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Thursday 3 July 2014

Art and the Holy Spirit

This recent piece that I have been working on is, I think, starting to get away from me. Rarely do I start a project without any idea as to the finished product or how I will approach the piece. So the way I am working and they way it is developing is a new experience. I guess that is what experimentation is.

As you saw in last week's post, I am using the fabric I dyed with Irises and I am using stitch or thread painting to bring out shapes and colours. It is very meditative work and so many thoughts about the piece go through my head as I am stitching. What does it look like, what colours should I use, what is an appropriate title, how much do I do to it, when will I know it is finished? This is where the thing seems to have gotten away from me. Every time I add more stitching, the piece, tells me to use a different colour, add even more stitching; so much so that I am almost covering the dyed fabric that I thought was so beautiful. Well, I thought, I'll just go with it and see where it leads. I did use the fabric patterns and colours to help in my choices of shape and colour of the stitching.

Detail of some of the stitching
I have recently read a couple of books which reminded me how important and real the work of the Holy Spirit is in the lives of Christians. Often we don't think about being filled with the Holy Spirit or we quench the Spirit as the Bible says. This morning in my daily devotions, I read in Romans 5:5 the following: "And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." It occurred to me as I look at the piece I am working on that it gives me a sense of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on us. The flowing, flame-like shapes seem to be moving to the lower left roundish shape which I interpret to being the Christian. The Spirit is likened to flames in the Bible. The flames are richly and royally coloured with purple and gold which shows that we are made royalty by our adoption into Christ's family. As the Spirit enters us our lives become more colourful, more beautiful, more hopeful. I find it amazing that these ideas were not in my mind at all when I started the piece.

progression



This is as far as I got today and I still don't think it is finished. I will leave it for some time and come back to it later when hopefully, it will let me know what it still needs.

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