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Through the Waters

Somebody is handed the thing that ends their life as they have it, on an ordinary weekday, and takes it standing up. Then the same person, the same day, the same clothes, walks straight into the storm it became. It opens around them and they cross on dry ground, untouched, following a small flame that is not theirs.

6 pieces

Isaiah 43:2 and Exodus 14:22, which supplies the dry ground. The flame is the wisp, the Holy Spirit as he is drawn in the Nation of Fire books, borrowed here rather than reinvented.

01
Oil painting. On an ordinary sunny afternoon a man in a dark suit, seen from behind at the left of the frame, holds out a printed page toward a woman standing in her own front doorway at the right. The page faces the viewer and reads EVICTION NOTICE in bold black capitals above blank ruled lines. She is seen in exact side profile, a Black and East Asian woman in her thirties with long tightly-coiled dark hair, wearing a loose terracotta house dress and an open oatmeal wrap. Her head is up, her eye is level, her mouth relaxed, and one hand is coming up to take the page. Green lawn and a quiet suburban street behind them.

Served

A process server holds it out to her across her own doorway on a sunny weekday. Her head is up and her chin is level. Nothing in the frame glows, and nothing in her body has collapsed.

Oil painting in deep near-black. Towering walls of driving rain and black water rear up on both sides of a narrow corridor and curve overhead, leaving a parted channel down the middle. A woman walks away from the viewer along it, seen from behind and slightly to the side, mid-stride and barefoot on dry ground, in the same terracotta dress and oatmeal wrap. Her hair and clothes are completely dry and a warm golden light rests on her. A single small upright flame of gold light, no larger than a fist and with no face or body, hovers in the air ahead of her and lights the path.

Dry Ground

The same twenty minutes. The trouble has become weather and she is walking through the middle of it. She is not soaked and she is not sheltering: she is dry, and lit, and the light did not start in her.

Luminous Oil Witness
02
Oil painting. Inside a glass-walled conference room at a technology company, a person seen from behind at the left of the frame holds a printed page out across a wooden table. The page faces the viewer and reads POSITION ELIMINATED in bold black capitals above blank ruled lines. At the right, seen in exact side profile, sits an East Asian American man in his late thirties in thin round wire-frame glasses and a dark grey quarter-zip, a blank white badge on a lanyard at his chest. His head is up, his shoulders are level, and one hand is reaching to take the page. Rows of empty desks are visible through the glass behind him.

Position Eliminated

A glass room, a weekday morning, and a page held out across the table. The stock picture of this moment is a man made small. He keeps his height.

Oil painting in deep near-black. A colossal circular wall of storm cloud encircles the whole frame and curves up and overhead, opening far above onto a ragged circle of dark night sky. On the dry ground at the bottom of that vast arena a small figure walks, an East Asian American man in a dark quarter-zip and jeans, lit with a warm golden light. A single small upright flame of gold light, no larger than a fist and with no face or body, hovers in the air a few feet ahead of him and is the only light in the picture.

The Eye

The same morning, the badge gone. The eyewall is the most violent part of a hurricane, and it is the thing turning all the way around him. The calm he is standing in is surrounded, not safe.

Luminous Oil Witness
03
Oil painting. A hospital room in ordinary morning light. An elderly Black man lies in the bed with his head on the pillow, his face visible and entirely at rest, eyes gently closed, like a man asleep after a long day. His wife, a Black woman in her eighties with short silver-white hair and a dark plum cardigan, sits upright in a chair pulled close beside him, seen in profile, looking at his face. Her hand rests over his on the blanket and a thin worn gold band is visible on her finger. The heart monitor on the wall is dark and blank. Ordinary trees are visible through the window.

The Last Morning

Sixty years, and then a Tuesday. Every other picture here is named by an institution across the top of a page. This one has nothing written in it, because nobody has to be told what has happened in that room.

Oil painting. A vast dark valley with enormous black slopes rising steeply on both sides and closing in overhead under a torn storm sky. An elderly Black woman in a dark plum cardigan and long skirt walks away from the viewer along the valley floor, upright and unhurried, a warm golden light resting on her. A small upright flame of gold light hovers in the air ahead of her. At the far end the slopes fall away and the storm ends, opening onto a wide warm dawn light, and a figure stands waiting in it.

The Valley

Hers is the only one of these walks that reaches a far side, and the reason is specific rather than a promise about dying: the person she is walking toward already went through. The flame that has led every one of these pictures is finally not the brightest thing in the frame.

Luminous Oil Witness

Each pair is one argument. The left picture is the blow landing. The right is the same person, the same day, the same clothes, walking through the storm it became.

Made in the Luminous Oil Witness register.

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