WOW – Creed – vonda drees art

“Every flower, every leaf, every tree trunk, every mushroom is only here because of a web of relationships.” — from Betsey Crawford’s essay, “It Couldn’t Be Clearer”

“…have you ever noticed the huge leap the [Apostles’] creed makes between ‘born of the Virgin Mary’ and ‘suffered under Pontius Pilate’? A single comma connects the two statements, and falling into that yawning gap, as if it were a mere detail, is everything Jesus said and did between his birth and his death! … Does the gap in some way explain Christianity’s often dismal record of imitating Jesus’ life and teaching?” —Richard Rohr

Welcome to Day 20 of the Wonders of Worship (WOW) series. Today we ponder the Creed.

“What do you see?” I asked my husband, Jim, about the above painting in process. In its rough, initial form, it rendered what I had hoped—three mushrooms. Then, we set off for some hiking in Wyalusing State Park.

On the trail, Jim spotted three mushrooms on a tree and said, “Look! Your mushrooms!” They were up pretty high on the tree trunk. I would have walked right by them without noticing.

Usually I paint what I see. On that day, thanks to Jim and thanks to the Spirit of imagination, we saw what I painted.

I can’t quite find the words to bring what I’m holding in my heart to the post. There’s something about Jim’s response to my “What do you see?” that feels creedal. That’s what we believed we were seeing–reality with a small ‘r’. Then came the ride and hike — the comma, the gap, the journey toward something we had no idea we were about to experience. Jim’s “Look!” pierced the air around us and was the exclamation of Reality breaking in.

Ways to Engage:

Practice Visio Divina (receive, reflect, respond, rest) with the painting.
Download the B&W image. Color it on your own or with a friend. Color in silence or after reading the essay linked above. Let it inspire further contemplation/conversation.
You do you. Trust your intuition and engage in the way your heart desires.

WOW Tree of Life, Draft 1 – I decided to go with a 36″x48″ canvas for the painting. Here’s a quick 11″x14″ sketch with a similar ratio. A light grid marks spaces for the 40 elements. As I look at the sketch, I would like to have more overlap, perhaps playing with re-sizing some elements. Adding leaves and branches will help with that. It’s something for me to keep in mind for Draft 2.

To download the black and white image for personal use: on a computer, click and drag the image to your desktop; on a phone, press on the picture until it gives you the option to save it to your photos. The image is formatted to fit on an 8.5″x11″ piece of paper, but feel free to print it whatever size you’d like.

Background: I created a series of forty 5″x7″ watercolor paintings inspired by the elements of worship. It was work commissioned by a project with Nourishing Vocation with Children at St. Olaf College, a program funded through Lilly Endowment’s Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative.

As the paintings are shared, you may notice a pattern: