Holy Spirit

We were living in Nairobi, Kenya. For some time, I enjoyed the objects from which I made this painting. I love the bright colored fabric that the women wrapped around them as a skirt. I also enjoyed all the shapes of bottles and the intense quality of light at the high altitude in which we lived.

On a particularly bright morning all these came together in this image which was from a series of photographs. I painted this one because it was a great challenge to portray the effects of light. Light as it came through the cloth, reflected from the cloth, and glared off the cloth, and transmitted through the water and glass bottles.

Once I was finished, I saw that the center of interest was not visible except in the effects of the glass refracting the cloth. It reminded me of the Holy Spirit that we only see by its effects. The Spirit is like the wind in that way, or like this center bottle. You cannot see the bottle. You only see what it does to the patterns that you see through it.