“One tends to think of baptism as a miraculous instant, of its imagery as purified—scenes of cherubim, nibbling fishes, hovering white doves. But what if baptism takes a year, decades, a lifetime? We are talking of immense bodies, scaled creatures slinking through the deep, of Saint John the Baptist, a transition between Old and New Testament—watery, tenuous, calm surface to an ancient turbulence. What if baptism is as old, as ongoing, and as unpredictable as the waters that bear the blessing?”

– Lars Horn, Voice of the Fish (p.193), Graywolf Press

What are you looking for? is a series of mixed media drawings engaging discernment as an ongoing, dynamic process of responding to inner movements. “It takes courage to trust voices that may or may not be genuine calls,” writes Phil Cousineau in the Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker’s Guide to Making Travel Sacred. How do we make sense of the range and unpredictability of voices stirring inside us? How do we know how and when to respond? 

In these works on paper, micro-/macro- cosmic, cellular, organic forms quietly emerge from dark depths of layered watercolor, crayon, colored pencil, and graphite. The process of discernment is a deep sea, where aquatic life witnesses all kinds of responses to the call. One whale-like fish swallowed a prophet running from his destiny, another school of fish still puzzles over what happened that day when the brothers immediately dropped their nets in response to a mysterious teacher who called out “Follow me.” Clarity on what to do is sometimes unexpected, sometimes ignored. Sometimes welcomed, sometimes resisted. You never really know what will arise on a journey still unfolding. 

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This body of work was created during an art residency at the Grunewald Guild in Leavenworth, WA as part of a Ministry and Mentoring Grant through the Forum for Theological Exploration.