Ashes to Paint...

I pastor a very small church.  There are usually about 25 people in worship on a Sunday morning, choir included.  It is probably the smallest church in town, although there are two other small Protestant churches.  We have begun doing things together, worshipping together for specific occasions, such as Christmas Sunday and New Year’s Sunday.  So, we will worship again together, us and the Reformed, on Ash Wednesday, exploring what the Holy is inviting us to reflection up during this Lenten Season.  The Reformed are hosting, which I love because that means I can just show up and worship, maybe read, but not have to preach.  Well, not this time.  

Clyfford Still Painting

The Reformed pastor invited me to preach Ash Wednesday.  My head said no.  My gut said, “wait a moment”.  My creative spirit thought, “you could express Ash Wednesday through ash and paint, through art and preach from that.”  I liked that.  So before I could say no, I answered that I would preach and committed myself to this creative process and expression.  Then I walked in and painted my root chakra.  (Yes everything gets all intertwined in my life.)

Clyfford Still Painting

I began to have images and thoughts about the paintings.  I must take an aside and tell you that one of my favorite artists is Clyfford Still.  Clyfford Still’s art is mainly one color, black, textured with other colors creeping in.  My favorite is an all black painting with the hint of red on the edge.  It hung in the Art Institute in Chicago on one end of an open room.  If you turned around, another hung opposite it.  That one was mostly black with more color invading the black.  It felt like by turning around I moved from death to life, from woundedness to healing and wholeness.  I could feel a spiritual movement in my soul as I went from one painting to another.  I love those paintings and when I lived in Chicago visited them often.  They have stuck with me.  Now, with this invitation to preach, I felt an invitation to play with ash exploring through this style of painting how we are reborn out of the “ash” of our lives; how reflecting upon our past experiences can inform our future vision and growth.

Luckily for me, I was staying with friends who have a fireplace and use it!  Before leaving, we filled two bags with ash.  One from the bottom of his fireplace.  In it was not only ash but pieces of wood and kindling that had not quite burned completely.  The other from the basement where the extra ash falls.

Then once home, I went to the art supplies store and bought paint and medium, canvas and paper, paint brushes and sponges.  Medium to turn the ash into paint.  I brought it all home and it has sat for that last week or so.  I have busied myself with other things: painting doors and walls with rollers, cleaning, writing sermons, working, walking puppy, laundry, TV -- all along ignoring that invitation to create.....until last night.

I took out all my supplies.  I covered the table with the plastic and drop clothes I dug out to paint the doors and walls.  I pulled out the paper and canvas and set it on the table. I opened the ash and began to mix it with the medium.  And I painted....

It was like painting with mortar, thick and rough.  I thinned it with water and covered the canvas.  The color was different than I thought it would be.  The texture was nice, interesting. It really would allow me to express woundedness quite well.  I began to layer it, creating texture, creating the wound.  

Then as I was mixing another batch of ash paint I came across those pieces of not-completely-burned wood and chunks of ash.  I took them and placed them in different places on the wound.  I sprinkled ash over it.  I then took more of the paint and began to work it all together, adding layers and clumps and texture where it felt right to do so.  I grabbed the large unbroken black chunks of ash and broke them apart allowing them to sprinkle on top of the wound.  Then I left it to dry, to harden...

I came back and added some red.  The red was too powerful.  It overpowered the painting and took away from the wound.  I tried to hid it with more ash, but that didn’t work.  I scrapped it off.  It left a hint of red stain on the canvas and I covered it with more ash paint.  The effect was cool.  That seemed right.  I did the same around the edges of the wound, integrating the red so that only hints of red appear.  And I walked away to allow it to dry.

I went and ran errands for a few hours getting all the business of the day done.  I got back and the painting completely changed between wet and dry.  The ash changed color.  The red stain became like clay hughed.  

I stared at it.  I took the pup for a walk.  I stared at it some more.  It seemed complete.  I had thoughts of wanting to add more color but my gut said, “no this is the wound.  Nothing else should distract from this wound.  It is a powerful wound, one that echoes the wounds of Christianity with ash and wood.  It is complete.”  I signed it.

I feel like I finally got that wound that resided deep down in my soul out.  It started with painting the Inner Goddess; with ripping the paper and creating that wound; adding color and flowers and working at expressing both woundedness and healing.  This time, I just expressed woundedness.  I allowed for that wound to show up on that canvas.  I poured into it the tearing that oppression and discrimination and abuse and violence does to our souls, especially when it is steeped in Christian doctrine; when its goal is to tear at the Holy residing in our soul, to take God away.   That’s why the red didn’t go.  This is Good Friday:  the darkening of the sky; the crucifixion; the tearing of the curtains on the Holy of Holies.  Then and now.  For Christ, for God, for me, for you.