in these art installation i have really worked on creating a sense of brokenness. my hope was to invite the viewer to consider both the brokenness of Jesus and the brokenness of self. i want to conjure up images of the broken flesh of Jesus, and the broken spirits of those who bear the weight of too many burdens put on them. in this station, in particular, i wanted to really convey that sense of broken flesh and spirits and sinews stretched thin. as i mentioned in my post on the first station, each station is partially inspired by prayers by Padraig O'Tuama in "Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community" (copyright 2017, canterbury press, norwich, london). here is the prayer i used as inspiration for this station:
Burdened God,
who bore the weight of wood
on torn shoulders,
We pray for the torn and the burdened,
that they may be held together by
guts and goodness.
Because you were held together
by guts and goodness.
Amen.
i loved this idea of being held together by guts and goodness. i wanted to create the feeling of sinew and stretch, of weight being born, of skin being torn. so you've got this long diagonal/horizontal stretch of colored tile, moving from flesh on the edges to "guts and goodness" in the middle, where you've got this bloody sort of tear, a broken bit, a breaking point, a thorn in the side, even.
like in the first station (and all of them, really), i've used tiny bits of broken glass to really emphasize the broken spot, the hemorrhaging of wholeness when we carry burdens we are never meant to bear.
amazingly, Jesus chose to bear the burden of the cross. and, in fact, he bears this burden for us. in some way that we can't fully explain or understand, his broken body and burdened shoulders take the burden for us. we are free to put our burdens down. i wonder what burdens you're carrying, and how you are being invited to put them down?
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