river of life

I've been working on a new series of assemblage artworks that explore the concept of home - for me, I can't really think about home without thinking of my final home, Heaven. I have these works on display in my studio at the Kennedy Gallery, and sometimes the discussion gets to all that a piece means, but often not, so I wanted to share these works in detail here.

This piece is titled "River of Life" which can have multiple meanings. I live and am from the Sacramento area and we live at the confluence of two major rivers. Indeed, rivers were the reason the town was built here and still are the genesis of our drinking water, the irrigation for the agriculture here and a popular recreation location. My home town wouldn't be what it is without it's rivers.

But of course, the River of Life is also present in heaven, and Christ is referred to as living water - my true home is the reality that my earthly home faintly copies and what is even better, is that heaven will come down to earth and the earth/home God has given us to love & care for will be restored to perfection. I can't begin to accurately express all that in a piece of artwork, but that's the direction I'm heading.

exhibit at gallery w

I've got a show up at Gallery W at Warehouse Ministries in Sacramento this month called "With Eager Hope." Here's a look at the title piece as well as my artist's statement. We'll be having a reception Thursday, October 27th at 7 p.m. where I'll give a little talk as well.

My artwork grew from the desire to walk with God in the garden, like Adam and Eve did, searching for that closeness wherever green things grow. Years ago, I thought I was looking for the lost garden and my heart ached to think it was gone forever; then while studying Scripture, I realized that I was actually looking forward to the time when God will bring heaven down to earth again, restoring Paradise and our relationship to Him. I’ve tried to envision what that would possibly look like, what a perfect earth would be like, but I know my imagination is woefully short.

Whether an artwork has Scripture in it or not, this is the basis of all of my work: looking for the tiny glimpse of what heaven on earth will look like, what it will feel like. I am constantly inspired by the beauty that God has created and encouraged by my faith in Him to look forward to the time when the full beauty of that creation will be revealed.

“But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. .. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children...” Romans 8:20,23

sharing visions

Today I helped hang some of my original "Visions" with some newer visions at Oak Hills Church in Folsom. I've been planning to write a new artist's statement and this was finally the impetus to do so:

When I first started working as a visual artist, I didn’t sit down and say, “I’m going to try to put the spiritual world into my artwork” or “I think I’ll make the invisible visible” but that is exactly where I have found myself. As I created my art, I was just reacting to what I saw and felt at a particular time and place and it wasn’t until much later and after much reflection that I even had an idea of what it was that I was doing.

For a long time, I thought I was just reacting to nature and my love plants and growing things, then I began to realize that those times outside and alone were the times I felt closest to God, without the distractions of other people, and I was wanting to recreate that feeling through my art. I found myself longing for Eden, for a time to walk in the garden with God, enjoying the earth as it once was and a relationship with each other as it was intended to be; I was saddened that Eden was lost but somehow felt like it wasn’t completely out of reach, that somehow God could make it happen again.

All of this thought process happened over the passage of years, and finally I found myself in a Bible study of heaven when the “aha!” moment happened. All of those years, I had been trying to catch a glimpse of heaven, just getting a tiny taste of the goodness to come, and preserving it in my artwork.

I decided to become more intentional in my work, and then encouraged a group of artists at my church to join me in my quest to share our visions of heaven with others. “Visions of Heaven” originally was a group art project by Covenant Artists based on a Biblical study of Heaven. We wanted it to be God working through us, so our whole process began and ended with prayer and was thoroughly rooted in Scripture. It was a year-long project that culminated in a group showing at our own church as well as at the Artisan Gallery, but it was just a beginning for me.



Now, every piece of artwork I create is an effort to experience and share a little bit of heaven. I believe that one day this poor old planet will be made new again, cleaned up and perfected, and that if we look hard enough, we can see how wonderful it will be. My process for creating art often reflects the dichotomy of the old becoming new again; my black and white negatives are often less than perfect, like this earth right now, then I add to them, using them to make something wonderful and new, rich with color and texture in a way photographs just can’t be when untouched. It’s a little like the way God will take the old earth, and reunite it with paradise, restoring Eden on earth and fulfilling the longing that he’s put in my heart.

visions in a book

This is one of the pages from my "Visions of Heaven" altered book. The image is a refelction of the heavens over our head, in a reference to the idea that we can only "see" heaven as though in a poor reflection, found at the end of 1 Corinithians 13 and then is paired with a verse, Isaiah 65:17, "Look! I am creating a new heavens and a new earth, and no one will even think about the old ones anymore." In this verse, God is telling us that he will make heaven and earth new again.

