Designing God/dess

The original design of the 'Trinity' that I created in 1981 featured three triangles within a central triangle. This design was the basis for the mural at St. Mary's Basilica in Halifax, N.S. that I presented as an 'unlovely' pencil sketch to the Archbishop of the day, James Hayes. My design was 'approved' with a minimum of fuss at the time and I took that as a good sign that I was on the right track with my imagery and symbolism.

I decided in my first draft that it would be inappropriate to presume that my puny human intellect could deign to present an 'image' of 'God', so I elected to use a symbolic approach...the two hands seen on top in the uppermost triangle that pierce through the ethereal clouds to proclaim "I am." This was as far as I was willing to go in my presentation of that entity. 

'God' is represented symbolically with two human hands piercing celestial clouds over the curvature of planet Earth.

It was only after I was hired by the Liturgical Design Firm Desmarais and Robitaille in Montreal shortly after the unveiling of 'Trinity 1981' and was in the employ of (the late) Father Toby McIvern -renowned Church Architect and Interior Designer- that I was informed of a very interesting anomaly which was intrinsic to my design concept. Fr. Toby told me that I had inadvertently used an 'incorrect' symbolic reference to the Catholic idea of the 'Trinity' by utilizing and inverted triangle as the 'central motif'. That is, the outer triangle mentioned earlier was situated with the base at the top and the apex down. Toby explained that this was in fact a direct reference to the 'devil' and 'hell', as the triangle in this particular configuration symbolizes the female vulva, ergo hell...in terms of the patriarchal hierarchy of images that he was well-versed in as a Liturgical Architect and scholar of religious symbolism.

The late Fr. Toby McIvern was a world-renowned Church Architect/Interior Designer who illuminated the true meaning behind the inverted triangle of 'Trinity 1981'.

Well, you can imagine my consternation at the time when it was revealed to me that I had unwittingly created a symbol of the female vulva incorporated into the very essence of the patriarchal 'trinity' (the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and that this glaring mis-step was now evident in my mural at the basilica. My reaction was a great belly laugh at the time, as I was intrigued that somehow the female aspect had wiled its way into my design seamlessly for all to see, that had the understanding. It was a lesson that I would never forget...and I was mighty thankful that the Archbishop had not deemed the inverted triangle an abomination when I first presented my concept to him! If he had been alert to the deeper symbolic meaning of the offending triangle, the entire design would have ended up being shunted into utter obscurity and the mural would have never been authorized to proceed. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss!

Fast forward 30 years to the hallowed halls of Sacred Heart Chaldean Catholic Church in Saskatoon, SK. The Chaldean Catholics had recently immigrated en masse from war-torn Iraq, where they had been ruthless persecuted for their religious beliefs by the regime of the day. The parish priest, Father Sabah Kamoura had several foiled attempts on his life prior to his exodus out of Iraq to Western Canada, where he was free to establish his parish in a relatively safe and tolerant society.

One of the first orders of business upon purchasing the former St. Timothy's Anglican Church property was to upgrade and beautify the austere interior with an ambitious mural that would cover the entire sanctuary wall. Fr. Sabah was adamant that this project must proceed as a top priority so that the interior space could reflect the power and majesty of the Chaldean liturgy. It was Fr. Sabah's belief that a visual testament to the scriptural aspects of his liturgy must be of paramount importance at the outset to enhance the spiritual lives of his flock. 

The first inclination of the parish council was to recruit a muralist from the USA, as it was their understanding that this was a very specialized field and they must have nothing but the most qualified expert to take on such an important project. As fate would have it, I had recently completed a fairly ambitious mural for the owner of a Saskatoon sports bar who happened to be a parishioner at Sacred Heart. He recommended my services as a muralist to the parish council and they contacted me shortly after. 

Father Sabah stands with Ilara Stefaniuk-Gaudet in front of the fabricated uppermost panels before they were mounted at the apex of the mural.

One of the first things I found out about the Chaldean Catholic faith is that the clergy is permitted to marry! This came as a revelation to me as I was born and raised in the Roman Catholic tradition. I was always mystified as to why priests may not marry and have a legitimate relationship with the partner of their choice. Surely this deficit has lead to a catastrophe of scandalous proportions throughout the history of the RC church as we are all acutely and painfully aware of. But alas, this is not the case for the Chaldeans, so you can imagine my relief and profound appreciation at this realization! Father Sabah has a wonderful, loving wife that he clearly respects and adores. 

Father Sabah and his wife were recruited to model their hands, respectively representing both the male and female aspects of God for my Trinity design.

So it was not much of a stretch when I suggested to him that I would like to represent the symbol of 'God' in my representation of the 'trinity' as a male AND female aspect. My concept was to include a male and female 'hand of God' to honor both healthy aspects of a complete Godhead.  My aim was to include a powerful reference to the feminine nature of God alongside the masculine nature. Rather than use a generic photo reference, I elected to recruit Father Sabah and his wife to pose as 'hand models' for the mural. Without hesitation they both agreed and we created a dossier of images. Fr. Sabah suggested that the male aspect be shown 'blessing' creation while the female aspect would be shown 'molding creation into being'. What an enlightened and profound approach!

