care about me, Mallory.” My heart started beating fast as he shook the can. “I care about you.” He knelt halfway down. A second passed and he moved his arm, spraying on the canvas. “And I think this was missing something.” Having no idea what he was doing or where he was going with this, I waited until he rose and stepped back, to the side. My lips parted on a soft gasp. Rider had spray-painted a heart between our names. I saw it with my own eyes: Rider ღ Mallory Angling toward me, his grin was sheepish. Boyish. “That was probably really corny, wasn’t it?” My heart was doing overtime, thumping so fast I thought I might have a heart attack. “Or it was too much?” He tossed the can in a nearby trash can and slowly approached me. His cheeks were a vibrant pink.

This book is destined to make waves no matter which ocean you throw it into. This is the first book Jarod's put together, mainly because he had such a hard time figuring out how to glue the pages to the spine. You'll laugh as you explore the mind of a madman as he emails seemingly random companies and institutions about bizarre things, and strange suggestions. With his surreal thoughts and ideas, Jarod paints a picture so vividly in the reader's mind that they'd think he was actually using their gray matter as a canvas. But don't worry, you can read this knowing that he will not spill paint on your favorite shirt. If laughing were a buffet, you'll eat so much with this book that you'll throw up. I recommend you read this book over a toilet.

I SEEK SOLACE IN THE CRIMSON SUNRISE, That splashes the east with beauty; I am captivated by the azure skies, Which follow with an air of serenity! I watch the color of the seas That paints the canvas of my heart; I brush my thoughts with the elegant breeze That translates my ideas to art! The dainty garden of beauteous flowers - Red, yellow, lilac and white - Toss and frolic in breezy hours Spreading the waves of lucid delight. The hills covered with foliage green, And the faded ones, blue and grey, Enthrall me as my eyes glean Their glimpses while I move away. Each speck of dust, each grain of rice, And the farms reflect life and mirth; Colors of nature, at ease, entice, Bringing the sweet scent of earth. I chase the mesmerizing butterflies Laden with hues of heaven, Solitude becomes a joyous exercise. When by beauty, I am madly driven! The world is filled with colors galore, Each day is a colorful festivity; Every moment you amass more and more, There is no end to beauty!

The Book Lover:- See how I have come up in the World, because of my books. I pull the covers agape, pages release their cargo and words fly like birds each with its own song. Listen, and vowels will breathe like flutes in your head, Consonants tick-tack like woodpeckers, and sibilants, sly as asps, bite the plosives that pop from our pressed lips. A picture worth a thousand words? You paint a score of trees, dark needled, stippled and stroked across your canvas: My book say ‘’forrest’’ (Feel that Pine green touch) You wash your paper with azures and turquoise, set ship after ship, sails wind-pregnant, As far as the daubed horizon: my books say ‘’armada’’. (Smell that sea-green scent) Art’s shape is their noun, its colour their objective, Its tone their adverb; my books match the grammar of landscapes. This book may say ‘Socrates’ secrets, Freud’s autopsy of actions or Heaney’s verses; Every idea dreamed by man caught, black stamped for all time, within its cardboard confines. Here the past speaks to us, as the future will, in the language of our senses. Step up book by book- In time, you will reach the stars.

All credit to the men who invented paint and canvas, but there’s more credit, eh? to the Raphaels and Holbeins who used those discoveries! Laennec and Osler, those are the men! It’s all very fine, this business of pure research: seeking the truth, unhampered by commercialism or fame-chasing. Getting to the bottom. Ignoring consequences and practical uses. But do you realize if you carry that idea far enough, a man could justify himself for doing nothing but count the cobblestones on Warehouse Avenue — yes and justify himself for torturing people just to see how they screamed — and then sneer at a man who was making millions of people well and happy!

But Hannah's friend didn’t understand the volatile balancing act between art and sanity, that the act of creation was like walking a tightrope during an earthquake. She didn’t understand Hannah’s stupid need for validation, or that the size of the audience increased the stakes and multiplied the fear. She didn’t understand that creativity was dangerous, that, yes, there were some people who could stand before a canvas, paint a sunset that would bring the world to its knees, and return to their loved ones as a complete person who didn’t hurt, didn’t cry, didn’t spill blood to appease the host of fickle muses. But Hannah did. Hannah’s best ideas—sometimes her only ideas—were buried beneath the skin.

