! ! In The Empty Studio

The diffused northern sunlight of this studio at dawn matches the silence and the stillness like the speaking silence of the retrochoir behind the altar of a simple white Greek island church – that has no ornament; simply walls painted in a pale blue wash, the space, the air itself, as radiant with heaven; behind the iconostasis – gold and candle and eternal gaze - where praise is prepared; thought surrendered; humility the robe; the sacred word awaits the moment when it’s spoken; so this studio; and at its centre, calling, stands an easel with a white canvas on it; what waits in this empty studio that’s so full of emptiness that calls? what challenges? This canvas waits, as being ever does; full, content, needing nothing but itself… the silence will accept our spoken word, then return to stillness; the canvas will not be so forgiving; ‘make a mark on me that will not diminish my completeness…; so let our being meet, before a mark is made…’ this holy place: only godself may mark this canvas and yet not detract; from space, draw space; or may with colour stain transparent this white white radiance of eternity: and in the place whence all arises, Nothing and Everything smile together in their secret play.