Elizabeth Gray-King

Behold I am doing a new thing

2007-05-27T07:36:00.000-07:00

BEHOLD I AM DOING A NEW THING

I had no idea what this would be. The stretched canvas came from Oxford. My MSN messaging name is ‘Red shoes are lovely’ and I have a thing about red shoes. One day I noticed the progression from red boots to red shoes and realised there was a liberating element to the change. Another day, I sketched out a woman coming out of a person shaped cupboard, the woman’s body being more or less clearly seen, the cupboard shaped as voluminous clothes, hiding the human shape. It became an emergence from what was (for so long) to what was beginning to be.

So here it is. The boxes are all sorts of symbols and reality. The painted box in the middle always held vitamins, the boxes on either side, jewellery. All ways of managing. They are open here, as the things they stand for are now.

The title comes from another favourite Bible passage, Isaiah 43.19: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”

Darkness is as Light

2007-05-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

This painting begins to touch the deeply personal. It is a triptych, the panels created for a commission which never quite happened, but about which I am delighted to have the panels. I had no idea what would be here.

I painted the centre first, catching my shadow against the panel as I stood in my studio which is a conservatory. The left hand panel came next, with the little girl sheltering herself not from the night, but from the darkness heaped upon her. She found her occupations and her source of light.

The right hand panel was the last, evoking the faith message of harvest from grains. Gold glows all around.

The title is from Psalm 139, always my companion: “If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

That you may have life

2007-05-21T14:47:00.000-07:00

Rainbows are huge for me. I love them because I have to find the dark to see them. Placing my back to the light, pursuing the search in the dark clouds, there they are - all the colours in the universe arching in one (or two) shining bows, reminding the dark that it is only vapour.

I tried so often to paint rainbows, finding twee results. This just catches a moment. The glass mount is just that, glass. See through to whatever, reflecting whatever. The rainbow is the light, the glass almost water.

The title is from the gospel of John, my favourite theologian, who has Jesus say, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly”.

Breathing Light - Wisdom detail

2007-05-21T14:43:00.001-07:00

The Stone was rolled away

2007-05-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

I woke one morning with this picture on my brain. I could see the vaulted ceiling of a huge cathedral and I could see a small person - minimised and apparently ignored by the immensity of the institution of the church. But as I painted, I couldn’t manage the person in the bottom right hand corner and realised that s/he shouldn’t be there.

Suddenly fabric burst forth with colour and movement and shape. As I watched this grow, it became a statement of my distance from, yet attachment to, the institutional church. The church and its core creeds have told me of love when I wished particular people might have. I have been ordained and upheld by the church, even with my own deep critique of it. I both belong to it and fly out of it.

Wisdom Dove Speaks

2007-05-21T14:34:00.000-07:00

This is a combination of Jim Hansford’s shed window frame, Steph’s raw oak outside frame, fine woven cotton and rough canvas, variously tied and streched.

It was painted in 1992 when I was Artist in Residence for the United Reformed Church Forum conference. Themed ‘Roots and Branches’ the conference was planned to look at the roots of the URC; I couldn’t help but go back to the roots of our faith altogether. To me, the right side is rather like the knowledge of God as shared before Jesus Christ and the left, that knowledge as made human in the world. The Spirit (Wisdom Dove) is everywhere.

It is part of these paintings as a statement of that which I have always felt held me and a statement of what I always believed.

As Dying, See we Live

2007-05-21T14:31:00.000-07:00

I suspect this may be hard for some, but not for others. For me, it is another painting of reality, but also of beauty. After all I did to remember and to come to a new and liberating place, breast cancer felt a body blow in all the ways that can be interpreted.

I went through it because it was just a different form of all I have been through in the past. But oddly enough, I didn’t feel diminished. I wanted to show through this painting that though bits of us may not be quite what we want them to be, beauty is present. Both the kingfisher fabric and the kingfisher bird in the top left are a colour and a simile attributed to me by others over the years. They seemed right here.

Breathing Light

2006-12-10T13:25:00.000-08:00

Breathing Light

Of course it’s hard work.
Of course.
It’s terrifying.

It’s immense,
Doing the monumental task of lifting;
Of lifting the grave stones;
Of heaving the box covers;
Of prising open the trunk lids;
Of sweeping heavy damask wrapping out of the way;
Of wrenching off swaddling clothes in unwilling lengths at a time;
Of course it’s hard work –
lifting the heavy settled weights of my history.

The weighted covers had their purpose.
They protected any thought of re-living.
They protected from moments (and swathes) of history that no one would want to remember.

And they were beautiful!

The covers were so wonderful.
So effectively sheltered and archived all that held pain.
Stunning colourful, classical - stones, covers, lids, wrapping … swaddling.
You might have been one who commented!
You might have been one to compliment,
To positively critique,
To say how magnificent they were, how well they worked and how truly beautiful all crafted coverings were.

Profoundly and creatively, the murky dark effluent locked into dark, unlit spaces.

Of course it’s hard work.
Moving everything which held a life of its own,
Well beyond the reason for its creation (and keeping in place).

But on a day when I could not speak, and the lids began to move themselves, I had no choice.

Take a breath. Take enormous lungful, steel muscles and heave.
Move.
From darkness to light.
In this light I breathe.
The light of all life flutters and shudders in my lungs.
The stones cry out.
The covers rattle.
The lids lift themselves.
The wrapping, swaddling slithers its own direction.
Off.

Off.

Lift, move, heave, shift, reveal.

Breathing light,
The monumental task gains wings.
Light as a feather,
Kingfisher brilliant.

Suddenly, in a flash of shocking brightness, all hidden becomes revealed.

And there is light!
And life.
And liberation.

