Art Show

Sacrifice = Love = Forgiveness. In the book The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, Corrie writes about her experiences as a Dutch Christian woman whose family is caught hiding Jews during world war II. Subsequently, she is sent to a concentration camp along with her beloved sister Betsy. Eventually, after the camp Corrie goes on to help rehabilitate others hurt by the atrocities of the war through teaching and testifying of Jesus Christ. She preaches to others about the healing power of coming unto Christ, and seems particularly focused on the virtue of forgiveness. A key part of her rehabilitation process is having survivors plant and grow a garden. I wish I could remember this part more accurately {and I wish I still had my copy of the book to draw from} but as I remember Corrie speaks about the connection of gardening and forgiveness–somehow in this relationship of earth, soil, seed and plant lies a catalyst to healing and forgiveness that few other activities have the ability to do. As I contemplated this relationship I came across this scripture: Luke 7:47 Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. Lightbulb. Sacrifice = Love = Forgiveness. I’ve often heard the idea that “You love those whom you serve.” However, I think that when we serve, nurture and sacrifice we don’t just love those who our task was focused on, but we have the ability, if properly cultivated, to have the love of Jesus Christ fill our hearts creating a more universal and broad love that stretches out to the whole of humanity. At least, that’s my theory. And once we are filled with Christ’s love or charity, forgiveness {the most difficult of all Christian virtues in my opinion} can and will come more readily. Through these 3 paintings I attempted to capture the garden metaphor in each of it’s phases: The land, symbolizing the toil and sacrifice. The plant, symbolizing the love. And the harvest, in this case apples, symbolizing the forgiveness.

Process: I wouldn’t normally bother to explain my process, but I wanted to explain why these 3 paintings look so different–usually when doing a series you go for a more cohesive look, and in hindsight I wish I had. I decided to choose a specific painting or artist to model each of my paintings after–I’ll post a picture of each painting{s} I used as inspiration.

I’m going to show these in reverse order {best for last} and give some thoughts and comments {yes more} along the way.

Below is the picture it was modeled after–one of Giorgio Morandi’s many still lifes. He was a master at the still life, and my still life admittedly falls far short. The apples have too much depth and color, while everything else is flat and subdued…I wanted flat, but perhaps it was too flat…but on the plus side the apples look pretty good!

Below is the painting it was modeled after. It’s entitled Lindon Street, Covington Kentucky by Marcia Alshcer. This is a very new artist to me recently discovered on a local blog and I really like her style. I was immediately drawn to her simple, sharp, geometric paintings usually of houses and buildings. My Love painting is my least favorite. In short, it sucks. My picture isn’t entirely accurate, as I cut off some of the bottom of it, but it doesn’t matter. It’s horrible and I’ll most likely re-work it soon enough…but I did it.