A Look into my Creative Process...
Glory to Glory
surrendering to the creative process of transfiguration.
When the idea came to me to do a series of paintings with the theme of “Glory to Glory” it had so much life on it that my heart couldn’t ignore it. I had a lot of questions though. How do you visually translate a concept that seems so ethereal? What kind of reference points do we have that would represent the concept? Is it an idea better communicated through a specific style? And the question that almost stopped me from moving forward, “Who do I think I am to tackle such a grand topic?”
Featured work: From One Brighter Level of Glory to Another | Photo credit: Christin Hume
One of the reasons I love painting so much is because it’s like a puzzle. Trying to pull together all the pieces of a painting—the colors, the style, the composition—without letting one dominate the other. And this particular puzzle had one major piece that seemed impossible to place. Thematic content.
The more I meditated on the idea of being transfigured from one level of glory to another, and the mysterious reality of reflecting God’s glory to those around us in our own inimitable way, I finally reached the precipice in my creative process that I refer to as the cliff. It’s the moment in my creative process where things start moving from an unseen reality within me to a physical reality outside of myself. Or to be more concise, it’s when the paint meets the canvas.
Every creative process begins on the inside of someone. That’s how anything and everything gets created. It starts as a thought. Does that blow anyone else’s mind? Take a look around…the screen you are reading right now. The phone in your hand. The jeans you’re wearing. Everything your eyes land on, started as an unseen reality at some point! Even though that process of moving things from the inside of us to the outside is actually universal (I’m literally doing it right now as I type) it still involves a certain level of resistance. No matter how many paintings I’ve done that cliff stills carries a certain level of intimidation that I have to push through in order to jump. Every. Time.
Featured work: From One Brighter Level of Glory to Another | Photo credit: Christin Hume
When I finally make the jump and start putting paint to canvas I notice a very clear shift within me. While the earlier steps in my creative process involve asking a lot of questions and analytical thought (which I deeply enjoy and find great comfort in), when I start to paint I move into a more intuitive head space. It’s quieter and doesn’t involve as much forethought. It’s as if my subconscious mind takes the wheel.
I start by blocking in large areas or color. Then I begin making marks and responding to what I see on the canvas. When I start a painting I rarely know exactly where it’s going. I’ve made an intentional choice to let my heart create and speak life over my creation along the way. It’s not until the painting is finished that I step back and start evaluating what I’ve made. This is a choice I made after realizing that’s how God creates (see Genesis 1 ;) ).
Every creative process begins on the inside of someone. That’s how anything and everything gets created.
It’s then in the process of naming each piece where I often find the connections between what I’ve made and what I had been meditating on. It’s where all the dots get connected and I find the thread that I wasn’t always conscious of. In this series the thread turned out to be Transfiguration and Reflection.Transfiguration means to dramatically change the shape or form of something. A picture we are familiar with might be the caterpillar emerging as a butterfly, or the tadpole growing legs and losing its tale. An image we are maybe less familiar with but often relate to the word is Christ’s transfiguration on the mountain (Matthew 17).
This mysterious moment in Christ’s life is one of my favorites to meditate on. Jesus revealed His glory to His friends in such a way that The Passion Translation says they “were dazed and terrified by this phenomenon, and they fell facedown to the ground.” I think they saw so much Beauty in that moment that their circuits were temporarily fried, and everything changed for them after that.
When I was sitting with this painting and evaluating it through conversation with Holy Spirit I noticed the depth and movement. Everything felt alive, vibrating with movement. It was as if the clouds were moving and transforming. The ripples on the water escaping their boundaries. Even the lily pads shifting and growing. And it hit me. All these things—clouds, water, plants, even the sky—are continually changing. They are in a constant state of transfiguration right before our eyes. And there is SO MUCH GLORY there if we have eyes to see. If we look at the works of His hands long enough, we see Him!
When I titled it, I was seeing this place as not just an abstract landscape, but a place within me. A corner of the vast garden of my heart that is slowly being transfigured as His light shines on and in me. If you sit with it long enough you can feel the invitation to watch the clouds move. To listen to the frogs croak. To consider the floating lotus flowers and delicate reflections. And the same beauty we see around us, is within us. Because both were made by the same Artist. Both existed first in His mind before He made that important jump and created all that is seen and unseen (John 1:1-5).
The whole idea of Children of God moving from “glory to glory” implies ongoing process. This isn’t about a destination or attaining a certain level of glory…because His glory has no limits. It’s about movement, growth, metamorphosis. We are the parabola approaching but never intersecting with the fullness of His glory. Forever growing. Forever finding new moments of mystery and beauty. This is the beautiful existence we have been placed in.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this piece or what I’ve written in the comments. How have you seen the process of transfiguration in your own life?