God gifted his creation with the ability to, themselves, create! If you think about it, this is such a beautiful testimony of the beauty and mystery of us having been created in “his own image”.

These last couple of weeks I’ve been struck with the creativity that surrounds me all day long. Objects crafted, built, painted… words spoken, written, sung… problems determined, investigated, solved… images discovered, captured, displayed…

I’ve decided to try my best at a daily post. One creation of God’s creation each day… for however long I can keep it going :)

On July 16 Dawn and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary by heading to downtown Chicago and spending most of the day walking around Michigan Ave and enjoying the amazing works of art at the Chicago Art Institute.

When it comes to paintings, I probably enjoy 18th-19th century European art the most… particularly the realists of the 19th century - although I would never consider myself schooled on this subject… meaning, art ;). I just love the style, the colors, the techniques, and subject matters of a lot of the pieces that were produced then.

One particular painting that caught both of our eyes was The Song of the Lark by Jules Breton. I This is a pretty well-known painting… but this was my first time seeing it. I was struck by the brilliance of the setting sun. Unfortunately the print below doesn’t do the real thing much justice. I probably spent 10 minutes staring at the woman’s face… imagining what it was exactly that she was hearing, seeing… the relief her skin must have been feeling as the sun’s intensity was wearing thin late in the day…