A.R. Danziger, Art & Design

 Hello faithful Blog subscribers! You may have noticed that I've been on a long hiatus. In 2023 I began work on a graphic novel, both writing the script and drawing all the art. If you'd like to learn more about my current project, I've started writing over at Substack. It's free to subscribe, and you won't miss my monthly updates. Back to the Old Drawing Board I offer updates on my graphic novel along with commentary on culture, faith, comics, and tea drinking. I wanted to continue here, but Blogger has made it all but impossible to share my posts on social media, or even upload images to this post.  I'll leave this up as a portfolio site, but going forward I'll see you on Substack. Thanks for sticking with me. I think you'll really like what's next.

Why did the Celts decorate their crosses? Let's take a little trip through the ages to find the inspiration that sparked the Celtic imagination: To begin with, the pre-Christian Celts already had a tradition of decorative stone carving. The Picts chisled spirals, key patterns, and other designs into boulders that possibly served as boundary and land markers.  In the 8th century, more and more slabs featured large cross shapes filled with spirals, keys, and intricate interlaced knotwork. This coincided with Irish Gaels and Anglo-Saxons pushing into Pictish lands, bringing Christianity along with them. Aberlemno Cross Slab ( Anne Burgess / Aberlemno Cross ) The Irish high crosses, as I explained in my last post , often displayed saints, biblical figures, and Christ surrounded by a ring which could represent the victory wreath, eternal life, or the cosmos. These concepts and imagery travelled along with clerics, missionaries, and pilgrims from Rome, Jerusalem, and perhaps even Egypt. ...

  Why are some Celtic crosses surrounded by a ring shape? If you ask this on an internet forum, the stock answer is that it's a leftover from the time of sun worship: some sort of compromise with the pagans. I have even heard it asserted that Celtic crosses existed before Christianity. So, I set out to find whether this was true. Turning to art history and archaeology, I found that there are no carved stone crosses in Ireland or Britain before the 8th century.  The earliest surviving Irish standing high crosses, Pictish stones with crosses and Christian motifs, and the Northumbrian crosses all date to around 800 A.D. This is centuries after the Gospel was first proclaimed in the British Isles, well after the establishment of monasteries, and over 100 years after the Synod of Whitby. The term "sun cross" was coined after World War II and refers to European Bronze Age sun chariot wheels created by sun worshiping cultures. As you can see, these are quite different objects al...

Book of Armagh, Folio 54 [ie 55]r I wonder sometimes how St. Patrick so thoroughly won over the Irish for Christianity during his time.  It was the Holy Spirit of course, because no such thing can be accomplished by advertising or slick social media campaigns, especially not during the 5th century. Were they expecting someone like Patrick to come? In the book of Armagh (7th century) we find a biography of St. Patrick by Muirchu who claims King Loegaire's druids, Lochia and Luchat Mael prophesied: "A Tailcenn* will come over the raging sea, with his perforated garment, his crook-headed staff, With his table at the east end of his house, and all his people will answer 'Amen, Amen.'" *bald-head, referring to the Roman clerical tonsure When St. Patrick and his missionary companions finally landed in Ireland and began their ministry, Loegaire, the High King, summoned all of his chieftains and druids to a great feast on the Hill of Tara. Patrick saw a golden opportu...

Easter greetings, everyone! Here’s a recently finished Celtic knot cross; my latest in a series of Celtic motif paintings. I’ve also just completed a major update to my website. While I love all styles of medieval art from Mozarabic to International Gothic, I’ve changed my quatrefoil logo to a Celtic knot logo to reflect my particular love for the Early Christian Art of the British Isles. I think Celtic knotwork speaks of the eternal—  the underlying harmony and order of the universe necessary for life and beauty to flourish.  I’ve been wanting to write more on the subject, especially in response to some great content on Substack recently, but some technical difficulties kept me from easily sharing my Blogger posts.  That’s solved now, but my domain name “ardanziger.com” redirects here to my old Blogger handle “ionascribe.blogspot.com.”  That seems somehow appropriate these days. I don’t want to jump onto a trendy new platform; I’d prefer my articles remain accessib...

I painted some Celtic style art this past week to place in my neighborhood for my neighbors to find and take home.  I haven't painted in a while, but I felt inspired by some combination of Art and Found Day, my great enthusiasm for St. Patrick's Day, and by the volunteers who have been working hard to clean up trash in my part of the city.  I really wanted to give something back to this community and add to the beauty of it in some small way. It was fun to find places to hide them; especially since I love labyrinths, and we happen to have a couple small ones in the corner of a local park. Whoever found each one, I hope you enjoy it! Thanks for being my neighbor!

Hello everyone! I've been hanging on to some of my artwork for too long. I need to sell it to make room for other projects. Local delivery only to the greater Seattle area. If you really want it shipped I'll have to charge you $50 for shipping fees and packing supplies. Please contact me at ardanziger@gmail.com   or text 585-507-7633. Crucifixion with Old Testament Typology: Ink, watercolor, and metal leaf on illustration board. Custom frame. 17.5" x 24" $300   SOLD ------------ Seattle Apocalypse Acrylic on gessoed panel board. 16" x 20" $300 Reserved for Auction ------------ Woman Clothed with the Sun Acrylic and metal leaf on 2" deep cradled panel board. Unfinished sides. 24" x 18" x 2" $200 SOLD at North American Martyrs Parish auction. ------------ Revelation Set: The Woman Riding the Beast vs. The Wedding Supper of the Lamb Acrylic on gessoed panel board each one 12" x 12" This is meant to be a set. $25 each or $40 for b...

