Hello Art Friends
In my first blog about healing, I introduced aspects of healing in our lives and my development of images based on Psalms/Songs. Next are two paintings dealing with healing in the natural world around us.
The first painting deals with healing of our polluted waters. The second one is the healing/end of war.
The Tree of Life: The Healing of Waters – Water is vital to life, so precious in many countries because it’s rare; and in the West, so often taken for granted, filled with chemicals, and polluted. I chose for the Tree’s basic shape a tree which seems to rise like an enormous fountain pouring upwards out of the earth, spouting huge swathes of crystal-clear waters. The first layers of color were transparent and semi-opaque deep blues and greens to create a feel of pure and powerful water roiling and cascading, vivifying, refreshing, and healing. An eternal fountain of refreshment.
The Tree of Life: The End of War – As current news headlines remind us daily, war is one of our most human, most tragic activities in this fallen Creation. We embrace it all too readily even as we yearn for a time when its fruits – destruction, death, suffering, grief – are no more. I started with dark reds and grays – the colors of battle fire and smoke - as the “ground” of the painting. Amid this, I set the Tree of Life, firmly rooted and definite. The Tree’s color palette suggests it is drawing war’s destruction and suffering into itself, in a mysterious but powerful transformation. The change rises into the colors of spring and summer, with scarlet and amber flowers and yellow and green foliage.
Where in our world do YOU see the need for healing?