Commission

The Woman At The Well - John 4

“Woman At The Well”. Acrylic and pen on Wooden Panel. 30x60”. Oct. 2019. For Dowd YMCA Prayer Chapel.

“Woman At The Well”. Acrylic and pen on Wooden Panel. 30x60”. Oct. 2019. For Dowd YMCA Prayer Chapel.

I had the honor to paint an image to hang in the prayer chapel at Charlotte, NC’s uptown Dowd YMCA. In honor of the donor who paid for the renovations, my commissioner asked that I craft an image based on the donor’s favorite passage of scripture: “The Samaritan Woman” or perhaps better known as “The Woman At The Well” from the gospel of John chapter 4. Even while we held our initial conversation in the newly designed space, I envisioned a tall vertical piece to mirror the stained glass on the opposing wall, juxtaposing fire and water. This painting is actually a slow meditation on each portion of John 4: wells of living water, the harvest, bread of obeying the Lord, the town’s conversion, 5 husbands and a lover, worshipping God in Spirit and truth, and a future hope.

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Tacit Knowledge. My friend and mentor Leighton Ford published many books recently, and I have been fed deeply from “The Attentive Life”, a book much akin to the classic “Practicing the Presence of God” by Brother Lawrence many hundreds of years ago. In Leighton’s written meditations on being in tune with our Creator, I discovered his reference to late Hungarian physicist/philosopher Michael Polanyi. The following quote from The Attentive Life arrested me, and revealed another dimension of the Woman At The Well painting I had not considered - how Jesus transmits knowledge and reveals the Kingdom of God by imparting, not explicit knowledge, but “tacit” knowledge. In other words, while explicit knowledge deals with facts and concrete concepts one can clearly explain, tacit knowledge refers to complex, gut level “knowing’ of something that can only come through experience- drawing on every sense, memory, and understanding to “indwell” the thing known and so journey beyond what can be communicated simply by words.

“‘Polanyi envisioned science as an “indwelling” of what the scientist tacitly knows and discovers, as opposed to a purely rational objectivity.  “We always know more than we can tell” was one key idea at the heart of his philosophy. The other was “indwelling.” We know because we “indwell” the thing we know, and in a sense it indwells us.

Indwelling, observed Polanyi, takes place in the way we know other people- getting inside their skin by an act of empathy.  It happens in the way we take in a work of art. As we look at its surface, we somehow enter into the mind of its creator. Indwelling happens when we internalize moral values, not merely assenting unquestioningly to the teachings of our parents or society.’

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Explicit Knowledge:

Left brain.  Linear. Verbal.  Rational.

Based on rational facts.

Can easily by codified and verbalized.

Can be transmitted and transferred.

Can be learned individually.

Example: George Washington was the first president of the United States.


Tacit Knowlege

Right brain.  Intuitive, emotive, holistic.

“We always know more than we can tell.” Polanyi

Intuitive and summative of many sources simultaneously.

Cannot be taught, but must be “caught”, experienced- often in and through community.

Learned by doing, not verbally or rationally.

Example: Riding a bike, playing piano.

In Polanyi’s writing, he compares how we learn through “explicit” knowledge with how we learn in “Tacit” knowledge. As an artist and art teacher, I have invested over ten years studying how to train students and convey information through experiential learning, letting them actually do art projects, make mistakes, learn the touch and feel of materials, and in essence, tacitly learn. In addition, as an ambassador of Christ, I have always cared deeply about how to communicate truths about the Kingdom of God which cannot be seen or felt or purely rationally understood, but once experienced is undeniably the very cornerstone of reality. This newly discovered definition of “Tacit” knowledge gave me one more resource to clearly articulate my mission raising up a generation of Kingdom-hearted artists.

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When Jesus asks the samaritan woman for a drink from the well, she responds with explicit knowledge: “you’re not suppose to be talking to me”, and “this well is deep and you don’t have a bucket”. Yet Jesus is not trying to speak literally, he is using this metaphor poetically to reveal truth about the Kingdom: I am the source of life and refreshment- ask me and I will give you living water. By the time she tastes of His divine presence and wisdom, she is on the run to her village (as the first evangelist in scripture) to tell everyone the Messiah is here!

John 4 NLT

10 Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”

11 “But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? 12 And besides, do you think you’re greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?”

13 Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. 14 But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”

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Over the woman’s shoulder is a shadowy reference to the 5 husbands she has had before and the man she’s currently with that is not her husband (with a blue halo). Again, when the Lord asks that she go and bring her husband, her first response is that he is asking for explicit information (do I have a husband or not- or will I reveal my dark past secrets?), but in truth, Jesus is once again using this as an opportunity to reveal His role in the Kingdom, the one who knows all, who has not come to judge, but to restore, to heal, to fulfill. Her exclamation that he must be a prophet is her coming to understand, tacitly, that this man is more than ordinary. The hairs on the back of her neck must be standing up as she begins to reach into her spiritual questions.

