UNexpected?

God should never have to show up UNexpected.  we should always expect him to show up... in acts when they healed the crippled man... they totally expected God to show up...

"Seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened"

"To Write Love on Her Arms"

 

some of the first shot's I've done with a model...
Model: Christine Glendening
and check out "To Write Love on Her Arms"

© 2009 Charles Hendrix - All Rights Reserved

Photography

a couple of images from a series titled "Church for Ghosts"

 © 2009 Charles Hendrix - All Rights Reserved

Plank.

"I am the plank in my eye"

While wondering why it was that I could see that I had a "plank in my eye" and yet I could not remove it I stumbled upon this simple idea... "I am the plank in my eye". Sometimes the reason we can not remove the plank is because we ARE the plank...

Some times we feel that something is in need of changing but we can't really put our finger on it, or we can put our finger on a couple of things and yet we can't ever make them change. the truth is that they are not the things that are in the way.

I am the plank. I am skewing my own vision, I'm seeing the world THROUGH me. I am my own "rose colored glasses" and I am horribly cracked and scratched. (Wear a scratched pair of sunglasses long enough and you learn not to see the imperfections.) I am the reason that when I do things they do not happen, when I pursue things I do not get them, when I knock the door seems to stay shut.

Now the problem lies in how exactly one goes about removing them self from their own eye?

It seems painfully obvious that "alone" is not the answer to this question. and yet more often than not I am content to attempt just that, as if I could simply jump out of my own way...

"Love over all"

in color:

some of my first attempts at ink drawings... I need to clean my lens...

"Love over all"


random character sketch. this is both his first time in ink and color.


this was my final project from my design class at Trident.
"one to many mushrooms" or "Mario meets the mushrooms"

some things that melt the plastic.

some times I wonder what it is people are more afraid of. Is it that we fear the heat of the flame or is it that we fear losing that which we have become so accustom to hiding behind?

God opens our eyes to things that must be changed, things we must put away, childish things, things of the world. Things that we have learned to live with, or chosen to live with. Many times we find that they are tucked neatly away, hidden behind a mask.

When we first put on our mask it was unnatural and uncomfortable, but as we continue to wear it it becomes natural. We put it on every morning before we get up, and eventually we stop taking it off when we lay down. There comes a point when the mask starts fooling the wearer more and the viewer less. The mask becomes our truth and underneath our truth the secrets still remain. the cleaner we keep the mask the more we want to hide the secrets, the struggles, the imperfections. The mask becomes our truth, and sometimes we forget what it was we used to be, we forget what we would look like with out a mask, we fear that with out the mask we are our secrets.

So the question remains... is it the pain that comes from burning off the plastic that we are scared of, or the losing of the mask and all the secrets underneath?

The truth we must realize is that if the Mask is put to the flame all the stuff hidden underneath it will also be burned away, even the person so that all our imperfections can be burned away and we can see in the mirror a reflection of the one who created us, more than what we were when we began.

I've been putting off starting a project titled "the Masquerade" and I have no doubt that a part of that is because some were inside I know that it will call to question what masks I still hide behind... and I have to ask myself this same question, what is it that I am afraid of?