Art Series for September 2009 

by Marianne Kantert

Last summer I planned a year-long art series to explore the theme “endurance and faithfulness.” I was looking forward to this project with pleasant anticipation – with a sense of adventure. I purchased the necessary materials –12 panels of acrylic glass, 12 small notebooks, and paint – but at the first of September 2009, the day I wanted to start, I began to procrastinate. This first step was already an experience – getting started was not as easy for me as planning something. 

A monthly plan from conception to completion
The plan was simple: Each month I would paint on a single panel of acrylic glass, a panel for each month, and each day I would paint over the work of the previous day, covering it. By 31st of August 2010, the final day of the project, I will have 12 panels of acrylic glass with 28 to 31 paintings overlaid on each panel, with only the first and the last painting visible on each panel. All the other paintings will still be there – hidden, not seen, but nonetheless present underneath the top layer.

A written journal of the experience
And what about the twelve notebooks? In these, one for each month, I am writing down my experiences in doing the project:  what I am learning, where I have experienced the challenges, the joys. Each day I also take a digital photo of that day’s painting, to keep a record of it.

At present I don’t have any precise idea how I might eventually use the panels, the notebooks, and the photos. For me this is part of the beauty of the project. My goal is not so much to produce outstanding or exciting paintings but to stay tuned to the project – to endure and be faithful, day-in and day-out. Time is an important element of the project, an important part of the creation. 

During the first month, after I had painted several portraits on the panel, a woman remarked, “How can you do this – painting over each day’s beautiful image? Why would you want to keep covering up each day’s image with the next one?” She was quite upset about it. I realized that for me the important thing was the goal I had set out to accomplish and the freedom to let go of my attachment to these images, and to consider how I perceive what is seen and unseen. All of my daily paintings are still there on each month’s panel, even though I cannot see them anymore or show them to anyone. I don’t need them to be visible to know they are there. I can let go of wanting all of them to be visible.

The hidden beauty of endurance and faithfulness
I also wanted this project to be an experience which is often opposite to the hype of the modern Western world, which runs, “I want to have it and I want to have it now!” Instant painting, instant experiences, instant gratification. Performing this daily art project is not always fun; it is not always rewarding. But I know that if I miss just one day, then the whole project will have failed. It is an interesting experience. It is like exploring something we in our modern world seem largely to have lost.

I have now completed four months out of twelve, and I have managed not missing a day, even if some day’s paintings were only short 5 to 12 minute sketches. This daily exercise feels right to me. In the process I am learning a lot about endurance and growing in skill and competence. I’m also learning a lot about the practice of daily faithfulness. It’s hard work, sometimes fun and sometimes not, but it is strengthening. I’m learning a lot about myself: my limits, my strengths, my interests, and my ability to focus and stay the course.

Endurance and faithfulness – gifts and strengths for daily life. Thanks be to God who calls us to these.

Marianne Kantert lives and works in Olching near Munich, Germany. She pursued her art education at the Art Academy of Düsseldorf, Germany and the Academy of Fine Arts of Pretoria, South Africa. She has done various group and single exhibitions in Johannesburg, Pretoria, South Africa; Greenville, South Carolina, USA; London, UK; Beirut, Lebanon; and Munich, Germany. You can view her sculpture work at: http://www.marianne-kantert.de/ Marianne and her husband Klemens are members of Bread of Life, a member community of the Sword of the Spirit, located in Olching and Munich, Germany.

.