Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Project 28 of many / Child 2 of many . . .

Sometimes things crash into one another.

Today is the 2 month anniversary of when we found out about the loss of Benjamin. Sometimes my heart aches so badly that I don't know how I am expected to go on. Then Jonathan wakes up and I regain some perspective, but the ache is still there.

About two weeks before we lost Benjamin our pastor preached a really great message on Gods Love. This sermon brought Romans 9:20-23 to my mind and I began to get images in my head of a piece of art work that I just had to do. I went out and bought the paper right away, and then put the project off. I hadn't stopped thinking about it. I thought about it everyday, I just didn't know how it was going to work. The idea was the earth as a broken, clay vessel being worked over in a pair of old hands.

Sometime after the initial idea and before I did preliminary sketches I had a dream that my baby was dead inside of me and that the feelings I had been feeling in my stomach were phantom kicks. I woke up and felt my stomach, but my stomach was flat and I was suppose to be 18 weeks pregnant, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. I eventually fell back asleep.

When I finally sat down to the the preliminary sketches, the concept had changed. The earth was now a womb. But a broken womb/broken vessel. This is the image I wanted to incorporate, only without a hand sticking through. The only hands would be the surgeons, and they would have holes in them. I would say these sketches took place around the end of June.


The womb idea eventually subsided and I went with a pitcher, that was actually a head, but also the surface of the earth with people growing out of it. Two days ago I finally put everything together.



I wish that the circumstances that allowed this piece to be created hadn't been as they were. I do find comfort in the idea that I was being prepared for the trial that I was about to face, and that I now have a picture that reminds me of Gods sovereignty.

The other verses included are Psalm 73, Isaiah 64:8-9 and Isaiah 54: 11-14

2 comments:

JW said...

That is beautiful, Caitlyn.

April @ An Urban Acre said...

Wow. I'm in awe of you, your talent and strength. Love you, friend.