I was dressed to leave the house, and was crossing the stage on my way out, when he tapped me on the shoulder. Never shall I forget the repulsive sight that met my eye when I turned round. He was dressed for the pantomimes in all the absurdity of a clown’s costume. The spectral figures in the Dance of Death, the most frightful shapes that the ablest painter ever portrayed on canvas, never presented an appearance half so ghastly. His bloated body and shrunken legs — their deformity enhanced a hundredfold by the fantastic dress — the glassy eyes, contrasting fearfully with the thick white paint with which the face was besmeared; the grotesquely-ornamented head, trembling with paralysis, and the long skinny hands, rubbed with white chalk — all gave him a hideous and unnatural appearance, of which no description could convey an adequate idea, and which, to this day, I shudder to think of. His voice was hollow and tremulous as he took me aside, and in broken words recounted a long catalogue of sickness and privations, terminating as usual with an urgent request for the loan of a trifling sum of money. I put a few shillings in his hand, and as I turned away I heard the roar of laughter which followed his first tumble on the stage.

Ronan's trying to wake up the world. I'm trying to think of how to talk him out of it, but what he's talking about is a world where she never fell asleep. A world where Matthew's just a kid. A world where it doesn't matter what Hennessy does, if something happens to her. A level playing field. I don't think it's a good idea, but it's not like I can't see the appeal, because now I'm biased, I'm too biased to be clear." Declan shook his head a little. "I said I would never become my father, anything like him. And now look at me. At us." Ah, there it was. It took no effort to remember the way he'd looked at her the first moment he realized she was a dream. "I'm a dream," Jordan said. "I'm not your dream." Declan put his chin in his hand and looked back out the window; that, too, would be a good portrait. Perhaps it was just because she liked looking at him that she thought each pose would make a good one. A series. What a future that idea promised, nights upon nights like this, him sitting there, her standing here. "By the time we're married," Declan said eventually, "I want you to have applied for a different studio in this place because this man's paintings are very ugly." Her pulse gently skipped two beats before continuing on as before. "I don't have a social security number of my own, Pozzi." "I'll buy you one," Declan said. "You can wear it in place of a ring." The two of them looked at each other past the canvas on her easel. Finally, he said, voice soft, "I should see the painting now." "Are you sure?" "It's time, Jordan." Putting his jacket to the side, he stood. He waited. He would not come around to look without an invite. It's time, Jordan. Jordan had never been truly honest with anyone who didn't wear Hennessy's face. Showing him this painting, this original, felt like being more honest than she had ever been in her life. She stepped back to give him room. Declan took it in. His eyes flickered to and from the likeness, from the jacket on Portrait Declan's leg to the real jacket he'd left behind on the chair. She watched his gaze follow the line edge she had taken such care to paint, that subtle electricity of complementary colors at the edge of his form. "It's very good," Declan muttered. "Jordan, it's very good." "I thought it might be." "I don't know if it's a sweetmetal. But you're very good." "I thought I might be." "The next one will be even better." "I think it might be." "And in ten years your scandalous masterpiece will get you thrown out of France, too," he said. "And later you can triumphantly sell it to the Met. Children will write papers about you. People like me will tell stories about you to their dates at museums to make them think they're interesting." She kissed him. He kissed her. And this kiss, too, got all wrapped up in the art-making of the portrait sitting on the easel beside them, getting all mixed in with all the other sights and sounds and feelings that had become part of the process. It was very good.

