Skip to main content

Give Me Jesus

Give Me Jesus
2015, oiled walnut and brass
30" x 65"
collection Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Minneapolis

Commissioned by friend and longtime NLC supporter Diane Fleming, this hangs in the narthex at Bethlehem Lutheran in south Minneapolis.  Text taken from the old spiritual "Give Me Jesus," it's one of the signature choral works of the National Lutheran Choir arranged by NLC founder, Dr. Larry Fleming.

The panel separates four themes of the text and uses small detail carvings to illustrate and expand the meaning.  Each detail contains the shadow of the cross in the background.  The following pics are taken from the work in progress on the carving bench..






When I am alone...

The solitary figure stands against the backdrop of earth, sun, stars...one thinks of Psalm 8--the work of Your hands, the sun, moon, and stars which You have created...


 When I come to die...
The prone Christ-figure outstretched on the cross is intentionally calling out the extreme foreshortening of the Renaissance crucifixion scenes... Caravaggio?  Durer?






 When I want to sing...
There's an obvious connection to the National Lutheran Choir, but also any choir--indeed, anyone who sings from the sheer joy of life..  even here, though, the choir is shadowed by the backdrop of the cross.




You may have all the rest...
Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus-- earth, water, stars, moon... and we are like living stones, built into a spiritual house...







Give me Jesus.
Simple, but complex.  Free, yet so costly.  When all else is stripped away, we are left to face a loving God.










A detail from the final installation, with one of the votive candle stands shown.  Walnut has such an organic richness, especially when it is oiled and rubbed down.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shelley: To a Skylark

  To a Skylark 2014 cherry,12"x84" collection of the artist, Anoka MN With deep gratitude to fellow choral singer and St. Olaf friend Eldri Wittkamper.. We just wanted to stop by and see the house where Eldri's relative lived, one of the Roe family who taught voice at St. Olaf.  We knocked on the door, and it turns out the house was occupied by the mayor of Northfield, who invited us in.   My jaw dropped when I saw it--the style was unmistakeable--it was a Flaten work surrounding the mantelpiece at the fireplace.  The text is a selection from Percy Bysshe Shelley, "To a Skylark": Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. Since we couldn't guarantee access to the house in the future, it was a stroke of luck that Eldri had a rubbing of the work, an exact copy.  From the rubbing, I was able to reproduce the carving exactly as Arnold did it.  I g...
Post a Comment
Read more

Servants, 2nd ed.

  Lord, You Have Called Your Servants 2020 Oiled white birch, 32"x36"x2" St. Stephen Lutheran Church, Bloomington MN This is another edition of a well-known and well-loved prayer.  I have finished seven or eight versions of this in walnut, in a horizontal layout; this is the first in 'paragraph' format, with corresponding icon miniatures on the side.   The icons, from top down:  sun/clouds of creation, the cross, shock of wheat, dotted eighth note of music, the star, the acorn seed, and the sprout of new growth.
Post a Comment
Read more

Newborn Stars...

Newborn Stars 2013, 2014 walnut, 30"x60" collection Zion Lutheran Church, Hopkins MN I have gone through this process many times before--finding a text in a piece of choral music that is the source material for work in wood.  As a choral singer, it takes some time to learn new music--notes, intervals, phrasing, tempo--and then at some unexpected time, a phrase or verse hits like the proverbial ton of bricks.  Sometimes there are tears, often I just can't sing for a while when the profoundness of the text finally hits home.  This text is one of those.  It's a hymn text written by writer/theologian/musician Dr. Carl Daw, and the hymn is " As Newborn Stars Were Stirred to Song."  It was the perfect metaphor, especially the last verse-- the symbolism of the redeeming Christ set into musical terminology that just struck me... and a perfect choice to change the text into wood. An example of 'interchange', a favorite technique that I can onl...
Post a Comment
Read more