The story behind what about love: Elizabeth and I went out to eat a few weeks ago to a place called Melt in Lakewood. It's a delicious gourmet grilled cheese restaurant which boasts a near 2 hour wait to be seated. It was worth the wait. http://meltbarandgrilled.com Check it out if you don't believe me. Anyways, instead of taking your name to reserve your table, you draw a random name out of a bucket. The name we picked out was "What about love?"
If you ask me about my week...I usually have a theme for each week depending on what God is doing in my life at the moment. I had been reading a lot about social justice in the book of Isaiah, and also was reading a book called Unshaken by Dan Woolley that Elizabeth let me borrow awhile back about a Compassion International employee that was stuck under the rubble of Haiti's collapsed Hotel Montana. A combination of the things I had been reading, and conversations and situations I got myself into formed the basis for these first two paintings.
The five themes that I've decided to work into my paintings are love, peace, justice, evil, and forgiveness. As I begin to read more about compassion international and their mission I begin to get a picture of what these paintings will represent. In "What about love?" I asked myself the question: What is love? and is it enough? These questions brought me to re-examine the gospels and to understand Jesus' love mission. In the "Be Still" painting, I pasted some newspaper clippings of the earthquake that devastated Haiti this past year. It's hard to make out what it says, but I wanted it to be a piece of the art because I believe that despite the suffering around the world, God has a plan for us and we should know that we can rest in the hope we have in Christ. "Be Still" encompasses the rest we find in Christ despite the chaos.
