Introducing my painting:
Growing Together or Apart?   Myrtle Peace Talks.

It's my silver anniversary of painting! Happy Dance!
This is my 50th original painting!

4.23.2007

When I began this painting I was trying to find an image to portray some of my thoughts about peace.  And when I was walking to the park one day I saw these crepe myrtle trees that were growing together. The trees wood resembled human bones and even had people's initials "tattooed" onto their "arms". I later found out that in the Bible the myrtle tree is used as a symbol for people and more specifically believers. (Zechariah 1, Isaiah 55)   So I thought it would be the perfect symbol for my questions about  peace.  Peace has a lot to do with the relationships of people- and depending on your point of view one could see the tree as growing together or apart- coming closer to peace or farther away from it- just like the fluctuation of all kinds of relationships throughout our life.   The inscription “PAZ” on the tree is a hint to this idea and can read as either initials or as  the Spanish word for peace.  (See painting detail below.)

The style of this painting references Japanese prints and also stained glass windows.

See this painting in progress here.

The Bible, Ephesians 2:14-18.
¹⁴For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. ¹⁷He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.


Detail of Painting.