New Work: Spiritus Deus

Spiritus Deus
acrylic on wc paper image size approx 10" x 13" matted to 14' x 18"

About a month or so ago Rich and I were driving back from Murphys along highway 49. I was looking out the window at the hillsides which are incredibly green right now. During this time of year we can get a lot of fog and the scenes can be quite dramatic with the mists weaving in and out of the mountains and hills. As I was looking around I thought about this weaving of fog. I drew a quick sketch to capture the idea. When I got back to my studio I tried to recreate my sketch and found that I was just complicating it too much; I was losing sight of my original idea. I put the sketches aside, thinking that my idea was too silly. A couple of weeks later I was listening to some "New Age" music while I was working. I looked over at the title of one of the pieces that was playing. It was either the title of the song or the group playing the music that caught my attention: God's Breath. That image seemed incredible to me. I wrote it down and squirreled the idea away for another time. It wasn't until a couple of days ago that I put that idea together with my sketch of the fog weaving in and out of the mountains. Roughly translated, the title of my piece means "spirit of God." What else might God's breath be other than his essence being interwoven via the fog and mist through the landscape? I love the imagery of this. Talking about religion and belief is very new for me and frankly I am uncomfortable with doing it in a public forum, such as a blog. I will say though that it occurs to me that for many of us, we search in all of the wrong places for God's presence in our lives, expecting to see it in some unique way that is miraculous, and being disappointed when the miracles don't appear. While something akin to a miracle can happen (and those instances should be looked for and noticed), I also believe that the obvious and mundane hold meaning too. Those events and happenings make up the length and breadth of our days; why not pay attention?  

OK, hope everyone has had a good week. Thanks for reading and commenting.

Libby