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Sounds of Sanctuary Watercolor on paper with 24K Gold Leaf 18” x 18”
This piece was created for an entry to a call for artists titled Extreme Makeover: revitalization of the 21st Century Church. I started with an emotionally-charged expression of the fast-paced world I live in hoping to create a feeling of frenzy with dissonant colors and shapes visualizing how I often feel. Sometimes I sense that “world” creeping into my church worship experience that wants to compete with or at least is enticing enough to draw people into the space.
For me however, I still need a form of worship that calls out to me like the Holy of Holies; a space that is quiet, reverent and meditative. I desire a space where I can collect my thoughts, feelings and emotions and meditate on who God is and how He desires to have the primary place in my life. Knowing the colors God instructed the artisans to use in creating all the beauty for the Tabernacle, I felt it appropriate to use a similar palette in this piece. As an overlay to that emotionally-charged beginning, I placed the gold leaf square and the “sound waves” reverberating out as sounds of sanctuary. As a result of being in this place that is Holy; a place to engage with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I can have the stability to lead a calm and peaceful life often sought by others. Though it may seem old-fashioned or out of date, I wonder if returning to the Tabernacle and all its extravagant beauty and glory is the “revitalization” the 21st Century Church is looking for; a reverent place of refuge and protection for the soul; a replacement for the noise that surrounds us moment by moment in a chaotic, tech-filled world.
References: Exodus 35-36
©phyllis thomas 2009
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