“This world is a wilderness.” These are the words my great-aunt said upon hearing that her sister, my grandmother, had died. The powerful imagery of the wilderness helps us to understand our world. The wilderness is beautiful and full of life, but it is also a place of suffering, temptation, despair, and the threat of death. Wilderness is a collection of sculptures that address the complex, beautiful, tragic reality of living in a world that still groans to be set right (Romans 8:22). The relief sculptures of poisonous plants represent the fine line between life and death: these beautiful, living things can bring sickness and death, or, if used wisely, they can bring healing. The figures and portraits in Wilderness  tell stories about human experience in this world. According to Christian theology, mankind has been freed from enslavement to sin through the work of Jesus, yet we still dwell in the wilderness of a world that is not yet fully renewed. Life in our broken world holds glimpses of the promised restoration of the heavens and the earth; the wilderness is full of life and beauty, death and danger.

WILDERNESS
We’ve walked out of bondage

But still wander.

We learn to trust,

Then forget again.

We rejoice in our freedom,

Dance through the night,

Just to find 

Ourselves bound and binding again.

We wake. We walk. We want

To find safety in this beautiful

 WILDERNESS,

Eden, which Chaos has reclaimed.

Scanning the distance

for the Promised Land, wandering.

Wondering if our children will see it,

Holding onto wild hope.

Closing reception and artist talk: September 20th and 5:45pm