“Angels & Their Jobs”

The Virginia Beach Chapel Gallery show opens in about one week (running Nov. 1-Jan. 5) and I, for a change, have looked ahead and created a work for the exhibition. The subject matter is traditional— shepherds, sheep, a multitude of angels, star, special star to indicate Jesus’s birthplace, lots of light in the middle of the night. A fun scene. I decided to take the fun to the next level by including a Farsidesque lost sheep in the right foreground, an angel playing a Fender and another playing a Hofner 500 (a “Beatle bass”), one with a sax…and so on. The work is a fusion of Western and Eastern styles. As my son said, “Dad, they don’t have mountains like that near Bethlehem.” Anyway, I enjoyed the indigo/mineral green applications in the piece. As for the fusion and fun, well… I hope they just create a playful invitation to come and have a closer look at a very significant moment in human history.