Bamboo Shoots Timeline Screen Shot

The producer of Bamboo Shoots Inc. provided me with a Premiere Pro Time-line Screen Shot for social media, predating next week's release as a sneak preview.

Time-Line of Bamboo Shoots Inc.'s Sasktel Max TV film.

The whole point of this exercise is to shine a light on the everyday people of Saskatchewan for the world to see. Bamboo Shoots In. is a socially savvy firm, that routinely shares its television content with the online community. Readers of this blog will recollect that this is is a film that hops in time and space; capturing the image-rich painter's studio, the poignant setting of the dialysis unit and the "magnificent", soaring mural -a feminist manifesto as it turns out- at Sacred Heart Church in Saskatoon.

I'm especially looking forward to watching the "live" chapter reading from Book 1 of "Dancing with Rejection: A Beginner's Guide to Immortality". It will be very interesting to see how the editors deal with that scene, considering I read two chapters: a very gritty one and another that erupts in a bloody mess.

Filming at Sacred Heart Church

This morning, as promised, the producer and cameraman from Bamboo Shoots Inc. met me at the site of my most ambitious mural to date: the massive "March of Trinity" at Sacred Heart Chaldean Catholic Church in Saskatoon. This mural soars almost 50 feet up into the rarefied atmosphere of the church sanctuary. The prominence of this mural, as the center-piece of  the Sacred Space in this instance, is a far cry from the humble beginnings of my "Trinity" design of 1981.

Firing up my original vision of the "Trinity" at age 21, in the Parish Hall of St. Mary's Basilica in Halifax, 1981. While I was committed to my vision of "three interlocking triangles", the project was relegated to an inferior wall at the time.

Even though my original vision of the "Trinity" was relegated to an inferior setting...on the wall of the Parish Hall rather than in the sanctuary, I was determined that someday this concept would be met with a more favorable reception. I hoped that if I played my cards right, that eventually the "stars would align" to catapult me and my artistic vision to a more exalted space.

The mural "March of Trinity" looms large upon entering Sacred Heart Church.

 While it took a full thirty years for this cherished dream of mine to finally manifest, it was well worth the wait. In all of the intervening passage of time between 1981 and 2011, I honed my mural-painting skills on over 60 large works across Canada. I was ready, willing and able by this time to tackle the prominent mural at Sacred Heart.

Bamboo Shoots producer/editor Amanda and cameraman Brandon getting set up to start filming.

I was only too happy to greet Amanda and Brandon this morning at the main entrance of the church. It is always interesting to watch the reactions of people when they see this piece "live" for the first time. No question, it is a very impressive, monumental work of art. While it faithfully echoes the religiosity of my patron Father Sabah's vision, it also offered me a tremendous opportunity to highlight some of my personal beliefs. Considering the scale and impetus of the piece, I felt obligated to be faithful to my own spirituality in emphasizing the power of the Sacred Feminine, on equal footing with the Sacred Masculine.

Brandon asked me to say a few words while he was filming, so I had to be very selective.

I thought very carefully about the message I wanted to portray in my brief spoken contribution to the filming at Sacred Heart. I decided to emphasize the fact that Chaldean Catholic clergy are permitted to marry and also, that Father Sabah and I originally wished to celebrate the male and female aspects of "God/dess" by showing the "Hands of God" as a male and female hand together. This concept was illustrated in the "mock-up", forwarded via the Archbishop of Saskatoon to the Vatican for approval. This was not to be! The Vatican officials responded by saying that this idea was "heretical" and insisted that we show the "Hands of God" as both male.

Extraordinary Beam of Light Captured

Talk about being in the right time, right place. I don't remember the exact circumstances, but I was at Sacred Heart in Saskatoon one day when a powerful beam of sunlight washed across the face of my mural. Thankfully, I had my camera handy. The play of light only lasted a few seconds, so I had to move fast.

It was one of those moments when I was grateful to have my camera.

I do remember feeling transfixed by that lovely beam of light, especially since it accentuated the design so perfectly. Try as I might, with humble paints and brushes, to achieve the illusion of light and dark, there is nothing quite so vivid as the natural stream of sunbeams. They really bring the vision to life, don't you think?