I decide to be proactive. “Hey, be careful with them apples,” I call out, imitating a harsh Mike voice. Mike always shows up in his ragged, half-rotten clothes and tells us how to do things, like he’s some kind of big expert. All faces turn toward me, including Dutch’s equine one. Dutch cants his head to one side to examine me with one great eye. They all get the joke and laugh. Mark tosses me an apple. It comes tumbling to me in a long golden arc like something out of mythology. The throw is so expert that I easily catch it. I take a bite, and get lost for a moment in its sweet juiciness, get lost in the whole idea of an apple tree, how it makes sweet food out of sunlight and earth. I think about how the tree spreads out above ground to catch air and light and below ground to catch water, minerals, and nourishment; about how at the end of the season it drops its leaves at its feet to reabsorb their nutrients. There is such Knowingness in this bite that I feel I have just eaten from the tree of knowledge. Stewart looks benevolently down at me from Dutch’s back. He is only twenty and has a ruddy face that glows with health and openness. He embodies the very bloom of youth. His young muscled body sits easily on the horse; his dark brown eyes are alive with merriment and friendliness. The whole scene is like a painting from another time. The Apple Pickers. I see it frozen for a moment, but then, in the silence of our greeting, a jet passes overhead, far away, in a series of deep distant rumbles that makes the canvas shimmer for a moment, reminding me that there is more to this moment than the simplicity that meets the eye.

So, you want to improve your home like you have some knowledge and respect for the endeavor, yes? Very well. First, you need to know the basics associated with it to showcase what type of knowledge you actually have about it. If that is not enough, try reviewing the article listed below to assist you. Home improvement is often a daunting task. This is because of the time and the amounts of money required. However, it doesn't have to be so bad. If you have several projects in your house, divide them up into several smaller DIY projects. For example you may want to redo the entire living room. Start simple, by just replacing the carpet, and before you know it, your living room will be like new. One great way to make the inside of your home sparkle is to put new molding in. New molding helps create a fresh sense in your living space. You can purchase special molding with beautiful carvings on them to add a unique touch of elegance and style to your home. When it comes to home improvement, consider replacing your windows and doors. This not only has a chance of greatly improving the value of the home, but may also severely decrease the amount of money required to keep your house warm and dry. You can also add extra security with new doors and windows. Change your shower curtain once a month. Showering produces excessive humidity in a bathroom that in turn causes shower curtains to develop mold and mildew. To keep your space fresh and healthy, replace your curtains. Don't buy expensive plastic curtains with hard to find designs, and you won't feel bad about replacing it. Sprucing up your walls with art is a great improvement idea, but it doesn't have to be a painting. You can use practically anything for artwork. For instance, a three-dimensional tile works great if you contrast the colors. You can even buy some canvas and a frame and paint colored squares. Anything colorful can work as art. If you are renovating your kitchen but need to spend less money, consider using laminate flooring and countertops. These synthetic options are generally much less expensive than wood, tile, or stone. They are also easier to care for. Many of these products are designed to closely mimic the natural products, so that the difference is only visible on close inspection. New wallpaper can transform a room. Before you add wallpaper, you need to find out what type of wall is under the existing wallpaper. Usually walls are either drywall or plaster smoothed over lath. You can figure out what kind of wall you are dealing with by feeling the wall, plaster is harder, smoother, and colder than drywall. You can also try tapping the wall, drywall sounds hollow while plaster does not. Ah, you have read the aforementioned article, or you wouldn't be down here reading through the conclusion. Well done! That article should have provided you with a proper foundation of what it takes to properly and safely improve your home. If any questions still remain, try reviewing the article again.

I decide to be proactive. “Hey, be careful with them apples,” I call out, imitating a harsh Mike voice. Mike always shows up in his ragged, half-rotten clothes and tells us how to do things, like he’s some kind of big expert. All faces turn toward me, including Dutch’s equine one. Dutch cants his head to one side to examine me with one great eye. They all get the joke and laugh. Mark tosses me an apple. It comes tumbling to me in a long golden arc like something out of mythology. The throw is so expert that I easily catch it. I take a bite, and get lost for a moment in its sweet juiciness, get lost in the whole idea of an apple tree, how it makes sweet food out of sunlight and earth. I think about how the tree spreads out above ground to catch air and light and below ground to catch water, minerals, and nourishment; about how at the end of the season it drops its leaves at its feet to reabsorb their nutrients. There is such Knowingness in this bite that I feel I have just eaten from the tree of knowledge. Stewart looks benevolently down at me from Dutch’s back. He is only twenty and has a ruddy face that glows with health and openness. He embodies the very bloom of youth. His young muscled body sits easily on the horse; his dark brown eyes are alive with merriment and friendliness. The whole scene is like a painting from another time. The Apple Pickers. I see it frozen for a moment, but then, in the silence of our greeting, a jet passes overhead, far away, in a series of deep distant rumbles that makes the canvas shimmer for a moment, reminding me that there is more to this moment than the simplicity that meets the eye. We stand quietly for awhile eating these first

