Permanence and Transience

Toggle full screen Zoom in Zoom out Sandra Bowden He Established the Earth Upon Its Foundations, 1980, Collagraph, 45.7 x 35.6 cm, Private Collection; ©️ Sandra Bowden, courtesy of the artist Permanence and Transience Commentary by Wesley Vander Lugt Cite Share Show Bible Passage Sandra Bowden’s collagraph takes inspiration from the psalmist’s pronouncement that God has set the earth on an immovable foundation (Psalm 104:5). God made the earth as his dwelling place, a place for God’s life to move, and communicate itself (vv.2–4). Since God is eternal, he established a permanent dwelling place, solidified with boundaries and an everlasting covenant in which God will never again destroy the earth with a flood (v.9; Genesis 9:11, 16). Bowden’s collagraph is a fitting medium to express God setting the earth on an immovable foundation, with various layers of fabric and sand attached to a masonite base. The different fabrics represent the various layers of the earth, with the crust, mantle, and outer core layered on top of the inner core. The sun rises in earth’s atmosphere, signalling the start of the human workday (vv.22–23). Situated within the dark brown strata is Hebrew text created with gesso and modelling paste, which can be translated as ‘He established the earth upon its foundation’. The earth tones throughout the work emphasize the grounded nature of creaturely life, as well as its dependence on a Maker who has the power to renew life and turn creatures back into dust (vv.29–30). Thus, the solid, permanent foundation on which the earth is laid is also the stage for a transient and fluctuating drama of life and death, praise and lament, righteousness and wickedness. Ultimately, the psalmist’s commitment is to ‘sing to the Lord all my life’ as a witness to God’s mighty works and everlasting glory (v.31). As Belden Lane observed, we humans are poets and narrators of all that is mimed, danced, and sung so irresistibly by an enormous cast of characters on the world stage’ (Lane 2011: 228). References Lane, Belden. 2011. Ravished by Beauty: The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality (Oxford: Oxford University Press)