World AIDS Day

atlanta face, originally uploaded by scotterickson.

december first was world AIDS day. i was hired by some people at SPU to come and paint during one of the presentations. Steve Haas, vice-president of World Vision, spoke and they had a band play. i painting the whole time. i did a painting like this one, but it had a different color scheme....

afterward, someone from the audience came up to me and asked me what goes on in my mind as i am hearing what steve is saying (maddening statistics and stories of loss and destruction in the lives of children in africa) and painting this picture? i'd like to share my thoughts with you...

there is something curious that happens when you create something. in making it, putting all the pieces together, solving visual problems... in all that activity, what happens is you fall in love with it. you fall in love with it cause you know it. i know that under the brown is a red base coat. i know that under all the paint is written "passivity is entropy." i know the story of how it all came together. i am intimately involved with it's coming into existence. therefore, i am attached... i love it.

so as i am in this process (and the audience as well, who is witnessing the creation process), and as i am hearing the stories of children and adults being wiped out by this disease, the two connect. the stories are no longer of strangers... in some way this face becomes the symbol of their story. his eyes looking at you are the eyes of millions of people looking towards... somewhere, anywhere, to help them. his shape and form represents the masses of real, tangible people who are each distinctly unique and wonderful in the eyes of their Creator. steve's stories are no longer just tales of fictional distant characters in some other plot in a different book... they are in the same story i am in... and ignoring their demise is not an option.

it's a powerful gift to be able to create - to bring something into existence. i thank jesus for allowing me to use this to serve Him in His work. reknown painter, Bo Bartlett, said, "the job of the artist is to wake the viewer up." that's the job i've been given... but i first need to be awake myself.