the unlikely orange

"day 4" paper and found objects collage on cardboard panel gregory a. milinovich so, here we are, over halfway through the week and the series. since i have only had two commentors on the subject, i am assuming most of you are bored by the topic, so i apologize. maybe you'd rather talk about the incredible joy of eating swedish fish. i mean, how is it that sweden can make gummy candy so much better than the rest of the world? what do they have there in sweden, besides abba and meatballs and ikea? man, those fish are good. i found a discarded bag of swedish fish, all of them eaten, left to float to its final resting place, buried amidst some fast food napkins and soda bottles. i plucked it from its dishonorable position, and glued it to a peice of cardboard, along with some other bits of refuse i found that day. i could have been watching tv or planning a sermon or raising money to help those who are without or getting some much needed rest. but i wasn't. i ...

today is our dog's birthday. actually, we're not sure how old he is, but however many years it is, it is even more in dog years (7 times more, to be exact). however many years its been, they have been rich and fun years. we love our dog so much. we adopted him several years ago, and he has been such a pleasant companion. in so many ways, he was and is our first child, something that got us prepared for childhood in a way that we weren't. now he is like an older brother to jack. actually, its been really fun the last few weeks because jack has taken a new interest in max and wants to play with him and pet him all the time. he follows him around just saying his name over and over. max would rather just sleep than be chased around the house by a toddler armed with a snotty nose, several toy dinosaurs that make distorted roaring noises, and the desire to try to ride the dog. but he patiently puts up with it. he is a very easy going bulldog, our max. i love him so m...

"day 3" paper and found objects collage on cardboard panel gregory a. milinovich so i remember walking through an art museum in washington d.c. when i was 16. i was impressed with the romanticism of some the art, and even more impressed by the realism of other art. i was drawn to those paintings and sculptures that closely imitated the world as i saw it. but i also remember seeing some other, i assume more modern, peices that looked like someone spilled paint on a big canvas (a la jackson pollack). i was unimpressed. i mean, at 16 i considered myself void of any creative or artistic ability and i thought to myself, "even i could spill paint on a canvas. how is this art?" a few years later, while in college, i read an article by derek webb in which he wrote of this very same experience happening to him. he was looking at some modern art with a friend and he said, " anyone could have painted this." his friend's response really made him t...

"day 2" paper and found objects on cardboard panel gregory a. milinovich so here is day two of my 'trash' collection. joel had some interesting things to say in his comments yesterday, about the purpose of art communicating something, and facilitating communion and relationship. as an artist, that seems like such a fearsome call for me, because i'm just so unsure of how to create art that will do that. in fact, i identify more with his earlier statement that postmodern art is often akin to the old testament prophets. when i make a collage, i feel much more like a prophet than a pastor. i feel more like challenging myself and others than anything else. and that leads me back to the idea of garbage/rubbage/trash as art. the prophets used objects around them to make a point. i wonder if this isn't very much the same thing. could our commercialism, our materialism, our consumerism be put on trial by art that juxtapositions its wares in such a way as to show the i...

'day 1" collage on cardboard panel gregory a. milinovich i have always marveled at the beauty of the simple things, especially the beauty of the things we take for granted. i could talk at length, for example, about the colors of the dunkin' donuts logo. anyway, this has led me to some serious questions about trash or waste and art. can something that is essentially garbage be considered art when juxtaposed in a different way, or even on its own? what would make it so or not? further, in a world where garbage threatens to overwhelm us (computers, cars, nuclear waste, etc.), what does it mean to look at our waste in a different way? i guess i don't have the answers to these questions, but my own journey is to examine them. in this context, a few years ago i had the idea to watch for garbage and collect it. so each day for a week i kept my eyes open for garbage wherever i was. i collected it and at the end of the day made a little collage from it. and so i h...

"sleeping president" by Fernando Botero i've had an intense week. our offices moved this week, so i spent the latter part of it, including all of it today so far, lugging things up the stairs and unpacking boxes and putting together a desk and so on and so on. i am exhausted. i haven't even checked my emails. i just checked my emails and i had 67 emails. you've got to be kidding me. so, its a saturday afternoon and...i'm...just...going....to slee......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

"ash wednesday" collage on cardboard panel by gregory a. milinovich ash. it's grey and dark. it's charred and chalky. it's got a certain gritty, grainy texture. i know. i've been helping to lead ash wednesday services for several years now. i love this day, this day of ashes, this somber first day of lent. it's a day when we gather together as communities to recognize our brokenness and our mortality. and as a symbol we are marked with ash. in a symbolic way, we are covered in dust and dirt. grey grit sits on our skin on this day, the same dusty dirt we breath every day, the same skin we all share and settle in. every day. but on this day, this ash-day, this first day, we recognize right from the beginning what we normally try to ignore: that we are ashes to ashes, dust to dust. when i recognize my own brokenness; when i admit my own weakness, when i come to be at peace with my own powerlessness, then God's power is awakened in me in powe...