Jesus is Laid in the Tomb

Each year parishioners at St. Patrick's Episcopal Church in Atlanta volunteer to create a 24x30 inch piece of art to hang in the Nave (called the sanctuary in some churches). The work centers around Lent and there is usually a Starving Artists' dinner of soup and bread. Each artist describes the piece to be presented, explaining what it meant to them personally and how they proceeded. These are primarily paintings. Later, after the pieces are hung, there is a formal Stations of the Cross service in the Nave and all parishioners are invited. This has been going on for more than 20 years now. Last year, due to Covid, we never took our pieces to church. But we still made them and we shared over zoom.  Our church has been closed for more than a year now. This year, as we see the light at the end of the tunnel, the pieces will be hung in the church, but without the in-person Starving Artists' dinner. There is hope that we will meet inside our church again before too long and can see one another's pieces in person. My piece is for the last station, Jesus is Laid in the Tomb. What follows is my story:

When I try to imagine Israel, I see sharp rocks, layers of sand, and shades of brown, with a bright sky above it all. When I try to imagine Jesus laid in a tomb, I imagine barely visible caves, deep shadows, and dark curves. As I began to create my station of the cross for this year, that is what I tried to create by piecing fabric together, with some curves and some sharp edges.

 It felt chaotic, as I imagined the minutes and hours following Jesus' death on the cross. 

I tried to represent that frightful time with swirls of quilted hand stitch, in shades from bright white to dark brown, nearly black.

And then he is laid in a tomb, wrapped in a shroud, still, quiet, dark. 

As he remains there, something begins to happen. 

His shroud becomes transparent – ethereal, I hope. He begins to transform. I hope you can see his shroud in the lower left-hand corner, made with French knots to maintain the layering of the story. 

As he rises, a wing opens, in the middle. Another wing is forming.

 

In the upper right-hand corner, he takes flight in the form of a dove, still transparent and continuing to change. 

Rise, Jesus, rise.