Christ at the Creation of the World

Christ at the Creation of the World

Sometimes it is refreshing to simply create - to apply paint to a blank canvas without any set plan or idea. To let the brush and paint decide the direction and journey of the painting. I love the anticipation of what might develop, starting to see patterns and objects forming across the expanse and wondering about the amorphous places that have yet to reveal their secret.

Discipline versus flow

After spending many years specialising in the discipline of writing icons - a method requiring adherence to hundreds of years of tradition, following certain techniques, being mindful of the spiritual nature and prayer an icon is imbued with, and delighting in the beauty of egg tempera painting - to dispense with all that blessed focus and just go with the flow.....bliss. Another kind of bliss, taking me back to my initial experiences as an artist.

I learned oil painting very early on, many years before discovering egg tempera. You could say oils were my first love. I had very little spare cash and saved for weeks to afford a small oil painting box containing seven tubes of pigment from the now defunct W H Smiths. I had no idea how to use oil paints, nor how to blend them with turpentine and linseed oil. No chance of Googling it or going on You Tube as, have mercy readers, this was in the days before personal computers were the norm. And there was no such thing as a mobile phone. Heaven forbid!

Becoming the artist within

So learning how to use paint was a matter of trial and error. My funds did not stretch to enrolling on any art courses and besides, I liked the idea of figuring out how to work with a medium for myself. I could try something, think about the effect and then try something else. When you are instructed you end up like the instructor. Yes you may learn some techniques and some skills but then you may miss out on discovery and adventure, finding new paths, new ways to apply paint, ways to become the artist you know lives inside.

My studio was a sparse, spare room in the house of my first love. I had one canvas board, a large plate, two brushes: one large flat and one medium round, a roll of toilet paper to wipe brushes, an old curtain on the floor to protect the carpet and my trusty box of oils along with two little bottles containing turps and linseed oil. I was so skint and constantly stressing over how to conserve the paint, running out of titanium white regularly. My strategy to amass funds to buy more entailed diving down the back of the sofa for coins my partner had lost from his trouser pockets.

At that time, in my ancient history, David Attenborough had recently completed his first TV series, Life on Earth. I had a signed copy of his book, now lost during one of my many moves of abode. It was ordered by the biology department at Langley College for their A level Bio students when I was studying there before starting my degree. I treasured that book. When I visited home, my now late dad and I would sit together watching the programme and marvel over the wonder of the natural world. One picture in the book captivated me - a barn owl flying out of a castle turret with a very black night sky behind it. I decided it would be my first oil painting.

I did not have a camera so have no image to show you of the painting but it went remarkably well. Yet, also, I had a profound experience as I was working. It was like something guiding my hand, something helping me decide how to blend the pigments and apply them. The stonework on the turret was amazing and the feathers of the owl somewhat challenging, but the final image was a pleasing composition and compared well to the photograph in the book. I felt a quiet elation after each session seeing how the painting developed as I worked. If a section was not working I would paint over it and restart with a freer hand. I noticed a difference between what my own mind was directing and what this other impulse from within was leading me to. The latter was inspired, loose and had a content hard to give words to and my own will was tight, overworked and limited.

The training of the soul

I began to witness a kind of training of the soul through my work. The work in itself was not important, it was the internal shaping or my awareness and consciouness. You could say as I was painting some higher force was painting me. This became my primary reason for painting and creating art. It is not the world's way, where the art work itself is judged and priced and valued, as if the image created has prime importance and has to abide by set standards of the day. No.

Creating art of any kind has an intrinsic value in itself for the artist and the artist's soul. The image itself can also affect the observer and may bring some inner truth to light. This latter theory was confirmed for me when studying iconography. The icon is a gateway between worlds and the converse perspective draws the observer in to a Universe that broadens out into the background rather than the conventional artistic way with perspective narrowing to a point of the horizon. An icon is expansive.

Where creativity is banished or suffocated, the world becomes a darker place.

The owl painting was snaffled by my ex husband some years later when I had to move out of my partner's house. I had to minimise my already minimal belongings. Whether he still has it or is even still alive, I do not know, but I have never forgotten that painting and the experience I had whilst completing it.

Christ at the creation of...

What has all this to do with the Christ at the Creation of the World, pictured above?

Well, I was hooked and kept painting, and have always kept painting throughout my life. Obviously, there have been a few times when I have had a break - but what miserable times those were. They felt as if I had lost a connection with something greater than myself. I guess the link between spirituality and art was tenaciously forming inside of me and guiding my direction, not only on canvas, but in the course of my life and it has never let me down or forsaken me. It has been a constant presence and a place I can always return to and feel at home.

You could say Christ was at the Creation of my world and He continues to be there.

The Artist