Hiding in plain sight

When I first began drawing, my instructor gave me a photograph and told me to "draw what I see".  Little did I know that this simple instruction would reveal to me a world that I was not seeing - a world of shadows, shades, "negative spaces", shapes - just beyond my eyesight.

When I began sketching outside, in "plein air", I experimented with this awareness of sights I had previously overlooked. I've been told my art demonstrates this sensitivity. 

This weekend, my Spotlight blog will be published by the Moravian Church reflecting upon Bohemian Brethren who, in the late 1600s, were considered illegal aliens in their own country. Those who did not flee their homeland chose instead to remain in the shadows. Their mere presence among neighbors had to be carefully calculated to avoid detection and persecution. Even church leaders who had world-wide influence, were ineffective advocates for a religion which for two centuries had shaped the culture of what is now the Czech Republic. 

I created this piece of art to depict the illegal act of worship in plein air, in secret, sheltered by today's "Chalice Rocks", a state park in northern Czech Republic. Any correlation between the lives of these "invisible people" of the 17th century and the lives of those who call out today that Black Lives Matter is not a coincidence.