Vineyard Columbus member, Cody Miller, allowed us to use an image he created for our sermon series, Let's Rebuild. Cody has received numerous awards and honors for his work. You can read his official artist statement (below) or learn more about him on his website.
A statement from the artist:
“I think grace is a tricky word. I’ve read about it, experienced it, and heard the testimonials. It is a deep transforming kindness that is given often when I least deserve it. There’s always this tension between the way I think it should look and the way it actually comes to me.
Kathleen Norris said, “grace is not gentle or made-to-order. It often comes disguised as loss, or failure, or unwelcome change.” Whether it be through a passage from scripture or observations in everyday life, I seek to see the beauty in this leaky apparatus called life.
Often I show people on a journey, their painful moments force them into a kind of exile where everything is foreign and disorienting. It’s about a longing for home and the hope of a return. Sometimes my subjects’ hands are open, offering something of themselves to the world. Other images show birds with yarn in their beaks laying out just enough thread for the next leg of the sojourn. This is what keeps me coming back to the studio, capturing these small acts of kindness that quietly begin to illuminate everything.
I work with cut paper and paint because I enjoy the interplay of the known and unknown. For the known, I work out many variations of a sketch until the design I'm looking for is finally realized. The unknown comes from my files full of patterns and objects waiting to find a new home. I am repeatedly fascinated when I find that some odd cut-out works better than my original intention.”
Written by Cody Miller, Artist