Reflections from the Journey

Yesterday and today I have been printing some photos onto some beautiful 100% cotton canvas and then stretching them onto wooden frames (a.k.a. gallery wrapped).  It is a pretty time consuming process that has my fingers aching, but it is soooooo  worth it.  I like the way they look much more than when framed under glass.   There is something about a photograph on canvas that really makes it special.

As I took a break to drink a tasty cup of Organic, Fair Trade coffee I thought about why I prefer gallery wrapped canvas prints over framed prints.   Not surprisingly the realization that I came to spilled over into thoughts of religion and faith as well.  If you have read any of my previous posts you no doubt have seen that EVERYTHING about my life and my photography is bound up in faith and this is what I call my Journey.

I sat on my couch with coffee mug in hand looking at the canvas triptych I had just finished sitting on my fireplace mantle.  My fingers were still burning and tingling from stretching and stapling the canvas prints to the wooden stretcher bars I had assembled.  My fingers still held the memory of the texture of the canvas as I pulled it tight.  I thought of some of my favorite photographs that are hanging in frames all over my house and realized why I love these canvas prints more:  They aren’t “contained”.

When a canvas is gallery wrapped it is open & exposed to the world.  Even now that I’m finished with the print, I can still walk over and feel the texture and see the image “spill” over the sides of the wrap.  It is a tactile, personal connection.  A framed print however is walled off inside a mat and frame and then further contained by putting a piece of glass in front of it.  There is no touching.  I can only get so close and then no further.

I prefer a more tactile approach.  In both photography and in my faith.

I see a lot of people’s faith in God being contained and walled off by religion.  In some practices of Christianity (and other religions, too) there are lots of barriers.  Barriers between pastors and lay people, barriers between classes,  barriers between races, barriers between belief & practice, barriers between life & death, barriers between Sunday and Monday through Saturday, etc.   I believe in a God that cannot be contained.  I believe in a God that breaks barriers.  I believe in a God who exists in the past, present, & future.  I believe in a God who touched (& still does!).  I believe in a God that spills into every aspect of my life.  I believe in a God who calls me to follow His example by going into the world and touching lives.

Let’s just say that I’ll take rich texture over high gloss any day.