John 4 NLT

16 “Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.

17 “I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.

Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband— 18 for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!”

19 “Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet.

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Mt. Gerizim would have physically overshadowed the interaction between Jesus and the samaritan woman, one of the two mountains that Moses read the blessings and the curses over the people of Israel during the desert wanderings. Samaritans had long before built a temple on Gerizim, the mountain of blessing, as a place of worship. The woman turns to explicit knowledge: facts and actual locations, as indicators of spiritual orthodoxy, and again, as Jesus transmits the higher ways of the Kingdom, He reveals that spirituality is not bound to explicit location but more tacitly to Spirit and Truth.

John 4 NLT

20 So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim,] where our ancestors worshiped?”

21 Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. 23 But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. 24 For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

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The disciples are offended that Jesus has been talking with a woman, tripping over cultural norms and unable to embrace the Kingdom mission of bringing a gospel of forgiveness and restoration to a hated subculture. They offer food, and when Jesus responds he’s not hungry, they turn to explicit knowledge and think he’s eaten something else, while Jesus flips it on them again to impart a Kingdom principle of being nourished by obedience, not only physical sustenance.

John 4 NLT

27 Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked to find him talking to a woman, but none of them had the nerve to ask, “What do you want with her?” or “Why are you talking to her?” 

31 Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus, “Rabbi, eat something.”

32 But Jesus replied, “I have a kind of food you know nothing about.”

33 “Did someone bring him food while we were gone?” the disciples asked each other.

34 Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work. 

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The villagers over her shoulder are streaming down, becoming part of the “white fields” of the harvest. The disciples were so put off by talking to a woman (likely of disrepute that she was out at midday) and in an unclean samaritan town that they missed the entire purpose of Jesus’ ministry: to bring in the harvest of people to God’s Kingdom. Jesus welcomes them, stays several more days, and this woman becomes the first Christian evangelist recorded in scripture. The response of the townsfolk is brilliant too, they are basically the exclamation point at the end of my study of tacit knowledge: “we heard you tell us about Jesus (explicitly), but now that we have seen [heard, felt, received from Jesus] and we (tacitly) know that He is indeed the Messiah!”

John 4 NLT

28 “The woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?” 30 So the people came streaming from the village to see him…39 Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I ever did!” 40 When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay in their village. So he stayed for two days, 41 long enough for many more to hear his message and believe. 42 Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the Savior of the world.”

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John 4 NLT

35 “You know the saying, ‘Four months between planting and harvest.’ But I say, wake up and look around. The fields are already ripe for harvest. 36 The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life. What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike! 37 You know the saying, ‘One plants and another harvests.’ And it’s true. 38 I sent you to harvest where you didn’t plant; others had already done the work, and now you will get to gather the harvest.”

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Another profound influence in my life and journey has been the gentle yet profound voice of Mako Fujimura. Mako consulted on the recent Martin Scorsese movie “Silence”, based on the seminal Japanese novel about Christian persecution and recanted faith by Shusaku Endo. From Mako’s shared Japanese and American heritage, he wrote an accompanying and magnificently layered work Silence and Beauty. In this collection of thoughts, Mako quotes Scorsese speaking about the nature of great artwork, and how a great artist invites their viewer into tacit knowledge of the subject beheld beyond what could be actually said, or shown, or known.

“Cinema is the telling of stories with images and sounds - or, in the case of avant-garde cinema, the embodiment and conveyance of emotion with images and sounds. But that’s just a job description. I think that every truly great work of art orients you towards what isn’t there, what can’t be seen or described or named [only tacitly known/discovered]. It happens differently in different forms of art. In music, in poetry, in painting, universes of emotion and mystery are circled over and felt, like feeling the contours of a passageway in the darkness. In the novel [Silence], what is said and described opens the way to what isn’t, that which can only be intimated, sensed… In the greatest movies, what we see points the way to what we don’t see, what we can’t see.”

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Like Scorsese intimates, I was drawn to imagine what is NOT seen as I began to “indwell” this passage through the act of painting (thank you Polanyi and Leighton Ford)! I envisioned this woman at the well after Jesus and His disciples leave, and imagined the man she was with (blue halo) now joyfully married and committed to her- having himself encountered Jesus and been restored to right relationship with God and his community. They are surrounded by their children, moving forward in songs of praise to evangelize neighboring towns about the good news of the Messiah’s arrival.

The Four Pillars of Lausanne are complete!

