This is one of several “strip paintings” I started and then got stuck on what to do next. The torn strips are from my own spontaneous lists.
Healing for any kind of grief. This painting understands how awful it can be. I painted this in a kind of fury of grief, in the midst of shock and anguish on the morning I found out that my primary care doctor had killed himself with a gun. I still find it healing when I have some small grief.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5 NIV). This painting is one of a series based on a waking vision several years ago. I suddenly saw a painting with a dark, almost black heart made of layers of other colors, on a red background with light somehow glowing from the dark heart.
Suffering calls for mercy, and sometimes judgement and blame are so much quicker to arise. This painting is one of the three vertical paintings that took the lead, guiding me to paint step by step in a mysterious silent dialogue. I notice that my vertical paintings seem to gaze back more like persons
I’ve been stuck on this painting for many years. The last thing I did was apply some Golden Artist gloss polymer, which ended up with some overlaps and what look like ugly places where I think I applied it too thickly. Last note I wrote is that the painting wants a little gold on the base of the heart.
Image 8.5 by 14 inches, matted 12 by 20 inches. Oil pastel painting with some “Cloud Dragon” unryu paper, on archival Multi-Media board. The symbols in addition to the heart are from anthropologist Angeles Arrien. I had gotten tired of the limited layers oil pastel offers, so I got more experimental and tried collage.
These images are among the over 80 paintings I’ve done that test well so far for looking back at the viewer with unconditional love. I don’t view my paintings as either religious or contemplative, exactly. Rather, my aim is to make paintings that can awaken healing power within the viewer.
So my paintings are religious because they depend on my Christian faith and on guidance from God and Jesus and the Spirit. They’re contemplative in that they depend on an I-Thou dialogue with the painting as well as a dialogue with God and of course, direct guidance from God. All the paintings I post anywhere have been screened by Jesus as “Good News.” I’ve tossed a lot of artwork that didn’t meet that test.
Since my aim has evolved over many years, I’m now also testing paintings for their healing power, using my own times of specific disheartening feeling-experiences. I’ll need to write about all this on the website I’m remodeling.
Cheers and blessings,
Catherine Jo Morgan (Cathy Jo)
Part of a series
Image 4 by 10 inches, framed 8 by 16 inches in black mat •
(The symbols are from Angeles Arrien’s five cross-cultural symbols plus a heart)
Acrylic on archival Ampersand hardboard panel
6 by 6 inches
The Anam Cara paintings are designed for desk or other tabletop display, to be “soul friend” companions — listening, understanding, and loving unconditionally.
Mixed media on canvas, 8 by 10 inches
Acrylic on canvas, 24 by 18 by 1.5 inches