decide to be proactive. “Hey, be careful with them apples,” I call out, imitating a harsh Mike voice. Mike always shows up in his ragged, half-rotten clothes and tells us how to do things, like he’s some kind of big expert. All faces turn toward me, including Dutch’s equine one. Dutch cants his head to one side to examine me with one great eye. They all get the joke and laugh. Mark tosses me an apple. It comes tumbling to me in a long golden arc like something out of mythology. The throw is so expert that I easily catch it. I take a bite, and get lost for a moment in its sweet juiciness, get lost in the whole idea of an apple tree, how it makes sweet food out of sunlight and earth. I think about how the tree spreads out above ground to catch air and light and below ground to catch water, minerals, and nourishment; about how at the end of the season it drops its leaves at its feet to reabsorb their nutrients. There is such Knowingness in this bite that I feel I have just eaten from the tree of knowledge. Stewart looks benevolently down at me from Dutch’s back. He is only twenty and has a ruddy face that glows with health and openness. He embodies the very bloom of youth. His young muscled body sits easily on the horse; his dark brown eyes are alive with merriment and friendliness. The whole scene is like a painting from another time. The Apple Pickers. I see it frozen for a moment, but then, in the silence of our greeting, a jet passes overhead, far away, in a series of deep distant rumbles that makes the canvas shimmer for a moment, reminding me that there is more to this moment than the simplicity that meets the eye.

You are an artist and your masterpiece is your life. Your world is the canvas. Your desires and ideas are the sketches. Your thoughts, words, and attitudes are the paint. Your body is the brush. Your actions are the strokes. Your beliefs are the skills you use to apply the paint. Your faith and gratitude determine how extraordinary your work of art is.

Human history is the canvas, and imagination is the paint.

The walls were painted a robin's-egg blue. Antique wood-and-glass display cases had mottled milk chocolate-brown marble countertops. Antique iron-and-glass stands would make the future little cakes (under their glass domes) pop up and down on the counter like jaunty hats. From the top of the left wall of the bakery, Gavin had hung a canvas curtain and arranged a display area in front of it. Both the curtain and display would change each month- as would, of course, the colors and flavors we showcased. The idea was to sell not only cakes, but also cake stands, serving pieces, plates, paper napkins, and other goodies, so once your little cakes got home, they'd look as good as they did in my bakery. One-stop shopping. On the right, Gavin had arranged a seating area with dark bentwood chairs and cafe tables. It looked like a tea salon in Paris. I sighed with delight. But I wanted to see where I would spend most of my time. The work and storage areas were screened off in the back, although I would have been happy to show off my two Vulcan convection-ovens-on-wheels and the big stainless steel worktable with the cool marble slab at one end for chocolate work. The calm milk-chocolate plaster walls, stainless steel, and white marble made the workspace look like a shrine to the cake baker's art.

The introduction sets the scene and gives elaborate physical and mental portraits of the actors. This portrait gallery is an astounding performance, as a piece of writing hardly ever equalled. They are monstrous figures, well over life size, painted with extreme naturalism, yet crystallised to an individuality the naturalist school never attained. De Sade is absolutely merciless; we are not spared a single wrinkle, a single sore, unpleasant smell or habit, not a single meanness or treachery; no detail of cowardice or filth is hidden. But the canvas is not monotonous; religion and beauty are there too, childishness and romanticism; the whole gamut of human possibilities are exhibited in their extremest development.

I could still remember the sharp scent of varnish and turpentine in my nose, the careful, steady hands of the man bent over a Gustav Klimt painting. I’d watched raptly as the man carefully peeled back the layers of dirt and the patina of time from the old canvas. One side was dull and grey-brown, the other slowly coming to life in vivid color the way it had looked at its inception. It was magic. The purest form I’d ever seen. Something about it resonated with me then as it did now. The idea that with careful dedication, you could unearth your truest self even after years of brutal wear and tear. It gave me hope.

