Sweet Beulah Land, acrylic on canvas, 48" x 36"
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This painting is dedicated to anyone who yearns for a place of rest, and to anyone who is bereaved and missing someone.
It started with the idea of a window looking into Heaven. In my original sketch, the image was dominated by the Tree of Life, which is said to grow on either side of the River of Life in Heaven.
There would also be a candle, representing the spirit, and a book, perhaps open to a relevant Bible verse.
As my plans progressed, the book changed to a butterfly (funny how that happens). Since butterflies begin as caterpillars who reform themselves and are then reborn from a cocoon, they have long represented the resurrection of the Soul.
As I began the painting, I already found myself enjoying the long view of the river.
Then as it progressed, I decided to paint the Heavenly city which is called New Jerusalem in the Bible:
I made lots of changes as I painted, struggling to find the balance between "ethereal" and "fairytale." In the end I based the shapes on the towers on church steeples, but out of golden glass as described in the Bible. (And you can see that I also referred to glass perfume bottles).
At last the landscape was done, but it felt kind of empty. It needed some people!
At first I had the idea of repeating the figures from my painting of the return of the prodigal son, and I even printed out a copy of the central figures:
But then I thought, "Who are we really looking forward to seeing in Heaven?" And of course the answer is, "Jesus and our loved ones." So I painted a picture of Jesus welcoming two little children into Heaven.
Then on the other side, I painted The Good Shepherd to symbolize the rest we feel in Heaven.
And of course:
I wasn't sure how to show this at first, because it has to make sense from a distance as well as far away. A cross would be easy to read, but perhaps too sad for the middle of Heaven. Then I thought of the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer in Brazil:
I've often thought that the beauty of this statue is that Christ is mimicking the cross.
When you make a large painting like this one (which is four feet wide) you sort of get to live in it. And that's what it's like to have on the wall: it's really like having a window into Heaven.
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