Back from the dead

I have returned from the grave... not really... But if I had my tombstone would have read...

"Here lies Katie Babb

She was a good teacher 

and consequently had no life."

But seriously that is what this feels like. I feel like I have accomplished something if I can get my lesson plans posted, grades entered, work out, spend some time with the hubs and get to bed before midnight. However, on the weekends I pretend like I'm still in college and sleep in until noon.

Did I mention that I love my job? Because I do. I love my children they are incredibly obnoxious and call me Mama Babb, which I find incredibly endearing. I'm thrilled to say that my students are ripe with potential. All they need is me to ask them that time-honored question "I don't know what do you think?" Usually I tack on the phrase "this is your project." Sometimes that is all they need and sometimes they whine and need a little bit more help but either way I'm proud of them. I will post some of their work later... maybe... but that isn't really the point of my post. I'm posting to show what I have been working on. It's quite exciting actually. You see I haven't finished a painting since I graduated from college, tragic I know. I found that I couldn't develop an idea that I was pleased with enough to carry it to completion. 

Then suddenly inspiration struck from a not-so-unlikely source, the Lord. When my husband and I moved to Dallas we joined Providence Church in Frisco. We have since moved to Providence's church plant Imago Dei, which we both love (but my joy about how blessed we are to attend IDC could fill another post.) Anyways, the worship pastor at Providence asked me to do some art for the church lobby about the Trinity before we left. So I worked on a sketch and developed this... 

Holy Spirit Sketch

It's a representation of the Holy Spirit. You have the dove with three rings representing the three parts of the holy spirit. (I will explain the significance of the colors in a different post.) Ideally there would be three pieces and they would be HUGE. Dove for the holy spirit, lamb for the son and burning bush for the father. Great idea right? I haven't started yet because the pieces are too big and I won't have time to execute them the way I want until this summer. You might be asking well then Katie why have you been rambling on so long about this project. To which I would reply that is a valid question. I will direct your attention to the black dots inside of the dove, up close it looks like this... 

Faith Knot

It's a knot. If this were a film the knot would be in a constant state of motion circling in on itself. This knot is the image that pops into my head when I answer questions like how can God be both all-knowing but give us free will. I picture the answer looking something like this knot because lets take my life for example. When looking at college as a bright-eyed freshman of 18, I had a few career paths in mind, a nurse, a teacher, a missionary in China, graphic designer. I obviously ended up being a teacher and the Lord is glorified because of it. However, what if I had become a nurse and made the (tragic) decision to spend hours of college studying science and things I don't fully understand and by the sheer grace of God ended up a nurse. Would he not have been glorified if I had chosen that course? Yes he would! Because all things work together for the glory of the Lord. So when God looked at me as a freshman or even as a child in my mothers womb he knew all of the paths I could have taken and would have allowed me to choose any of them and could have worked any of them together for His glory. So I picture in my head the path and the starting point of the Lord and know that each path would inevitably circle back to the Lord and his glory.

However, as I thought more about this knot an what it represents I began to realize that it could also function as a representation of faith. It takes faith to except what I just explained. Science would look at my explanation of free will and the Lord's omnipotence and laugh. Many people would laugh but I believe all of it. I believe it from my head to my toes that it is the truth. Also, faith is messy it is not always easy it is not always filled with events that make you happy. Sometimes faith takes you through a time of suffering of painful suffering but the Lord is good in all of it. So then I began to apply the knot imagery to faith and incorporated it into these paintings of the trinity that I hope to do. Because believing in the Trinity, singing the words...

"Praise and glory to the Father. 

Praise and glory to the Son. 

Praise and glory to the Spirit. 

Ever three and ever one." 

... requires faith. I began to flesh out the ideas about faith and the trinity. Around the same time I was doing a unit on woodcutting with my students so I made some prints to work through the ideas. These were my results....

Holy Spirit - Woodcut on Paper

Son - Woodcut on Paper

Father - Woodcut on Paper

Knot Cloud with Trinity - Woodcut and Oil on Paper

 I'm fairly please with my results, as you can see I enjoy a lot of chatter (the black smudges) in my woodcuts. To me chatter is part of the happy accidents that can make a piece unique. I have to go inhale my lunch but I plan to update soon with a few of the most recent paintings that were inspired by the fantastic and fabulous Charles Spurgeon.