Last Sunday I did another live painting session, this time at Oak Hills Church in Folsom,California. Here’s the final product and a little about how I came up with the imagery for this piece.
Living the New Life
(Photo transfers, collage, acrylic, wax pastel and dried seedling on cradled wood panel, 30×60″)
As an artist called to bring glory to God, I try to be sensitive and listen to the prompting of the Spirit. This is an ongoing process, sometimes I feel more successful at it, sometimes less. It can seem to be a kind of a crazy thing, even to me, but that is when I step out in faith and grow.
The inspiration for this piece came from Colossians 3:1-4, as I read through it and meditated on it repeatedly, bits and pieces of images came to me and slowly came together as a whole.
Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory. (NLT)
One of the first things that came to me was the thought of heaven, and palm trees, which I first used as a symbol of heaven years ago, after reading passages in Ezekiel where he is going through the true temple in heaven. In those passages, Ezekiel describes the different rooms of the temple, each room having palm trees carved into the doorposts.
Another image that came to me was of a chair, where Christ sits, but it couldn’t just be a chair by itself. In pulling together images from my files, the wings stood out to me and came together with the chair. This seemed right to me but I don’t have any real explanation for it.
Dead birds are a recurring theme in my artworks, often referring to the scripture in Matthew about how God knows when even a sparrow falls, and how much more he watches over each of us. But in this case, we are reminded that we have died to this life and we are being transformed…
Finally, as I was trying to come up with another reference to Christ, I was reminded of how he is called the branch from the stump of Jesse, and at the same time I was reminded of the tree of life in heaven, so the prominent tree seemed appropriate on both accounts.