Bread of Life!

mixed media collage~j N-L

The theme for this past week's creative play day was, "your favorite food".

Clearly this piece takes a bit of explaining!

So here goes....

One of the spiritual disciplines which I have begun practicing recently is that of fasting. I decided to try this discipline for a variety of reasons. The first and primary reason, is that I desire to grow closer to God. Over the years, and in many ways, food has replaced God in my life. I have reached a place in my life's journey where I deeply desire for God to be my center. I want to hunger for Him and Him alone!

At any rate, last week when I began my weekly fast, the scripture I meditated upon that morning was from John 1:14, "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son. Generous inside and out, true from start to finish." (The Message)

It was then that I decided to depict my favorite food, by drawing a neighborhood, that features a home where the Holy Bible is the door.

That house is my house, it symbolizes both my body and my place in the world.

Don't you see?

Like Christ, I want to be bread for the world. I want to nourish, and to affirm life within my neighborhood!

When I hunger, I want to hunger for Him! When others hunger, it is my prayer that I am able to feed them as Christ our Lord has fed me!

Does that make any sense at all?

Oh well, whether it makes sense or not, here's how I created the piece!

First I took a four inch by four inch piece of foam core board. I taped the four edges with aluminum repair tape. I used Crayola crayons to color the center. I then used gel medium to adhere two layers of a sheer, lacy white paper (it's so sheer, that it reminds me of gauze) onto the foam core board.

On a seperate piece of paper, I used the crayons to draw some little houses. I gave the houses a wash with yellow ochre watercolor. I cut them out and glued them on to the foam core board.

I adhered yet another layer of the sheer paper around the houses. (Oh man! I had a grand old time trying to cut that gauzy paper out around those little houses!) I used a little Lumiere paint to add dimension and sparkle to the background...

The edges were painted using crimson and bronze acrylic and then sealed with a clear fixative.

Voila!

The bread of life!