Welcome to Blue Bull Vineyards

 Full disclosure: “Blue Bull Vineyards” was the working title of a dream that my husband and I once had. We inherited a hundred acres of land just outside of Welcome, Texas and it was filled with bluebonnets and dreams and someone else’s cattle, but was otherwise empty for more than three decades. 

We leased the land to a cattleman who ran fifty head of cattle on it, and that allowed us to have an agricultural exemption on our property taxes. There was originally a little farmhouse on it, close to the road, where we would stay whenever we got the chance. There was a person who was breaking in during our absences, at first just stealing food and drink and leaving the door open when he left. Eventually he was taking paintings, light fixtures, furniture, and even our potbelly stove. A lawyer told us that if the thief hurt himself while breaking into our home, he could sue us and take everything we owned; he advised us to tear the little house down. And so we did. We kept visiting the land, although now we were just camping on a hilltop, well away from the road, but still dreaming of what we would do one day when we could move to and live on the land. 

I’m a painter and my husband is an architect: we are professional dreamers. Our dream was to build a little house on the hill and plant a small vineyard. We had someone who committed to buying our grapes for the first six years, until we had mature fruit for winemaking. The dream sprouted tendrils and grew to include cottages hidden in the groves and along the creek, to house artists or people who needed a place to retreat. Then a U-shaped multi-purpose venue was added to the vision, attractive and easily seen from the road. The main part was going to be a meeting place that would lend itself to wine-tasting, painting workshops, poetry slams, a lending library, local music, and of course double as an art gallery. Its shape allowed for a few bunkrooms which, together with the gallery, would curve around and open onto a flagstone courtyard with a fountain and the view of the beautiful Texas landscape. 

At that time, which was in the mid-two thousand-aughts (when websites were popping up everywhere), we established “Blue Bull Vineyards” as a domain online. Our intention at the time was to have that name, and to eventually grow the website as we grew the dream.

Alas, time and events conspired against us and the ranch was sold, after more than thirty years of dreaming. The thing about dreams though, is that they cannot be sold. They cannot be taken away from you. They are able to grow and deepen and broaden, developing facets that cannot be imagined in their infancy. And this is what happened with “Blue Bull Vineyards.”

The name “Blue Bull Vineyards” has two parts: the bull part and the vineyards. You might not let a bull into your vineyard, no matter what color he is. At least not on purpose. But along with our growing dreams for the land, my husband and I were growing in faith and learning to read the bible. We discovered that in God’s word, there are meanings for things in creation that point to the Creator and how He relates to all that He has made. This would include a bull and a vineyard, as well as the color blue. I will outline our understanding of these things here briefly, beginning with the vineyards. 

The Vineyards:
The vineyard is used in scripture as a metaphor for Israel in the Old Testament. Later, Jesus used vineyards, vines, grapes, and wine to tell many stories in the New Testament in order to help people understand the Triune God and His people. Describing Himself as the true vine and His Father as the vinedresser in John 15, Jesus revealed that our lives can only bear the fruit that they were meant to bear if we are growing as branches of the true vine, tended by the vinedresser. In other words, as children of God, our life’s work flows through our relationship with God, like sap flows through a vine. The fruit that we bear is called “the fruit of the Spirit.” It is the fruit that the Holy Spirit produces in us, and it is not showy or self-aggrandizing. Quite the opposite. A listing of them is found in Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It is for blessing the people in our lives, and also us in the process. Grapes are good; grape juice is yummy, but aged grape juice is intoxicating. The first public miracle of Christ was changing water to wine at a wedding. The servants were told to fill six large stone vessels with water; and that’s all they did. Water flowed in, wine flowed out. The only people who knew that a miracle had taken place were the servants, who just did as they were told, but were blessed in the process. We are only called to share blessings that aren’t even ours. The vineyards symbolize fruitful living and giving with Christ. It is our walk here on earth, from our beginning to our ending.

Blue Bull: (the color and the beast)
The color blue has great symbolic importance to God. Blue was found in the Tabernacle, the Temple, the robes of the priests and rabbis, and even the sacred tablets of The Law were thought to have been written on sapphire stone. It represents infinity, divinity, holiness, and heaven.

The bull was used as an emblem to depict “Aleph,” the silent first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, in the original pictographic drawing. It was a symbol of divinity, fertility, power, and preeminence. The bull was the highest ranking work animal because of its superior strength, and was also the highest ranking and most costly sacrificial animal. Jesus called Himself “the Aleph Tav” (or “the Alpha and Omega” in Greek), which are the first and last letters in the alphabet. The Hebrew pictograph for Tav was a cross, and its Hebrew meaning is “Covenant.” 

(Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the Church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His Cross.
--Colossians 1:15-20    

Jesus Christ is “the Word made Flesh,” and this passage begins with the firstborn of all creation, and ends with His Cross: Aleph Tav. Also, “aleph tav” is untranslatable in Hebrew and stands as a joiner (like “with”) between two things. In the first sentence of the bible, the middle word of the seven Hebrew words of creation is “aleph tav.” It resembles the original menorah in its structure, which had seven lamps, the middle one pointing outward, as though it’s lighting the way to the fullness of the light. The blue bull represents Jesus and those who walk in His way.

The Painting:
Most of our paintings are like parables, telling a simple story on one level while conveying a deeper idea on another. The majority of people want to bring their own meaning to a work of art, and that is understandable. But some people want to know what the artist meant to convey when composing a piece. Well, a painting can be seen in its entirety in just an instant, but stories require time. Time to write and time to read. We don’t have time to spend on things that take a lot of time anymore. We’re more snippet-snackers now. Some paintings on this website took many years to fully conceive and execute; one of them took thirty years from conception to completion. That sort of painting will have many chapters in its story, literally.     
The oil painting that we are using for Blue Bull Vineyards is called “Almost Home.” There’s an expression, “when the cows come home,” that conveys a long and leisurely time that has no deadline per se. It calls to mind the late afternoon in the pastures when the cows start heading for the barn. The bull in this piece was walking across our land, moving from right to left, in the way that Hebrew is written. He was not in a hurry and we saw him just before he reached his destination. He is looking back where he has come from as he continues on to where he is going. The idea behind it is the story of Christ and of His disciples: born to serve, walking through life, ready to be sacrificed when called upon. The life of a bull is one of great value and power, but also one of purpose; the purpose is determined for the bull by the one who owns the bull.  
Jesus, when He was faced with the imminent fulfillment of His worldly purpose—the crucifixion of His earthly body, which would also bear the weight of the world’s sins as well as the wrath of God on our behalf—said that His soul was troubled: “And what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.” This is our Savior, who let His flesh be torn, like the veil in the Temple, so that we could enter into the Holy of Holies: intimate fellowship with the Triune God. His disciples have this as their hope, as it is written in Hebrews 6: 

We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

The Website:
“Blue Bull Vineyards” is meant to be a sort of offering. When you look at the menu, you will find that instead of meat and wine, we serve arts and letters. It’s a collection of our work and we pay to be here, but it’s free to you. It’s a touchpoint, a virtual version of the meeting-place that we once dreamed of, where we can share our wine and poetry, paintings and prose. It’s a lending library that doubles as an art gallery, and we welcome you.
Bonus: 

You don’t even have to go to Texas to visit.