Skylight II, Day
by Francine Halvorsen
(Aquatint, soft ground, open bite; 1999, 33" X 26")
Cathedral Of The Incarnation - Baltimore, MD
fhstudio@nyct.net
 

 
We are graced with a universe of visible being, as, in the illumination of transcendent light, sight becomes insight. Art like religion moves between the concrete and the abstract -- the material and the transcendent. It also is in perpetual adoration of creation.
 
An act of creation echoes the created world and gives us a silent expansive moment that clears away veils of ordinary sight and lets us see the joy and intelligence that is the heart of spiritual vision.
 
From opaque moments, to great translucence, we experience a oneness with the cosmos, from which daily habit has separated us. When art touches us we know in a heartbeat that we have the same nature as these wondrous and compelling elements usually perceived as being outside ourselves.
 
Kant said that he believed in the "starry heaven above me, moral law within me…".
 
Imagine though that the starry heavens and moral law are inseparable in our perception.
 
Imagine for a moment that both exist inside and out, that we are part of what we see and in communion with all the wonders of nature, that we are sunshine, starlight, and that the time of creation is always now.
 
Much as spirit often transcends substance, aesthetic experience often gives significance to perception that discursive language limits. A shock of recognition, of ourselves as luminous as all things bright and beautiful, and shepherds of the created world.
 
How compelling that is. How connected and responsible that makes us, not only to our human community, but as well to all of creation.