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The Four Lausanne Movement Pillars by Bryn Gillette

The Lausanne Movement was founded in the 1970’s by Billy Graham and John Stott in an effort to unify and coordinate the entire (and at the time fractured) Evangelical church. Through a series of conferences around the globe that served as the largest gathering of Protestant leaders from the most countries ever assembled, a defined identity and points of unified heart and mission were ratified by unprecedented numbers of believers. This new movement represented the global Bride of Christ and brought hundreds of churches, institutions, colleges, ministries, NGO’s, businesses, etc. together, with more joining every year, for the unified purpose of “The whole church bringing the whole gospel to the whole world.” Four pillars were chosen of the Lausanne Movement’s mission that would unify all its participants and act as a Biblically based guiding stars for the decisions and priorities of the Movement.

  1. The gospel for every person

  2. An Evangelical church for every people

  3. Christ-like leaders for every church

  4. Kingdom impact in every sphere of society

I have had the incredible privilege of being the artist in residence for the Lausanne Movement these past several years, working as an artistic ambassador of the Kingdom of God and a visual scribe to this beloved movement and to visualize their four pillars.  I want to humbly acknowledge that despite whatever skill I have stewarded from God’s gifts to me, the best parts of this work have come through me as a collaborative part of the much larger Body, and not from me.  I offer the caution that I will simply provide some ingredients of the thoughts and prayers that went into the making of these works, as a starting place for dialog and discovery, since the best and deepest components of what these paintings truly mean may not even be known yet, and certainly may not come from me.        

I was so honored and equally challenged by this opportunity to paint such a monumental subject.  What images could possibly capture the magnitude of God's heart for the limitless diversity of humanity and culture?  The process of painting was the act of internalizing the Lausanne Movement’s four pillars, and as I have been stretched internally to try to embrace them, I pray these resulting painted prayer would inspire their viewers with an increased passion to mobilize the whole church to bring the whole gospel to the whole world.. Your servant and brother in Christ, Bryn Gillette



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Lausanne Pillar 1: “The gospel for every person”.  

Acrylic on wooden panel.  20x32”. 2016.  

To highlight some ingredients that were placed in the painting: a central fisherman is casting his net over the entire world (each continent outline in gold), seen from an unexpected, sideways vantage, while a central cross comprised by the equator and international dateline anchor the work.  The net sparkles with the burst of blue and white light scattered across the globe as seen from satellite photography of current population densities and prophetically declares our prayer that God’s love would enfold every people group on earth and flood the remaining darkness with the light of the gospel.

Museum quality giclee’ prints are available of this image at the store link on this site.

 

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Lausanne Movement Pillar 2: “An Evangelical church for every community”.  

Acrylic on wooden panel.  20x32”. 2017.

The New Testament envisions the fully realized global Church as a spotless Bride prepared for her returning Bridegroom, Christ.  Standing on the New Jerusalem, this Bride is subtly depicted with her planetary scale feet standing on the literal holy land, holding the flame of the gospel in her hand, while this orange fiery light is born by diverse believers into every corner of the world.  As God’s Word does not return void, the Bride’s gown subsumes untold sparkling blue and white figures of every tribe, tongue, and nation streaming in to consummate her fully realized expression. May our passion to see the “whole Church” fully healed, unified, purified, and restored to her identity as the spotless Bride of Christ compel us to carry the whole gospel to the whole world with humility tempered zeal.

Museum quality giclee’ prints are available of this image at the store link on this site.

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Lausanne Movement Pillar 3: “Christ-like leaders for every church”. 

Acrylic on wooden panel.  20x32”. 2018.

The third pillar of the Lausanne Movement is embodied in the "Good Shepherd" sitting among his sheep.  Vignettes surround the central figure suggesting the varied roles these shepherds play throughout the globe, from an iconic image of founder Billy Graham preaching, to young biblical David with his sheep, to a female chaplain in the army and asian pastor serving communion.  While wolves hover in the background and allusions to darkness and danger surround the flock, the Good Shepherd sits at the center of his charges with calm strength as a spiritual refuge and friend. May our church leaders throughout the world derive their compassion, wisdom, leadership, and the sacrificial love to lay down their lives for their sheep and wash the feet of their disciples from the true source of these qualities, Jesus Christ.  

I wanted to embed the very DNA of what it means to shepherd, impart, and empower into the painting itself, so I invited one of my students, Andrew Knotts, to join me in the early stages of this painting.  He and I worked together to pray over the design and sketch the imagery, we built the canvas together, and painted the abstract foundational layers side by side. Andrew painted several of the wolves that can still be seen in the image, and am so grateful for Andrew's generous collaboration.  

 Museum quality giclee’ prints are available of this image at the store link on this site.

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Lausanne Pillar 4: “Kingdom impact in every sphere of society”.  

