Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Desert Files - Day 0 (Shrove Tuesday)

For Lent (the 40 days, not counting Sunday, leading up to Easter) I've decided to take part in The Desert Files, a project of Cityside Baptist Church in Auckland (Mark Pierson's mob before he was our director).

Choose one of the last 7 things that Jesus said on the cross, using this as starting point for your creative process.
Then use the next six weeks of Lent to create something, using the weekly online prayer meditations, daily blogging from others on the journey and an artists workshop or two to spark ideas, contemplation, thoughts, discussion.
I've chosen, 'Into your hands I commit my spirit.' (Luke 23:46) It's believed that Jesus was quoting Psalm 31.
I have been having trouble getting to sleep tonight, so I decided to start early. (It's Shrove Tuesday now, so Lent will be starting tomorrow.) This is what I've come up with:
I guess I've been thinking about this saying apart from it's Easter context, and how it seems to be coming from a place of vulnerability. And I think that for a lot of my life I've felt pretty vulnerable in my body, as though it's not very adequate because I'm thin.
Normally when I portray myself in my art I make mysyelf fairly brown (for a European). My face and may arms are pretty brown, but under my clothes I'm very white - and I think that feels kind of vulnerable too.

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