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Posted: July 6
The brutal heat of June finally lifted a bit, so I decided to celebrate Sunday by going out to do a painting on the spot (what is known as plein aire style) as opposed to working from a photograph. There are many interesting reflections I have read about the difference in sensitivity to light between the human eye and film. Our eyes have Kodak beat solidly. So the theory is that painting on location and using your eyes to see values and colors is the best way to go. Of course, it is also a very public way to try to paint, especially if you are standing on a bridge over the Tiber in the middle of Rome, and tourists pause to gawk ("Look at the waste of good linen at the hands of that oaf!"). Actually, I find painting on the spot somewhat difficult. Sketching in pencil is not so hard, but painting in oil is. The colors are never quite on target, and they usually don't end up exactly where I want them. Of course, I always take a photograph of what I am working on so I can try to finish the piece back home later on. I am not a fast painter, don't know enough to be speedy.
As frustrating as painting can be, it offers a refreshing counter balance to working on the computer, which is what I do most of the time. And that won't change any time soon. I don't think most of the Jesuits here at the Curia appreciate how radically the digital revolution has affected communication. Even Father General wonders why I am so involved in computer technology at the Curia. The answer is that the convergence of different media has created a practically inseparable knot of threads that were once quite separate. The computer is involved in practically all media production in one way or another. And I think that we Jesuits need to be more involved, not less, in discerning what this change means, not only for ourselves but for our world. Some pundits stand outside the new technology and comment on its ethics; I would argue that we need to do our reglection from the inside. Thus the need for a lot of Jesuit R and D in the new media.
Thus also the need for the balance of smelling turpentine and getting your hands dirty.
Last week was very productive on several fronts. I am getting ready to leave for the states for a meeting next week of the Association of Editors of Jesuit Publications, sponsored by Company magazine. The group has been meeting once every summer for five or six years. A different Jesuit university or college hosts the group each year; next week it is St. Peter's College in Jersey City, New Jersey that will do the honors. They always have local professionals give some presentations as well as solid input on Jesuit identity and sharing of the underlying motivation for wanting to be editors. Collectively editors of school and province publications reach many hundreds of thousands of people on a regular basis and play a key role in communicating the Jesuit mission as it plays out at a local level. I am getting a presentation ready on future trends in web site design. It has been very interesting to reflect on what I have learned in the past two years. More on that in the next few days.
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