Labyrinth

Artist’s Purpose: To create a work of art celebrating The Spiritual Life Center’s 40th Anniversary.

Artist’s Intentions: To prayerfully create an artwork that elicits a universally interpretable metaphor for Spiritual Direction and Companioning.  

Artist’s Statement:

Not one, but two artworks emerged.  

In my beginning prayers about the artwork to be made, BOTH a Spiral and a Labyrinth popped into my mind’s eye.  My logical brain kept dismissing the idea of two pieces.  “Keep it simple,” I kept saying to myself. 

As I continued to pray, both images - the spiral and the labyrinth remained equally strong over time.  Spirit had led me to BOTH/AND.  I chuckled to myself, because, eh, well, isn’t both/and always the answer in Spiritual Direction?  

The Spiral and the Labyrinth have become Companion Pieces to each other -  and now, to our beloved Spiritual Life Center.   

Labyrinth represents The Spiritual Life Center’s journey and our own as Spiritual Companions. As Spiritual Directors, we learn skills, ethics, tools and ways of being that help us walk the Spiritual Path with others.  It is within these guidelines we learn to companion others on their Spiritual Journey.

I played with a few different techniques in Labyrinth’s gestational phases. I painted the labyrinth in water first.  I began with a single dot of water in the center of the piece and painted out from the middle.  I worked with the water and ink in tandem - painting the sumi-e ink along the two edges of the waterline.  This created an unpredictable effect in between the two edges of the line.  The way the ink flows along with the water and the natural fibers of the paper alludes to the unseen and unpredictable nature of Spirit.  

Another fun fact:  Labyrinth is also larger than its frame, humbly symbolizing that we can’t possibly know everything.  

The Spiral represents the past, present and future of the Spiritual Life Center.  The Spiral begins with a single golden dot.  A line starts radiating out from the center of the spiral.  The line morphs from gold to black and then spells the names of The Spiritual Life Center’s Spiritual Directors who have passed away.  Next, the past runs into the present.  All Spiritual Directors in attendance at the Annual Celebration 2022 signed their rainbow of names connecting us to … the unfolding future Spiritual Directors of The Spiritual Life Center. 

Thank you for this honor to behold our Spiritual Life Center Community.

Special Thanks to Charles McAughtry, Wayne Martin, Shihan David LoPriore, L.Ac.