The original mock-up that shows the male and female 'hands of God'.

As a matter of protocol, the early draft of my design was forwarded to the Archbishop's office and from there to the Vatican for 'approval'. Fr. Sabah and I were innocently ignorant of the repercussions that were to immediately come crashing down on us! We received a curt response from the Archbishop's office that the inclusion of the 'female aspect' in my rendition of the 'hands of God' was a HERESY and would not be permitted to grace the sanctuary of Sacred Heart Church. We were to cease and desist in our delusions of a unisex God. God forbid! We were told in no uncertain terms that this reprehensible act must not be allowed and that the design must be altered or the blessing of the Holy See for the project would be retracted.

Revised design shows two 'male' hands of God.

Not to be so easily dissuaded from our commitment to show the male and female aspect of the Godhead, Fr. Sabah and I made an executive decision to eliminate the offensive female hand from my design while maintaining the symbolic reference to the left hand 'blessing creation into being' and the right hand 'molding creation into being'. In addition, I had decided early on to flip the triangle onto its base, as this symbolizes a 'pointing to heaven' or simply 'God'.

The revisited rendering of the 'Trinity' at Sacred Heart.

As a brief aside, I incorporated the three 'primary colors' ie: red, yellow and green into the inner triangles to honor and respect the 'visual arts', as these are the three colors that when combined potentially create all of the colors of the spectrum. Without the primaries, there can be no visual art. But I digress. Something about the very idea of the 'powers-that-be' of the Vatican hierarchy demanding that the female aspect of the Godhead be banished from the mural design did not sit well with me as an artist presumably working in a free society. 

Mary is shown as a Goddess figure with cosmic rays emanating from her hands and held aloft in a 'nimbus' or halo.

Traditionally, Mary is shown with her foot on the neck of the serpent to symbolize that she has vanquished the 'devil'. I made a conscious decision to have her in harmony with the serpent, as the older pre-Christian meaning of the serpent is centered around the reverence for the serpent. The serpent is the symbol of the kundalini. In addition, Mary stands on the 'crescent moon' which is also an ancient reference to the Goddess. She, along with her accompanying symbols, is held aloft in the branches of a glorious 'Tree of Life". The "Tree of Knowledge" is really the map of the human soul. It is seen in nearly every ancient religion pre-dating Judeo/Christianity. The trunk symbolizes the spine, and the branches symbolize the chakras and the kundalini pathways. 

The serpent is vital and alive in harmony with the Goddess.

I wish to acknowledge the salient fact that I invited my daughter Ilara to work as my mural-painting apprentice for parts of the project. As fate would have it, Fr. Sabah elected at the last moment...after the changes as described above with the 'hands of God'...to include a very prominent vision of the so-called 'Tree of Life' at the base of the design. This was to be an auspicious decision that I willingly complied with, as the 'Tree of Life' is yet another powerful symbol of the Goddess and as it turns out, Ilara was charged with almost all of the rendering of this element. As a feminine influence on the course of this project, Ilara was a perfect compliment to the energy of the Goddess that ended up being infused mightily into the entire design as we will see.

Ilara applying one of multiple transparent glazes to the leaves on the 'Tree of Life'. 

Once we had established that the 'tree' would be an important part of the design, it dawned on all of us -Ilara, Fr. Sabah and myself- that the branches would permeate throughout the entire mural as a kind of powerful embrace...the essence of the Goddess would be evident to all that have the understanding of the original meaning of the archaic symbols. As a discreet act of defiance, it was decided to rev up the presence of the Goddess so that She resides in a natural harmony with the masculine aspects of 'God' in the design. 

Months before we realized that the 'Tree of Life' would be included in the design, Ilara had this motif tattooed on her left arm. Talk about pre-cognition.

I thought it was very fitting and evocative that months before Ilara was charged with the rendering of the 'Tree of Life' in this mural, she had a lovely design of the exact image tattooed on her arm. There is something quite undeniable about the synchronicity of this inexplicable chain of events!

...the branches would permeate throughout the entire mural as a kind of powerful embrace.

While I always respected the wishes of my patron and friend Fr. Sabah...he is a great man of the utmost integrity,,, I felt that I could not abandon my own conviction that the concept of a 'higher being' or God must include both the masculine and feminine aspects in order to be honest and authentic to my artistic spirit.

The planet Earth...Mother Earth...hovers in space above the center of the Tree.

Yet another sublime reference to the feminine nature of God/dess is evident in the prominent placement of 'Mother Earth' at the base of the design as it hovers in space above the center of the Tree. This was an element that the good Fr. Sabah suggested for his own reasons; suffice to say that the circle and the sphere are decidedly feminine attributes that parry in a dynamic tension with the triangular aspect of the apex high above. 

Resting in front of 'March of Trinity' shortly after its completion with Ilara.

She (the Goddess) is 'grounded' at the base of the mural, She is coiled as a serpent at the foot of the Goddess in the form of the transcendent Mary who stands on her crescent moon, She spreads her earthy branches throughout the entire cosmos of the design to bind together the sexy, messy business of creation.

