Christian Artist

Celebrate

November 5th 2004 was our 27th wedding anniversary. We were very busy so we did not plan anything special or buy each other a gift .... yet when we came home from work we found flowers in the vases! Our cleaning lady had decided without knowing that it was our anniversary, to pick some flowers from our garden and put them in the vase. She had never done this before. It made me think that God had done something special for us to celebrate our marriage.

 

Celebrate  art by Jennifer Phillips I was at home recovering from surgery. When I began feeling well enough I fixed up the ribbons on an art work I had created in 2005 which began as a photo I had taken of a young dancer who danced in church for us.
In November Peter and I drove out to Mitchell and on the way I saw a cockatoo in a cage outside a pet shop. I pointed it out to Peter and told him I would love to take some photos of it, but he was not inclined to stop. 

That week I felt well enough to create an image for the Belconnen Artists Network (BeAN) annual exhibition. I started with ribbons. I found a cockatoo with an open beak among the photos I'd taken when two had posed for me on my balcony. By manipulating and merging two photos I got one image I was happy with, although the beck wasn't as clear as I wanted it to be. I created a wild bird with untied ribbons as free as the breeze. 

I thought about the Bible verse from Job:36:16 "He is enticing you from the mouth of distress, to a broad place with no constraint;" and I thought, "Surely that is 'wild' in a good sense 'no constraints;' beyond borders. I felt as though God was doing that for me. I had been building up a collection of art that goes beyond the border of the picture and on this art work, I made the ribbons and the bird come out of the bordered image. 

The following Saturday we went to Mitchell again and Peter didn't want to stop at the pet shop again, but the place we were going to was shut. It was eleven o'clock and we discovered the shop didn't open until eleven thirty. We had half an hour to waste so Peter drove us back to the pet shop. I took some photos of the cockatoo and another bird in their cages and then the owner came over and opened the door. I asked him if he would open the door for the cockatoo as well so I could get some close ups and he did. The bird was used to its cage so it didn't fly away. I got some good shots and even some beak shots. God had given me the very thing that was in my heart again. 

As we drove past the pet shop on our way home I saw a wild cockatoo on the ground near the cage, so I created another art work for the BeAN exhibition. I used a photo of a stream I had seen on the way to Wee Jasper. It was feathered very much like the yellow cockatoo head feathers. I perched the cockatoos on the picture border and made the stream come out beyond the border of the picture, like a wild stream breaking away from the normal river flow. Freedom is like that, but the effects of being caged or "going with the flow" can take some time to overcome. The fear of freedom, of "no constraints" can hold a person back from experiencing the greatest adventures.

Photos of the exhibition

You can buy this art work on a greeting card.

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