The philosophical view known as Idealism posits that reality is, in some necessary way, linked with and dependent on cognitive perception and the understanding of ideas. This is not necessarily to say that the physical matter of one’s body or things outside of one’s body occur only in consciousness, but that one’s knowledge of their reality only occurs in consciousness and thus, their reality is interdependent on consciousness. Even if one doesn’t agree with Idealism, one could still agree with the premise that our mind creates – or allows – our sense and experience of being. And so, if our mind and consciousness are lost upon death, then we are faced with a non-being of reality. A point at which we could no longer even imagine everything in the universe being removed because, as the imaginer, we would be too. This of course would potentially be the absolute nothing. It is strange and rather terrifying to consider this; that we can be something for now and nothing forever. But perhaps only because of the fact that we are nothing forever, can we be something for now. A negation of all other things across all other time and space, a being amidst everything else, and nothing more; and perhaps only because of which, we are something right now. The nothing comes first. Nothingness precedes consciousness, and the conscious act of negating, or imagining nothing, is an act that is derived from the nothingness. In other words, the non-being acts on being, allowing the intellect to negate everything except itself back to it. For example, by self-identifying our self as our self, we have determined that we are our self minus everything else, which is to also say, we are who we are and nothing else. Our total sum of perceptions and understandings, all determined through this same process of negating every individual thing from everything else, consolidates into the last and final negation of self-knowledge. Nothing isn’t the opposite of being nor what everything come from per se, but what allows something to be at all. It is possible that nothing doesn’t necessarily create everything but rather, serves as the backdrop that allows everything. Like a blank canvas is to the painting, nothingness is to the being of the canvas itself. Likewise, to the painter painting and every particle involved. It could then follow that, at the risk of more seemingly rhetorical wordplay, everything and nothing are one, in simultaneous, interlocked coordination with one another, everything contained by nothing, nothing supposed by everything. The blank canvas to the painting. The nothingness to all space and time. In the words of Alan Watts, “So in this way, by seeing that nothingness is the fundamental reality, and you see it’s your reality, then how can anything contaminate you? All the ideas of you being scared and put out and worried and so on, it’s just nothing. It’s a dream. Because you’re really nothing. But this is the most incredible nothing. So, cheer up! You see?

Please allow me to wax philosophical. The purpose of eyesight, as well as insight for that matter, is for you and I to be in awe of not just creation itself but of the very One who created it. I will confidently propose that this is the purpose behind creation. Consider this: Evolution cannot explain purpose. It can only explain function. Science can explain how and why you and I function. It might even suggest your function within society. However, science alone will never give you the answer to your ultimate purpose for being on this Earth. “Let’s suppose you go to an art museum. While pursuing the halls of art, your eyes are directed to a certain painting. You become fixated on that painting. It is beautiful. The painting is so mesmerizing and beautiful that you are taken with the image it conveys. You begin to speculate on the story behind the painting. You become emotional and even shed a tear as you stare at it in wonder. For a brief moment in time you become immersed in the essence of this work of art. What is happening here? The one who designed and created the painting did so in order to perhaps bring about an emotional response from the viewer. You didn’t look at the painting and wonder about the chemical makeup of paint or the composition of the canvas mat or what type of device was used to apply those chemical compounds to the mat. You didn’t measure the dimensions of the frame. No. The painter gave that painting a purpose. While the painting itself is remarkable and beautiful, the ultimate purpose of it is to direct you to the one who created it. We give honor to Rembrandt, Monet, Goya, Van Gogh, and Picasso. Why does evolution deny that we give honor to the One who designed, created, and gave beauty to you and me, or to any other created thing? For sure, some evolutionists will try to say that the method the grand Creator used in His creation was evolution but will continue to ignore any mention of His creative hand and minimize other accounts such as the evidence for the origin of life in Scripture. They suppress the truth as they give high honor to their evolutionary theories that they guard with defiance. “The appearance of design isn’t just a common sense factor; it comes from a scientific explanation to which I have spoken here tonight. “Each one of you has the ability to hear, read, study, and think on everything that goes into your mind. While we do well to consider objective theory, we still must then decide for ourselves what it is we are going to believe. We are not just lab rats responding to stimuli. We have the ability to reason, love, express emotions, think deeply on matters, and create things—not just as an evolutionary function but from our innate giftedness and developed talents. “Give much consideration to what is true. Consider what is splendid and beautiful and magnificent. Think on things that are right or lovely or worthy of your admiration. Reflect on those things, not just as some facts of science but on the effect these things have on your very heart and soul. There is a word for those thoughts and feelings that penetrate deep within the depths of your soul. The word is visceral. No other creature on this privileged terrestrial ball has this ability. Visceral feelings are not merely a product of our DNA or the chemical and electrical impulses within our brain. Evolution offers no explanation for these deeply rooted expressions of artistic and creative thoughts and ideas. These things come from our Creator. May we not merely skim the surface of wisdom and knowledge without ever going deep. These things are meant to propel you to a deeper awareness of the world around you. They are even meant to propel us to the eternal realm.