On this next page, I again use a verse that refers to the new heavens and new earth, but this time from the New Testament. "We are looking forward to the new heaven and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God's righteousness." 2 Peter 3:13 This verse also refers back to the promises of a new earth made in Isaiah. The image I used, like all of the images in this book, is a Polaroid transfer, which comes from a color slide, but results in a stylized vision of what was photographed. In the same way, the new earth we are promised will be recognizable as our earth, but a new a wonderful vision of what it is now.

more from ross

This is another piece from acrylic painter Ross Conklin titled, "The New Jerusalem."

For this piece, Ross, who has spent much of his life as a musician as well, draws from the old slavery spiritual, "Goin' to that Beautiful City." He shows us the new Heaven and new Earth coming down from heaven, referred to in Revelation 21, then also refers to Isaiah 12, a song of praise looking forward to the new Jerusalem.

Another reference that Ross uses for this piece is Ecclesiastes 12:5,
"When men are afraid of heights
and of dangers in the streets;
when the almond tree blossoms
and the grasshopper drags himself along
and desire no longer is stirred.
Then man goes to his eternal home
and mourners go about the streets."

Ross points out that believers will be welcomed in the New Jerusalem with 2 Peter 1:11, which says,"And you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."Echoing the sentiment, Ephesians 2:19 says, "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household."

Finally, Ross refers to Revelation 22: 14-17, which points out that all who invite Christ into their lives will be invited into the New Jerusalem. "Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral,the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
'I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.'
The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!' And let him who hears say, 'Come!' Whoever is thirsty, let him come, and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life."

timeline notes

I wanted to explain a bit about my "Timeline of Heaven" piece, just a couple posts below...

The whole concept for the piece came when I was reading Randy Alcorn's "In Light of Eternity," and he was mentioning something about the five stages of heaven. This thought was brand-new for me, and frankly started to trigger some skeptical thinking. I adopted a "where is it written?" attitude to teachings about the Bible a long time ago, and I wasn't going to take Randy's word about five stages of heaven lightly and just keep moving on. So I started to study his references and being a visual person, I decided to draw a time line to help me literally see what he was talking about.

It was pretty amazing to me how the whole thing played out - and though it's not labeled in the Bible, the five stages of heaven concept certainly held up to scrutiny. In fact, Paul actually refers to the "third heaven" in 2 Corinthians 12:1-4, which totally blew my mind, because that's where it fit on my time line.

Briefly, the five stages are as follows, in case you can't read my scribbles on the page above. There are actually more Biblical references than I've noted here, but I've kept it fewer in the interest of keeping my visuals simple.

First: Heaven before the fall of Satan. Satan's fall is found in Isaiah 14:12-15 and Ezekiel 28:12-17.

Second: Heaven in Old Testament times and before Christ died, often referred to as "Paradise" as in Luke 16:22.

Third: Heaven presently, after Christ's resurrection, Christ is currently in Heaven as found in Luke 23:43; 2 Corinthians 12:1-4; 2 Corinthians 5:8; Hebrews 9:11, 23-24; Acts 1:11 and Hebrews 8:2.

Fourth: Christ's millennial reign on earth, as depicted in Revelations 19:11-16 and Revelations 20:6-10.

Fifth and eternal: Heaven on earth, called the "New Heavens and the New Earth" in Revelations 20:14-15, Revelations 21 & 22, as well as in Isaiah 65.

Once I got all that down on a time line, it suddenly occurred to me that it would make a great overlay for one of my new earth images, which finally resulted in the finished piece as posted previously.

Of course, that doesn't explain the palm trees along the edges, but that will wait for another day.

work from Jared

Responding to my request, our very own Jared Konopitski has sent in a couple images. You may notice Jared has his own style, like an illustrative cartoon, in these cases very light hearted. Very versatile, he can also depict darker scenes with this same style, which maybe I'll get to post some of later.

This one is "Isaiah 11:8," which says, " The baby will play safely near the hole of a cobra. Yes, a little child will put its hand in a nest of deadly snakes without harm."

This is part of the prophetic writings in Isaiah regarding the new earth, after Christ comes back to earth and restores it, a great source of heaven imagery!

More new earth imagery from Isaiah and Jared...

"Isaiah 55:12" reads, "You will live in joy and peace. The mountains and hills will burst into song, and the trees of the field will clap their hands!"


Now folks, it's time for some more work from some others - I'll work on getting some basic stuff posted soon, too.