Bringing Spirit-enlightened imaginings to life
About the cover: In the Bleak Midwinter, adapted from original design, designer unknown, copper foil technique. This is a piece made in celebration of Christ’s advent, when a great light came to guide those who walk in darkness.
As a child, I was often told, “Wow, Nita! You have a wild imagination.” Which, upon reflection, could have either been a compliment or an insult! As a believer, and an image bearer of God, my goal in my imaginings is that the life-giving nature, the truth and beauty of God would be made manifest in my work.
George Bernard Shaw said, “Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will.”
Imagine! A trinity of imaginative process! The mind conceives an idea. “Let’s make a world!” The body cooperates. It impels the breath, the wind, the spirit within it to travel outward over the larynx. The wave escapes the giver and moves something out there to become something else. Poof! A new creation! It all started with an imagination.
Granted, our imaginations can be misguided. It seems that the creatives in Noah’s day who were spearheading metallurgy and musical instruments had God’s censure, because “every imagination of the thoughts of [their] heart[s] was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5 RSV).
Hmmm. Perhaps the flood wasn’t so much about the Nephilim as it was about ill-spent, destructive imaginations, spawning expressions which eroded, rather than upheld the beautiful. Anyway, God washed that canvas.
Monarch butterfly in stained glass.
My canvas these days is stained glass. I have long loved this medium. As a child, I stood in wonder inside a colour-soaked sanctuary in which artists enlivened stories I knew with heaven’s light streaming through glowing panes. (Why are churches now so blackened? I guess so you can see the PowerPoint. Too bad.) Let there be light! Backlighting to bring transparent glass to life. Front lighting for the opaque. Rippled, bubbled, streaked and patterned glass—each one its own personality. Each one dead in the darkness, springing to vibrancy when cleaned and infused with light through a sun-lit window, or with the tiniest candle behind.
I’m still enamored with light on glass; therefore, my oh-so-clever designer name is N. Lighten Designs. I’m not creating huge church windows, but I still hope to inspire awe. The biggest ka-ching moment for me is when I lift one of my pieces out of the box, hold it up to the window, and see someone’s face light up as the glass suddenly leaps to life. Let there be light!