And this is a question no one had asked – why had He not painted again? Out of fear that He’d have to recycle this canvas? Though it seems an odd accusation to the all powerful that He would, of all things, run out of space. But no, I would say He never painted again because He ran out of ideas. Perhaps, like the best of us, He knew He had only one story in Him. One story. And He had written it all in every aspect of the world, from each pillar-like mountain to vaulting sky.

In the world of startups and entrepreneurship, a pitch deck is your canvas, and your ideas are the paint. Craft it wisely, and you'll create a masterpiece that attracts investors and partners.

A bubble is a fragile thing, and often in the evening the professors talked worriedly about its bursting. They worried about political correctness, about their colleague on TV with a twenty-year-old female student screaming abuse into her face from a distance of three inches because of a disagreement over campus journalism, their colleague in another TV news story abused for not wanting to ban Pocahontas costumes on Halloween, their colleague forced to take at least one seminar’s sabbatical because he had not sufficiently defended a student’s “safe space” from the intrusion of ideas that student deemed too “unsafe” for her young mind to encounter, their colleague defying a student petition to remove a statue of President Jefferson from his college campus in spite of the repressible fact that Jefferson had owned slaves, their colleague excoriated by students with evangelical Christian family histories for asking them to read a graphic novel by a lesbian cartoonist, their colleague forced to cancel a production of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues because by defining women as persons with vaginas it discriminated against persons identifying as female who did not possess vaginas, their colleagues resisting student efforts to “de-platform” apostate Muslims because their views were offensive to non-apostate Muslims. They worried that young people were becoming pro-censorship, pro-banning-things, pro-restrictions, how did that happen, they asked me, the narrowing of the youthful American mind, we’re beginning to fear the young. “Not you, of course, darling, who could be scared of you,” my mother reassured me, to which my father countered, “Scared for you, yes. Vith this Trotskyist beard you insist on wearing you look like an ice-pick target to me. Avoid Mexico City, especially de Coyoacán neighborhood. This iss my advice.” In the evenings they sat in pools of yellow light, books on their laps, lost in words. They looked like figures in a Rembrandt painting, Two Philosophers Deep in Meditation, and they were more valuable than any canvas; maybe members of the last generation of their kind, and we, we who are post-, who come after, will regret we did not learn more at their feet.

The watercolor sky—silver fading to blue fading to black, the high slice of moon and glimmering stars—reminded her that she’d always wanted to paint but didn’t know how, was in some ways afraid of the idea of putting brush to canvas, of making a mark that couldn’t be erased. The idea that she might create something that was laughable, pitiable, or silly had stopped her from ever taking a class or even buying paints. Foolish. It was foolish.

I used to flirt with fundamentalism, and I had this idea that creation was something that happened. Now I see creation as something happening. Hundreds of millions of stars are still being born every day. Creation is an ongoing process. The Artist has not yet cleaned out the brushes. The paint is still wet. Human beings are the small clumps of clay and breath, and we have been handed brushes of our own, like young artist apprentices. The brushes aren't ours, nor the paint or canvas, but here they are in our hands, on loan. What shall we make?