In Refining Fires

May 2005, I was commissioned to a work - 20 years since my last fine art original - in commemoration of the 25th Anniversary of the Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka 1954.

Such irony, a work depicting a young girl not accepted in a place where she wanted to be, created by an artist who was in a place she did not want to be; Nevertheless accepted.
During the process I had my reservations, “Could I execute after all these years?” I was quickly reminded that the talent was a gift from God.

I have come to understand and embrace my life’s excursions in its simplest form as The Refiner’s Fire. H.R.M. – He’s refining me…daily.

He trained us first,
passed us like silver through refining fires,
Brought us into hardscrabble country,
pushed us to our very limit,
Road-tested us inside and out,
took us to hell and back;
Finally he brought us
to this well-watered place.
Psalm 66:10-12
The Message