My wife and I have been talking about what seems to be our constant state of loss, the grief we feel to be ever present with us. We have lost several communities over the years not to mention deaths of parents, spouse and other relatives and friends. Just over a year ago a religious sister we had become very close to was transferred out of the country due in part to some very underhanded and slanderous actions of some folks who did not appreciate her and who felt disappointed in her.

I had also been reading a book by Sister Wendy Beckett, The Mystical Now: Art and the Sacred (I highly recommend it.) Her introductory essay ends by reflecting on what she calls ”the meaning of separation and out inability ever to possess, finally, what we love. This applies not only to actual partings, but to our continual state of having to leave, move away, lose. Rilke puts it memorably:

Who turned us round like this, so that,
No matter what we do, we have the air
Of somebody departing? As a traveler
On the last hill, for the last seeing
All the home valley, turns, and stands, and lingers,
So we live, forever taking leave.”

I was very moved by this and thought it expressed my feelings. I began to wonder if I could express those feelings in a painting . The scripture where Jesus says “"Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." came to mind. To me this expresses Jesus sense of loss, having come from heaven, leaving behind the community of the Trinity and experiencing the limitations of humanity. So here is the painting I came up with. I call it Foxes and Birds. It is 20”x16”, oil on canvas and will be auctioned off at a fundraiser for the Austin House of Prayer on October 20th, 2007.



For a bigger image: Foxes and Birds

i love the owl in the cactus! I could easily see this image accompanying an article in a magazine. Nice work.

I'm curious, though, about your choice of a gleaming white t-shirt on a man with no place to lay his head.

Just wanted to say, this is really beautiful. I think you do a great job of evoking that sense of desolation and weariness (particularly in the blank, gaping sky and the bleached tree limbs).


Hmm...I just thought it was because the man is Jesus.

Ok, I can see symbolic white for Jesus, but how about the khakis, brother?

lol

makes him look contemporary to me. a conscious choice of setting, maybe?