A Refining

Something has been stirring in me as I’ve watched summer fully emerge in Arkansas. The pastoral scenes — overgrown fields, river bends diffused with lush flora and fauna, grass bending and rippling in the wind — pull at my artistic eye. I’ve always loved how overgrown grass, especially wheat, comes alive in the movement of the earth around it. I imagine the grass personified, speaking to its adjacent blades as it flows freely, moving in synchrony with its neighboring kin.

Many artists feel this same pull toward nature — toward how organic and authentic it is. No one tells the trees to grow or the flowers to bloom, yet they do, in rhythm with their own biological instruction. As people, we simply get to witness it, all of it a reflection of the God who made it.

On the back of my business card is Genesis 1:1 — “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” I think often about how we love because Jesus first loved us. In the same way, I believe we create because He first created. When I paint nature scenes, I’m making an imitation — a reflection of what God has already made — and I get the gift of exploring, inspecting, and depicting this through visual storytelling.

Lately, what’s captured my attention most is the chaos and mess of the earth around us. Grass, bushes, trees — they all follow patterns that are similar but never identical, scattering branches and leaves in ways that are wild and unpredictable. I see the same pattern at work in painting. You build layers of texture and color, letting unpredictable elements live inside the composition. Much of that work ends up buried beneath the focal points of the piece — but it’s still there within, quietly setting the tone for everything painted over it.

And yet, just as in nature, you can look at a scene and find the soft, often feminine highlights that transform the whole view. That duality — chaos underneath, delicate focal points layered over it — is much of what I love to investigate in art. Isolated on their own, much of what I paint is quite unappealing: swampy greens, warm-toned greys, deep plums and purples. But these heavy, murky tones are exactly what hold and balance the beauty painted over top of them. The underpainting feels like a labyrinth, with the focal points acting as a map that guides the viewer’s eye through the composition.

I’ve been thinking about this process in a spiritual way lately. It mirrors our spiritual lives: in the midst of our chaos and mess, God comes in and refines. That’s exactly what painting feels like to me — examining the havoc, then arriving with a few intentional, near perfect-feeling brushstrokes that transform the whole composition. There have been many seasons in my life that felt like a mess of myself, and the Lord moved His hands in a few swift strokes and completely changed the situation. It’s deeply encouraging to remember how easily God can change our circumstances — the composition of our lives. So much of His goodness, love, and mercy shows up like flowers budding out of the unruly places we find ourselves in.