From the Artist

“To God, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.” (Psalm 22:29)

As I contemplate the idea of people beneath the earth and people in the womb, I feel a sense of beautiful protection. In particular, I feel a deep connection to our minuteness in contrast to the greatness of God. Each time I meet this text, I find myself taken by the repetitious time spent in joyous and abundant praise of God. God, we love you. God, we are amazed by you. God, you are everywhere, you are everything. God, we praise you!

In this piece, I depict a sense of covering—covering in the womb, “people yet unborn” (v. 28); covering in the soil, “sleep in the earth” (v. 31). A spiral radiates outward representing praise. The pattern depicts people in various poses of prayer and praise.

As I cut tiny stencils of prayer poses, I abstracted them to depict the shrouded minuteness of our being in God’s presence. As we became a beautiful and intricate pattern of prayer and praise, I began to see other images in the patterns—masks, faces, flowers—as though all states of being are present in that constancy of appreciation for God.

—Hannah Garrity