Objective

Proposal for a four credit painting independent study:
Painting my Baptism: Inward

I am going to start by painting a spiritual experience, which on reflection I would call a Baptism:
On the floor of my parents’ house, I sat cross-legged meditating (facing SW). When I go to a deep place, like I did that day, things get fuzzy first, then they become illuminated, and finally everything comes back into an illuminated focus of sorts (solid objects may waver and colors may change and shimmer) as a great peace settles over me. However, on this occasion after I had been sitting in that deep place for some time a large, maybe armored, translucent green man with a sword rose out of the floor in front of me, raised the sword over his head and brought it down and through me. I was not scared. I sat there calmly as I watch the two halves of me fall away to the sides. In that moment I was released. There was a great settling. I was no longer aware of the green man. My outward shell, my false presentation of myself, was gone. I was starting fresh. I was baptized.
(an aside: I say baptism because, Baptism is an act of cleansing, which allows us to move forward into a new relationship with God. For Quakers the act of Baptism is always an inward one because John the Baptist said, "truly I tell you that I baptize with water but there is one who comes after me who is before me who Baptizes with the Holy spirit and Fire". The parallel between death and Baptism is almost as old as Christianity; Paul said, "don't you know that when you are Baptized unto Christ you are crucified with Him". Significant Quaker and Christians such as John Woolman experienced their moment of turning wholeheartedly to God as a death. Woolman when reflecting on angles he heard singing "John Woolman is Dead" Woolman concluded that it was his will which had died so that Gods could live within him. I light of all of that I have come to treasure this experience as one of many inward Baptisms.)

To paint this experience in a way that honestly represents my memory of the event while simultaneously making the significance of the event accessible to other viewers, I will need to balance visual realism with emotional realism. I believed Edvard Munch achieved this balance in his Golgotha, anxiety, and the Scream as well as William Blake in his The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with Sun (1805), and Ancient of Days. Munch succeeded through his expressionist style while Blake did so with his romantic realism, I plan on striving for some blend of the two. I intend, like Munch, to use unnatural placement of colors and painterly strokes, while, like Blake, maintaining depictions people and objects ‘realist’-enough to ground the viewer.

I will start by doing a number of sketches during which I will explore perspective, color and composition. I will meditate during these early stages to try and revisit the experience. As I currently envision my Baptism experience I see it in three frames, so as part of my preliminary work I need to figure out if it should be condensed to a single picture, or if it should be three separate images and if so how should they be shown together, physically touching, same wall, over, under, side by side, or able to stand on their own, codependent images. I will then move onto a larger painting (maybe 24x36 or 30x48) surface (probably masonite) and attempt a final version. I will do more finished paintings from here maybe of the same subject (depending on whether or not I am satisfied with the end result of the first finished painting). I will complete 140 hours of work over the course of the semester (or whatever is the total requirement for a 4 credit independent study.