Would you be free

Painted 14 years ago when I lived upstairs in a house church in Athens, GA, in a tiny room, and the women in the house next door let me use a screened porch as a studio, where I could paint and read. I painted this baptism. I want to say little more about it, because people provide such a wonderful interpretation on their own. Joe Evans offered a succinct observation, which I can't remember here. And Anna Carter Florence now has this painting in her office. Or she has it somewhere. Anyway she appreciates it and understands me as an artist. A preaching/painter or painting/preacher.
The subject matter comes from the revivalist upbringing I experienced, fraught with blood imagery (would you be free from the power of sin, there's power in the blood) and repressed sexuality. Hence I quote that hymn at the top of the painting. The minister is an all too common figure, floppy bible raised high, wearing white shirt and tie - he's very uncomfortable, a sign that faith should be uncomfortable. The woman, who could be any of us, male or female, is resigned to plunge beneath that flood. But more so, a fortiori, as a woman, she is the victim of patriarchy, a rule that determines how she should act and what she should speak, a rule that has stripped her of her voice and reduced her to a naked, faceless object.
There's a fountain filled with blood for you.