"Cross"

Welcome again!

I'd like to share my painting with you. I did it a couple years ago. I think you'd appreciate viewing this and read the statement below the image. If you wish to order a reprint of that, you can check sales page on my website: www.chuckbaird.com

This painting was one of the series of 3 commissioned by Sorenson Communication Inc. to present three different schools for the deaf as gift. They left me to paint anything that inspired me as fitted for the schools, i.e. the sign of ‘cross’ was chosen to paint for St. Rita School for the Deaf supported and run by Roman Catholic in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In ASL, the sign for Catholic is with the handshape of ‘H’ on the forehead in the movement of cross like the ash marked for the Lent. But for the painting, I felt the single image of the cross in ASL on the large canvas would be powerful and aesthetic. I am not Catholic but as a protestant, we all have the same faith based on Jesus Christ had died on the cross or us so that we can have the relationship with our Creator. The cross is the center of whole scriptures in the Bible.

It’d neat if I could create the frozen hand of ‘C’ alone in movement as we sign for ‘cross’ without arm and face. You could see the light shallow behind the hand when it moves, that becomes like wooden bars; first from top to bottom and then from left to right.

I added the ribbon there around the cross in spiral upward like you grow with the Christ, knowing and living with Him. Not just the front view but around full 360 degree of Him. There are 4 colors in the order as we learned in the youth Sunday School of the salvation plan. From the bottom, you began with your black heart as the sinner till you meet the Christ, it is washed with His red blood till it get cleaned as white. At the top, your heart would be gold when you enter a new home with Him in the heaven.