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.

Remember your baptism

This relief was in the Chapel at Duke. I think it must be Jesus baptizing, since the figure pouring water from a scallop shell is holding a cross. Iconography is an interesting pursuit. Paul is always carrying a sword; Peter is followed by a rooster; Mary Magdalene cavorts with her alabaster jar. I think John the Baptizer carries a lamb - or it could be I'm conflating that from the Isenheim altarpiece, where John is pointing at christ on the cross and the lamb underneath is bleeding into a cup, or I could be conflating that from van Eyck's Ghent altarpiece. I think John has a lamb in Sint James painting of John the Baptist in the wilderness. Iconography makes things complicated: imagine a space where Catherine is with her wheel, Barbara with her tower, and St. Lawrence with his grill and St. Jerome with his lion all crowd together in a line at Kroger, with their buggies filled with food and odd items like batteries. Catherine, as usual, doesn't quite have exact change. It's about time for Jerome's lion to go to work.
Today we're in need of new iconography. Lions, wheels, swords - these symbols have lost their charge; plus other people need iconographic programs to trail along after them, wayward thought balloons. I propose a project for a revised iconographic emblemata for a new millennium.

Remember your baptism?

This painting has been re-stretched, and now the fold in the upper left corner is fixed. I painted this painting in 1993 before I left Athens, GA for Middle-of-Nowhere, NM. As may be imagined this painting calls forth passionate opinions: some of which surprise me.This painting like the Lucretia is a painting that I've had a difficult time finding a home for.