Hovering Over the Deep
In the oil painting, “Hovering Over the Deep”, I was inspired by the book of Genesis, which is a book about beginnings. In Genesis 1:1-2, it reads, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”
This particular passage, the first book of the Bible and the first line, has always fascinated me visually. Even as I child, I tried to imagine the scene as if it were a movie being played out in front of me. When God first created the earth, it was formless, it had no order. It was dark. What about the sounds, was it quiet? What about movement, was it still? It was deep. How deep? Underneath the “surface’ in my subconscious, there has always been a deep longing to be able to picture this moment. A sadness, that I wasn’t there to witness it. It says God’s Holy Spirit was hovering over the waters. Did the Spirit already know what He was going to do with this formless, dark void? Was He contemplating His next move? It’s as if there is a pregnant pause at this moment in time. Time. Did time exist at this very moment yet? At this point in the passage, we as readers know there is more to come. We are just waiting for what follows with anticipation.
“Hovering Over the Deep”, 48”x48”, Oil on Canvas, 2014, Private Collection, Seattle, WA
Double Meanings: Symbolism Embedded in the Canvas
The actual canvas that I used for this painting holds its own symbolism. In 2014, I was asked if I could bring in a blank stretched canvas to the Vine Community Church, in Cumming, Ga. It was to be used during the service. In response to the sermon, the congregation was given slips of paper and was asked to write about something new that they were going to pursue in their life, a new beginning. They then pinned it to the canvas. After all of the slips were removed, there were tiny pin pricks all over the canvas. It was with this surface that I painted this painting. Lots of formless strokes, drips. Vaporous washes of color mixed with turpentine (mineral spirits) and oil. The surface that once held all of the “new beginning” intentions of a congregation, became a painting about the moment right before the formless became order and the darkness became light.
Application
What is something you would like to begin today?