Abundance

This piece was completed in 16 sessions of various lengths. The initial steps of this painting began like most good paintings do, with a nice loose sketch of almost nothing in particular. Well, almost. I had an idea of what I was going to sketch out with that soft dark piece of charcoal even before it touched down on the canvas. It was a symbol, an atomic symbol. The one that looks as though an orb has been stuck in an ellipse that goes around and around and around at different angles, always contained, never recklessly shooting off into space. The one I had in mind had a very mid-century vibe to it. You probably know the one. The working title at the beginning was, "Atomic Energy" because of it, and it was all about power, the kind of power that is a self-sustaining reaction that has all the power of the sun, going on and on benefitting everyone that needed it. Immediately it had a theme of rebirth as my large brush strokes meandered over the canvas creating the shapes of large boulders. There was a definite nod to the resurrection when the stone was rolled away. It occurred to me that it was starting to take on a stained-glass feel, so I started adding in other motifs, like a jar of oil, and a large piece of bread, the outline of a fish, a pomegranate. I thought of it like an artisan glass window that one would see at a centuries old church. At that time in the piece, there was a sunrise coming up with a door to an open tomb. In the final stage of the work, this sunrise is still visible inside the outline of the only whale that I painted in, very much a nod to the sign of Jonah, that conveys after three days Jesus would rise from the dead. The cross inside of it, simply another powerful symbol of supernatural life overcoming death. It wasn't intentionally put there, I just noticed it and kept it. In the fifth session, I changed the working title to "Abundance" because of all this symbolism. The first fish of many appeared then, and I thought about how after Jesus fed all the people with the minimal fishes and loaves, that there were leftovers. I painted out the bread, and the fish motif became very prominent with my thoughts tending toward how Jesus told the disciples to throw the net over the other side of the boat. The background colour was changing during this time from the original to dark red, to bright pink, to dark blue and black, and then finally to all the circles. All the circles, what do they mean? For me, they are not really one thing, but a feeling of lightness and joy. They could be beautiful coral from under the sea or a bed of beautiful flowers. They represent wonderment which totally fits with what I believe Jesus to be like. There were moments though when I felt it lacked vision and I would just sit and stare at it listening to the music. I would say too that what kept moving this painting forward into its final stage was making bold choices with colour and adding in new elements when the composition was pretty much set in stone. I had nothing to lose in making bold decisions. This is when I painted in the large fish in parchment and titanium white and they adopted their individual solitary blue eyes. This was the missing piece, this simplicity popping against the detailed background. This inspiration came right at the end making it shine. This decision made me love it. It went through process, found itself and came out with abundance.