St. Luke is the patron saint of painters

St. Luke is the patron saint of painters – who knew? I didn’t.

But I have it on good authority as the new Bishop of Lichfield declared as much when he celebrated Holy Communion on 18th October – The Feast of St. Luke.

Luke the beloved physician, writer of two books in the Bible – Luke and Acts, patron saint of healers and painters and the link between those two is oil. He is also purported, by legend, to have painted images of Mary the mother of Jesus.

So already I’m at week 4 of my BA in Fine Art and boy do they keep us busy – even us part timers and I have been introduced to oil paint which needs either turpentine or linseed oil to make it function. So much fun! Though I’m beginning to suspect that oil paint never actually dries, try as I might my oil paintings ( a term I use loosely ) resist all my attempts to dry them, I’ve even taken the hair drier to them!

But the good news is I have found a much closer car park so at least I arrive without having to have drawn on my inhaler too much.

Tension and Collapse – what does it look like in image?

Of course you can imagine a pile of bricks falling, or anything falling down really – but what if you start off with nothing but a blank sheet of paper – hoping for inspiration from the ether?

It helps to see what other students are doing though you run the risk of being totally intimidated by the talent of other people which raises again the voice on the shoulder:

“Call yourself an artist? Pah!”

What I am loving is the encouragement from the tutors is to be the artists we are – with the question often posed: “What will your practice look like?”

One gem which I found really helpful:

‘before you make your first mark, pause, allow the mark to be intentional’.

Perhaps we should all do that as we consider the marks we make on life or on our world – pause, be intentional.

Not that you work with a finished project in mind, rather that you allow the process of art making, mark making to unfold to lead you somewhere.

I like that.

It reminds me of sayings like: ‘better to travel well than to arrive’ or ‘value the journey not just the destination’ or even TRUST THE PROCESS.

Pause and trust the process.

So I’m attempting both – and part of my process is a trip to Amsterdam soon with a group of Art students which involves travelling on a coach for an ungodly length of time. I will bring the average age down by a couple of decades.

Why did I think this was a good idea?