How Bible Texts are Selected for UnGraven Image Paintings

Debbye, another member of the collector family, wrote in the following and inspired this week's blog:

“I went to your web site and your work just takes my heart. What a gift you have been given. I am curious as to how you choose the passages you will use and the image you will create from it?”

It's a wonderful question, it was one I was waiting for without realizing inspiration and answered prayer come in an email– as I had no idea what I was supposed to write about in this week's blog.

It's also a question I should have addressed on the web site, but really haven't. Yet another blog that is going to have to be expanded into an article – and chapter for a book, because I'm going to be writing one, obviously illustrated!

So, in answer to Debbye's question, first and most importantly, I use the scriptures prayerfully.

There have been times when I could not complete a painting within the Genesis Sunset Sunrise series, because I didn't have a Psalm that was somehow, “right” for the gold frame of “prayer” that faces in or out from the image in this series. There's more on the gold frames under the PAINTING SERIES link above for Genesis Sunset-Sunrise. Painting that gold frame is a rather restful exercise, and one I am sure the old masters would have left to their assistants.

Deciding on the text for each and every border is not always so easy, even though the all do look somewhat alike. In essence, they are not alike. The texts used are important to me.

Usually biblical passages inspire a work within a series. In other words, I am always photographing and looking for great sunrises and sunsets and places for them.

Sometimes, such as in The Dock Less Traveled, I will take images of some sunsets and combine them with photos of a scenes, in this case a dock. Not an uncommon scene in the Hamptons where I live, but I was specifically trying to deal with the idea of our spiritual path, of choosing to “jump off” into the water (mayim in Hebrew), which symbolizes the Torah or Pentateuch. There is always this kind of leap of faith.

Sometimes, it is a small one, like my hanging in, feeling certain that somehow I'd get the idea of what to write about this week.

The Dock Less Traveled is framed with my favorite, Psalm 19, so in some ways it is one of my most personal paintings. I continue to marvel at the glory of the Lord in the heavens and earth, but then struggle daily with the words of my mouth and meditations of my heart.

Currently, at night when I go to bed, I am reading through Psalms, and making notes on them regarding the Written on the Wind series. Not all of this series comes from the Psalms, though. There are eagles, for which I have used texts from Isaiah and also the Exodus 20 (the Ten Commandments).

I did write about why I used Psalm 23 for the two paintings of the cardinals in this series, and that is on this web site under the heading of the series and it is also dealt with on the page (soon to be pages) about the female (and coming hopefully this week) the male cardinal.

February 26, 2006