Breathing.
In the Light.
Breathing of the light.
Breathing.
Light.

©E Gray-King 2006

Profile

2006-12-10T13:19:00.000-08:00

Another sketch from a sketchbook - all dots if you look carefully and if the scanner got all the detail right.

What of Forgiveness?

2006-12-10T12:55:00.000-08:00

Interesting time at Faith2Day at St Columba's today. We were talking of forgiveness, and if a person has to say sorry before they are forgiven. We concluded that there are two parts to forgiveness. One is the forgiver, the other is the one to be forgiven.

To forgive is liberating for the forgiver. To forgive is to let go of painful memory. To put down the burden of always (always) remembering that which was recieved (words, physical contact, or any other kind of personal diminishment) at the whim of another is stupendously liberating. I don't have to keep remembering what I want another to say sorry for.

For the one forgiven, the forgiver truly needs to hear what the forgiven needs to be forgiven for. An "I'm sorry" could cover anything and could be a cover for any real truth. I recall someone telling me about conversations at the near death of another, who asked to be forgiven. The relative said, "tell me what you are sorry for, and I will forgive." The one near death had no words - as the whole of that life was hiding truth. The one near death could not list what needed to be forgiven - to do so would be to acknowledge all s/he had done which caused pain to one other, let alone many others. Even so close to death, this person could not name truth.

Real forgiveness rises out of real truth. One just cannot be without the other. Though I rid myself of the burden of memory by 'forgiving' my perpetrators, it wasn't really forgiveness, as the 'forgiven' never knew. It was me laying down the need for my truth to be named and apologised for by another, which I called forgiveness. Yes it was liberating.

But forgiveness is, to me, a mutual exercise.

Choice

2006-12-10T10:22:00.000-08:00

Choice

God, God.

I look up,
I look around.

I see you,
I don't.

I believe you,
I don't.

I wait because there is no choice,
no choice.

My choices go little by little.

Decisions I think are
Big

are actually quite small.

The final and first choice,
the Alpha/Omega choice
is

life or death.

I choose life.

From there,
I have no choice.

2.91

Hands

2006-12-10T10:20:00.000-08:00

Sketches.... of hands of mine and others. From years ago. But I love them.

Sides

2006-12-10T10:18:00.000-08:00

Sides

Black.
White.
both sides
two sides
flat sides

(fuming sides)
other sides?
more sides?
which side (s)?

Listen.
know
(in)side
out(side)

3 sides
4 points
7 days
8th/eternity

all sides
no sides
all deep
(not flat)

Choose....

sides?

Eternity.

22.7.91

My Sister, our Death

2006-12-10T10:13:00.000-08:00

This is a drawing from a photograph taken in South Africa...

For Mark and James

2006-12-10T10:10:00.000-08:00

For Mark and James

Ninetendo blips and pows.
Two white pair of socks
balance on the ends of
high, adjustable, hygienic beds.

One bad heart,
the other who knows?

Both cope with the
sounds and smells;
with the instruments
and the prodding.

Not talking much,
they connect even so
to this hitech adventure.

Blips and beeps
cover the creep
of fear held deep.

25.6.92

The Boys, themselves

2006-12-10T10:05:00.000-08:00

This is James and Jeffrey, gorgeous sons I have the privilege to (know? mother?). Bad photo, but Pete will do a new one soon. Its composed of sketches while they were little, copies of photos taken at different times and even a poem (the Ghostogator) of Jeffrey's.

Holy Saturday poem

2006-12-10T10:02:00.000-08:00

Holy Saturday

This is my waiting time.

You know the time, the day;
that fateful Saturday
between ghoulish, ghastly, deadly Friday
and
exhuberant, exhilerating, life-full Sunday.

The waiting day.

(the day when most thought death ruled
and few waited for promise truth)

The waiting day.
The in-between day.

This is my time.
Much of me has died
(cut out,
exorcised,
laid to rest).

Doctors say the waiting time goes on
(but healing is there).
Creator/Flesh/Spirit says the waiting time goes on
(but the promise will come).

As him who died (and lived)
was still (somehow) life;
I am dead/alive
in my waiting time.

22.7.91

Holy Saturday

2006-12-10T09:40:00.001-08:00

This is Holy Saturday - and I still have to get a good image of it. It is much brighter and the fabric is terrifically bright rainbow coloured. We're working on it!

From Which You Were Hewn

2006-11-25T07:53:00.000-08:00

Brainscape

2006-11-25T07:50:00.000-08:00

This is Brainscape. Like Landscape, this is the lay of my brain - how I work. The filing cabinets on the left are the shocking ordering of all the information in my head. I leave all that information there so that I am free to grasp inspiration (all that stuff falling down on the right) and free to move wherever, even if it is a ballroom floor in the clouds.

Rainbow Promise

2006-11-25T07:44:00.000-08:00

Rainbow Promise

You have to know where the light is
To see the promise
In the dark.
You can catch glimpses,
Without knowing.
If you stare at the dark on those caught times,
You’ll see the coloured promise.
Stare.
Study.
Wonder.
Know the light behind you.
Study its source.

Then,
each time you see the dark,
Drenched in dour and damp gloom,
Look.
With the light behind you.

Courage.
To meet the dark.

“I promise.”
“No more destruction.”
Life.
Light.

© Elizabeth Gray-King 12/2000

2006-11-25T06:54:00.001-08:00

Breathe with me

Breathe with me.
See with me.
(through your other eyes)
(through those other lungs)

Feel the musty mystery cool
move
through,

untouchable
(having touched much).

Know with me the
mystery place deep,
eternity cooled,
calm,

now warm
(having been touched).

16.6.91