I don't think that a male 'God' with healthy self-esteem would raise any objections whatsoever to the presence of His female counterpart in this context. I find it impossible to fathom for a moment how a sole male God could hope to foster creativity into being without the womb of his female companion as a vessel for the maturation of the process. 

I will be eternally grateful for the intellectual traction from the Holy See that motivated this robust response and I pray with all sincerity that the balance of power between the sexes is appropriate and timely in our enlightened age.

Dare to be Different...paint a mural!

Mural a Community Effort

My daughter Ilara's friend Meredith Stults was invited to drop in to help push the Dare to be Different mural over the top on the last day of painting. Which was a good thing, as she dove right in to work on the deep dark shadows in the old-growth forest. Meredith clearly enjoyed herself, as was evidenced by her great, relaxed brush-strokes. Working on a large-scale mural (albeit this is one of the smaller ones; though the same general rules apply) it is critical to keep the flow of the brush-work loose and fluent. Too much 'pickyness' or tightness tends to dampen the free flow of painting on this scale, so I always encourage my proteges to stay loose, keep breathing and to go with the flow of the piece...to be 'in the moment'. 

Sprinting to the finish line with a bit of extra help.

Mural-painting technique a singular methodology

Meredith Stults readily 'took' to the mural-painting medium and methodology with just a bit of coaching. I encouraged her to think of painting the shadowy 'shapes' that were already being set up in and around the trees, rather than thinking about painting 'trees' per se. With this little tip she was off and running. I saw her brush-work suddenly loosed up and she transformed before our eyes into a confident large-scale painter. In a way, painting on this scale is like a dance that the artist has with her brush and the paint. There is a certain rhythm and flow to the application that takes on a life of its own when the artist is able to breathe and relax into her work. The physicality of painting takes a front seat with this technique.

Meredith Stults focuses intently on the rhythm and flow of her brushwork.

A well-proportioned owl fits in just right

Ilara decided early on that there ought to be an owl soaring overhead in the mural. At first we thought about making it quite large so that it would appear to be close to life-size and therefore close to 'us' in the extreme foreground of the image. After some deliberation however, we decided that the owl would look better pushed back to a place (in virtual space) where it hovered over the tree-tops of the old-growth forest. This ended up being the right choice, as it would have over-powered the composition and in doing so would've diminished the sense of scale that we had granted the central focus of the design, namely the giant Sequoia redwood. 

Ilara introduced the idea of  an owl into the composition. Here is a detail that shows it against the soft-focus background.

Mural design celebrates the rare giant Sequoia

When I first saw the picture of the rare giant Sequoia in National Geographic before Christmas, I was haunted by the image of the solitary megalith soaring so incredibly high above the old-growth forest. I wondered why there was only one in the entire vista of the photograph. After reading the article, I came to realize that the reason was simple, though ultimately ignoble. All of the others in what had one been a huge grove had been harvested over the years for lumber. Only a scant 10 % of these gigantic monoliths have survived into the modern age. This is tragic and ironic, as some of the eldest ones living today are in excess of 3000 years old. I felt blessed and honored then to have the opportunity to honor them in this small way.

Detail shows the sun setting behind the giant Sequoia Redwood, with transparent rays piercing into the shadowy depths of the old-growth forest.

One of the best shots of the Dare to be Different mural was captured by Ilara with her Android device.

Meredith Stults, Ilara Stefaniuk-Gaudet and I pose in front of the mural right after its completion in Edmonton Alberta.

Richard Preston reveals the secret life of the giant Sequoia Redwood trees in his Ted Talk

While we were working on the mural, we watched an amazing Ted Talk by Richard Preston that reveals some mind-blowing secrets of the giant Sequoia trees of northwest California. These trees are SO huge, for example, that they have been known to support permanent pools of water in their upper crotches that in turn support an exotic and diversified ecosystem all of their own including a relative of the 'plankton' formerly thought to live exclusively in the oceans. Remember, this is happening at heights of up to 380 feet ( equivalent to a 38 story skyscraper) in these magnificent trees! 

Move Over Orange...

My computer-generated rendering that demonstrates approximately how the finished mural will appear.

...there's a red that wants to meet you!

A pail of red glaze all ready for application. The acrylic pigment is very concentrated and for my purposes must be diluted to a semi-transparent state for glazing over the original orange glaze. All of the subsequent glazes yet to come will be similarly transparent/translucent so that in the end all of the global glazes will retain their power while interacting in varying degrees with their fellow glazes..one big happy family of co-existing hues in a full-spectrum tonal analysis.

Even with the addition of just the second ( of a total of about 10-12 glazes at least) the red glaze, you can see how the forms immediately start to pop.

Rolling down the plank rail in front of the mural with paint-brushes flying...

A good day's work gets me to about the half-way point of the 80' wall.

Dennis Sather caught me up on the scaffold just as I was getting close to finishing the eighty-foot pass with the red glaze at the eight foot level.

The 'skyline' begins to appear as the red glaze is completed at the horizon.

The same thing from a different perspective that favors the right-hand side of the mural.