Acrylic on wooden panel.  20x32”. 2019.

As the fourth and final painting in the Lausanne Movement Pillar series, this piece seeks to sum up the other three works as well as paint a global vision of God’s Kingdom permeating the seven cultural spheres.  Remixed again here are the fisherman from pillar 1: “The Gospel for every person”, the Bride from pillar 2: “An evangelical church for every community”, and the Good Shepherd from pillar 3: “Christ-like leaders for every church”.  Christ is now crowned as the glorious and triumphant King, but as his upside-down Kingdom subtly infuses each sphere, it is not done as the leaders of this world who lord it over their subjects, but in selfless servanthood. Each of the seven spheres is set on a different continent of the world and is shown crumbling in the futility of man’s institutions, while Christ-like servants carry the DNA of the Kingdom in the form of equilateral (trinity) triangles joining into a new infrastructure of honeycomb hexagons.  This stems from the crystal structure of Nitrogen, the atomic element with 7 electrons, 7 protons, and 7 neutrons (777) figured here as the very fabric of God’s Kingdom from a universal scale to the very smallest subatomic particle of God’s creation. The seven spheres are set in the same format as Nitrogen, with two levels of elections. In the inner ring closer to the nucleus are two electrons (and spheres- Family and Religion), and on the outer ring sit the other 5:

  1. Family [Michelangelo’s painting, “The Creation of Adam” with the African pyramids] 

  2. Religion [The remixed Bride set in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil]

  3. Business [Dubai skyline, United Emirates]

  4. Government [China’s Forbidden City & the Tower of Babel]

  5. Education [Cambridge University, UK] - alma mater of John Stott featured just below.

  6. Art [Sydney Opera House, Australia]

  7. Media [Hollywood, CA, U.S.A.]

May the Center of it all, the Lord Jesus Christ, so restore the families on earth and his global Bride the Church that the “WHOLE Church”, all 100% of its members, bear his “whole gospel” into every sphere of society throughout the “whole world”.

Museum quality giclee’ prints are available of this image at the store link on this site.

All four sibling paintings meet for the first time June 25, 2019 in Manila, Philipinnes during the unveiling of Pillar 4 at the Lausanne Movement’s “Global Workplace Forum”.

All four sibling paintings meet for the first time June 25, 2019 in Manila, Philipinnes during the unveiling of Pillar 4 at the Lausanne Movement’s “Global Workplace Forum”.

A week of weddings

It’s been a week of weddings! From Saturday to Saturday, I presented three different gifts/commissions to three couples, driving with family from Charlotte, NC up to Hartford, CT the first weekend and then down near Atlanta, Georgia the following weekend (with a full work week teaching in between). Despite 2000 miles and 40 hours on the road, my kids never once asked “are we there yet”! God bless the inventors of car DVD players. It was such a joy to serve these families and patrons with my artistic gift. (I apologize for the poor color in these photographs… the lighting in the wedding events was limited).

The first of the wedding paintings was a commissions by Katie Timmerman for her friends Luke and Lindsey who were getting married on 10.29.18. Luke had been a sniper with the Army Rangers and Linsey is a school teacher. The image is built around the couple and an angel just behind them referencing their favorite verse, Psalm 91:11 “For he will order his angels to protect you wherever you go.” [NLT] 18x36” Acrylic.

The second piece of the wedding week was a larger acrylic, 32x48” that was done as my first ever combination of commission and live event. This work was done as a visual testimony for my dear friends Tim and Phanuelle Pillsbury, also married on 10.29.18, who commissioned me to craft an image that would showcase God’s goodness and calling in their lives to hang in their home. I began the work in my studio, and then brought the piece to Hartford, CT where I was to be a groomsman in the ceremony. I was able to paint the groom in waiting and the rehearsal dinner blessings (in a tux) for the hours leading up to the ceremony, and during the reception I finished the work with images of the bride and components from the ceremony. My work culminated with me giving an explanation of the painting’s layered symbolism as a speech/ prophetic blessing for the couple near the end of the wedding reception. The full story deserves an entire blog post of its own, but hopefully that gives you enough to tease your imagination… It was an unbelievable experience!

The final of the wedding images was this past Saturday, 10.06.18, at the wedding of my cousin Rachel Gamble to Mason Lechner. I was able paint this watercolor of the wedding party between the ceremony and the reception while the couple took pictures, since it was all at the same venue. It was such a joy to catch them totally off guard and hand them the painting during the dance party, and have them do a double, triple take… “wait… that’s US… that’s right NOW! How did you do that?!” Painting fast has pros and cons, but it really is special to capture a moment in real time and give a gift that my cousin and her new husband can appreciate for a lifetime.