Image of the Week: Seraph & Child
I did it again. I overindulged in art supplies. These two paint tubes were jumping up and down on the shelf at the art supply store, and . . . well, I'm like a kid in a candy shop.
When I got home, I realized I didn't really need that particular shade of cobalt blue. And I still had some of that lovely peach color left.
The purchase would be redeemed, I rationalized, if I did a whole painting in just these colors. At first this seemed absurd – I wouldn't normally limit myself to blue and peach, and had no reason to do so. Why should such a random law dictate a painting?
But glory be, synchronicity prevailed – when I mixed the two colors together, the peach muted the cobalt, and out came the most lovely bluish grey, which in turn related beautifully to the peach. And wouldn't you know, along came a subject that fit this color duet perfectly. This seraph has been making her way into my psyche since the new year . . . a six-winged mythic angel embracing a child. What better colors to represent an interaction of human and divine than fleshy peach and cloudy blue?
I began to feel justified in my indulgence.
I love seraphs (seraphim is the plural in Hebrew). This gentle she-creature surfaced in my consciousness as a wish and a prayer, for the loving wings that enfold our purest self. It's my variation on the story of Isaiah & the Seraph. In the Biblical narrative, the seraph takes a hot coal from the divine altar and touches it to the prophet's lips, purifying his use of language. Here the burning coal is replaced by a white blessing that softly spirals down to touch the child's lips. Innocence and hope, in the sense of being untainted, unwounded, undaunted, is what I want to infuse my expression. For me this positive resolve is hardest to maintain in speech – and even more so, in the intention that precedes words.
This is my New Year's resolution. Dear seraph, please bring me your blessing and your strength.
I finished this little painting – my second of the year – just 5 3/4" wide by 11 3/4" high – yesterday evening as snow blanketed the Catskills.
Wishing you light in winter's darkness.
D Yael Bernhard