I'm excited to announce that my painting "Seattle Apocalypse" has been in two shows now.   The first was the Southwest Artist Showcase at the Southwest branch of the Seattle Public Library in October 2021. The second is happening right now until February 10th, 2022.  It's an online international exhibition entitled "EXTINCTION - 2021: Save the Planet", featuring art with environmental themes.   The link to the exhibition is here (I'm #27 in the ranked sort!):  Gallerium: Extinction - 2021 | Smart Online Exhibition My page where you can purchase the piece is here:  Gallerium: Extinction - 2021 | Seattle Apocalypse

I finally completed a painting I've been working on since last summer.  Poster prints on archival heavyweight paper are available here . La Sagrada Família / The Holy family by A.R. Danziger. Acrylic and metal leaf on wooden panel, 30" x 24". This will be hanging up in Holy Family Bilingual Catholic School where my daughter has been flourishing in the school's dual language (English/Spanish) immersion program. It's a very special school; Christ-centered with a family atmosphere. Their motto is: "One family, diverse in backgrounds, united in faith."  I felt inspired to work in a style that represented this vision, so I looked to early Medieval Spanish art which combined so many diverse cultures into something unique and beautiful to serve and glorify Our Lord. The outer border, angels, stars, and background colors were inspired by Mozarabic illuminated manuscripts.  This illustration from a commentary on the book of Revelation has unique decorative eleme...

  I actually sketched out this painting 5 years ago and just got around to painting it in March during the first COVID-19 lockdown.  My sense of humor comes out when it seems like the end is nigh: During the Middle Ages, illustrated commentaries on the Apocalypse (Book of Revelation) were quite popular. This piece uses the common conventions for representing the angel blowing the second trumpet (Rev 8:8) but I added details that make it more personal to my experience of living in Seattle.  There are some days when Mt. Rainier is visible from the West Seattle bridge, but the base is obscured by clouds that make it appear to hover in the air.  The fish are sockeye salmon...the dead ones have red pigmentation at the end of their life cycle. The land is covered in native wildflowers; trillium and fringe cup. Also white star flowers and coastal wormwood to forshadow the next trumpet. Here's the same scene from the Cloisters Apocalypse (14th centruy A.D.) for comparison:

I finished this painting early this year. This shows Saint Michael the Archangel casting the devil (represented by a dragon) down out of heaven. I painted it using acrylics and metal leaf. I used the style and conventions found in Romanesque period illuminated manuscripts for my inspiration. This was sold at my daughter's Catholic school auction, and I was very honored to find out that a seminarian won it.

I intend this to be the first in a series of early Scottish saints: Saint Ninian, the first Apostle of Christianity in Scotland  St. Ninian, Bishop of Whithorn, first missionary to Scotland, and Apostle to the Picts (d. 432 A.D.) He is shown here carrying a Gospel book, bishop's crozier, and his bell (the Clogrinny) used for summoning monks to pra y the divine office. His vestments are modelled on the clothes in the Book of Kells, and the geometric lettering is based on the incipit from the Lindisfarne Gospels. Some of the details are a bit anachronistic, but tie him to the town of Whithorn in Dumfries and Galloway where he founded the first church in Scotland, Candida Casa (the White House). The Whithorn crozier is a historic artifact owned by one of Ninian's successors in the 12th century. He stands in the doorway of Whithorn priory's ruins. The cross on his Gospel book is from the Peter Stone at Whithorn. Available on Zazzle

This is still a work in progress, but I completed the inking stage of my latest work. it's a crucifixion scene which incorporates symbolic Medieval conventions, flanked by 6 scenes from the Old Testament that the Early Church Fathers and Medieval theologians viewed as "types" of Christ or of His sacrifice. I worked on this all during Lent and took a short break to work on the "Man of Sorrows" drawing from my last post to test out my new Pigma Micron pens.  I was sad to say goodbye to my faithful Rapidograph drafting pens but they were getting too old and clogged. Now I'm taking another detour and working on a small watercolor piece to prepare to paint this! When it's finally finished, I'll create a small guide with references to all of the passages of Scripture contained in this image.

I finished this drawing of “The Man of Sorrows” in time for Passion Sunday.  This is one of those rare subjects that is traditionally represented the same way in both Eastern icons and Western paintings/ woodcuts.  It was possibly inspired by the Shroud of Turin (previously known as the Image of Edessa before it was taken from Constantinople by Crusaders.)

It's that time of year again when my dear husband carefully prepares home-brewed beer in our garage in anticipation of the parish Oktoberfest.  I've designed a couple of new labels for the occasion, and he has high hopes for these two new batches: For the first I re-did the old label and made it specifically for the Dunkelweizen which he's been refining for the past couple of years: The second is for a roggenbier -  a medieval style of rye beer, which is much like a hefeweizen but using rye grain instead of wheat.  I thought to myself, what could be more suitably medieval than the Harvest of the Earth from Revelation 14 found in 12th century illuminated manuscripts? Here's the one from Paris MS 403 which was my primary inspiration: Here is my version, using Daniel Smith walnut ink: