Friday, August 10, 2007

Painting the Narthex

A buddy of mine at church named Scott came up with this great idea to paint the Christian year down the length of the narthex, a long hallway, at my church. I immediately got ideas in my head about what it might look like and eventually opened up Illustrator and laid out my ideas

First the idea went to a committee for approval. I thought it was going to be too wacky and expected resistance, but much to my surprise people seemed to like it. Essentially the narthex is divided into seven sections with eight pillars spaced evenly. The idea was that the spaces in between pillars could be seasons of the Christian year, and the pillars themselves could represent special days with some sort of icon at the top of the pillar. Three curvy stripes, representing the trinity, flow the entire length of the wall. Check out the image to the left.

The Christian year, as represented in this piece goes in this order: Advent, Christmas Day (a pillar), Christmas Season, Epiphany (a pillar), Ordinary Time, Transfiguration Sunday (a pillar), Lent (with two icons in the middle of it, one for Ash Wednesday, the other for Palm Sunday, Good Friday (one side of a pillar painted black, which really isn't obvious in the illustration), Easter Day (a pillar), Easter season, Pentecost (a flaming red pillar), some more Ordinary Time, and Christ the King Sunday (the last pillar).

A few weeks ago we started out by prepping the area to be painted by cleaning off dust and drippy stains. Apparently there was a leak in the roof at one point a nobody bothered to clean up the stains. After that we applied painter's tape to mask of the areas for the base coats. I missed out on the first painting session, in which the first coats were applied, but the members that volunteered did a great job.

Today, Scott and I applied the first coats of green for Ordinary Time. I was thrilled that this was actually becoming a reality. Our church has been in a color rut for about a decade now, so it is exciting to see a color other than white or beige on the walls. And besides, I just love to paint.

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