Easter Meditation I, Triptich 17x24, 36x24, 17x24

Please see these paintings live at the Perspective on the Passion Art Show hosted by Harvest Downtown Church in Colorado Springs, http://harvestdowntown.org/perspectives/

The church is located at 411 North Weber, Colorado Springs, CO, 80903

When they saw him, the leading priests and Temple guards began shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
“Take him yourselves and crucify him,” Pilate said. “I find him not guilty.”

This passage sets up a scene of the Pharisee s on one side of Jesus, and Pilate on the other. Central to the story is Jesus. He is there, on his knees and arm, brutalized, bleeding, sweating, barely clothed and yet in complete control. I spent time on his anatomy to emphasize his humanity. Though God, Jesus suffered terribly. He suffered as a man so that he could mend the chasm separating humanity from God. he suffered as God the son in seperation from his rightful place in honor and a the moment of his death in separation from his Father. Jesus, though equal with God the Father, laid his life down and stepped into space and time in an age where the authorities invented the most painful way to die known to man. Jesus came at such a time as this to illustrate for us his great love. His terrible suffering demonstrates his immense love.

The blooming flower in his hand that he’s looking down on symbolizes the life he causes to bloom by his death. It was by his laying down of his life that we have hope of new life. He, and we, must die. There is no escape. In the midst of his suffering and ultimate death, he enabled us who know him to bloom again after the winter of death.

The phrases on the left panel who came to Pilate are the ones I relate to in this story. I’m ashamed of myself for it. The central character in the foreground is holding up a curtain. The temple veil separated the presence of God from the holy place within the Hebrew temple. Only once a year, and then only the High Priest was allowed within that veil. When Christ died, the veil was torn. Because of Christ’s death, we can enter boldly in God’s presence if we know Jesus.

I know this, yet still I cling to veils in my life. I sew up the veil by reading my bible a certain way, or traditions that I love more than Giver of Meaning. How ever I seek to control my relationship with God, again and again, I sew up the veil Christ died to split.

Behind the screaming Priest, is a character holding his hand out, rejecting Jesus, ashamed of Christ. I reject Jesus in being slow to obey when it’s uncomfortable or awkward or inconvenient. I stiff arm my Savior with my attitude.  

Behind him is a gesticulating fist pounding the air Priest. I shake my fist in willful rebellion, unsubmitted man that I am. I rage within at the one who manifested love and tenderness like no other. In him is life and yet I pound my fist against him- hell bent on death if only I can be the one controlling our relationship.

Pilate is on the right panel. He is expedient in this situation. He is ruthless as Roman leaders had to be. He choose submission to cultural norms instead of taking the hard road. That road would have likely cost him his position and even his life should the Hebrews rebel and being a revolt. He could have stood his ground. He declares right here in this passage he finds no guilt in Jesus, yet still he had him flogged. But even that wasn’t enough. He handed Jesus over to be executed. Why?! Where is the justice? He sought out to save his skin instead of pursue justice in being faithful in his post. He turned the only perfect man over to a mob bent on blood lust. The water bowl is in midair to further convey a sense of haste and carelessness. 

How often am I expedient in life, choosing the easy way out instead of seeking holiness. I go with the flow, embrace the easy road of cultural security instead of taking a good hard look at what is just and right and boldly go that way for the glory of God and the good of his people. 

Santa Rosa is a song created by Trofonic that blew a story into my heart this week. It's haunting and beautiful. And has sent me on a hunt for the sacred act of creating.

There is a sacred obligation for the artist to create. A beckoning deep within them to make freely, in utter honesty. A longing to uncover the deep subterranean fears, thoughts, desires, dreams, and things of note they experience. This we as artists should do free from that great engine and demon of Western culture; that basic question we can avoid as easily as the air in our lungs as we're so intertwined with it: how will this be profitable? How does the artist answer this question? That enigma ground my creative soar to a screeching halt and plummet. What's the endgame? That is a question birthed from the dark corner of my western mind: how will this be profitable?

Profitability here I speak of is not just monetary justification for expense of the effort. I'm also thinking about the value it brings to an audience. In my mind, that's where the creative process enters the temple of the sacred. That mysterious communing with others in genuine heart to heart communication. I'm convinced the artist must some how perform a ritual of sacrifice before he can honestly perform that sacred act of conversing and making. I've tried to create in haste, cramming it in over a lunch break, or late at night so I don't interrupt the natural flow of life with little people running about under foot. And the art suffers. The artist suffers! And the audience suffers from lack of value to enjoy. This is me taking what is precious and full of potential and degrading it to the disappointing and commonplace! Deciding this work is of not much value before any intentional action is taken. No the artist must seek to "protect that place he creates from" —Dave Kopp. That idea is brilliant, and taps this reality of the sacredness I'm seeing take form before my mind. I'm thinking this process of preparation for the act of making is a kind of purging of the mind, a cleansing. Settling down to intentionality, achieving an undivided attention. Only in that context, is an artist prepared to dive into the rich waterfall of creative expressions.

A work of art's first fruits are to be offered as a sacrifice. First to the One who gave it,  secondly as a service to the audience, and third as a gift echoing back to the Artist through the first two. Art is that rendering of service to an audience which, when done rightly, is an act of love. The presentation and even the creation should be intimate communion with another soul feasting over an object of story worthy of that communion.

Stag

Stag at Sharkies is one of the iconic works of brilliance from the early 1900’s brought into the world by George Bellows. The gestures, raw, unflattering honesty and the visceral brush strokes of the visual language place you within the world of Bellows. Spend some time with the masterpiece and you can start to smell the cigar smoke, and worry at what your wife will say about the blood splatters on your jacket collar. I started even to question how I'd fair in the ring. And that’s where this painting hit me hardest- inner fears, struggles, worries.

And the more I’ve listened to others stories pounding sympathetic to the incessant drumming of my heart inside my chest, I get the sense I’m not alone in my experience. By far the mass of struggles while blood pumps and spills and rebuilds, are within. So in my adoration of George Bellow’s brilliance, I took liberty, stood on his shoulders and have made it my own. This is still a moment of raw reality but the figures overlap and merge at the top of the piece. This is one fighter suspended in time, battling to the death with himself.