The visual artist John August Swanson has passed on, September 23, at the age of 83. I never met Mr. Swanson, who lived and worked out in Los Angeles, though I told myself I would try to visit him should I ever be out that way. The closest to any conversation was passing on some messages through his studio assistant. From everything I read or heard about him, he was a lovely, kind, humble person. I loved the iconographic images he created. I also deeply admired how he saw his art as possibly holding in his hands something humble and spiritual, at once convicting to the unrighteous and uplifting to those seeking a just path. I have a few of his works on the walls to encourage me to think along those lines, too (on the best of days), including a signed print of his adaptation of Psalm 85, the scripture embedded in the work:
"Justice and Peace shall kiss, Truth shall spring out of the earth. Kindness and Truth shall meet, Justice shall look down from the heavens."
