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~ CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS ~

Mel Ahlborn 1 · Julie Christian Bender 1 2 3 · Barbara D. Bennett 1 2 · Sally Brower 1 2 3 · Alisa E. Clark 1 2 3 · Ruth Tietjen Councell 1 2 3 · Anne Cameron Cutri 1 2 3 · Elizabeth de Sherbinin 1 · Ann James Massey 1 · Joy Jennings 1 2 3 · Chris Odom 1 2 3 · Margaret Adams Parker 1 2 3 · Heather Sisk 1 · Claudia Smith 1 · Jeanne H. Weaver 1 · Marion Williams 1

Ruth Tietjen Councell

Create

Artist Statement: From Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families, the short version of Morning Prayer, page 137 of the Book of Common Prayer

“Open my lips, O Lord,
and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me. Give me the joy of your saving help again
and sustain me with your bountiful spirit.”

When I pray this prayer, I pause after each phrase to allow the opening, the creating, the renewing within me, to take place.

It is the verbs that grab me in this prayer: Open, Create, Renew, Restore*, Sustain. Especially ‘Create’ -to make something out of nothing...

While experimenting with using these verbs as a focus for a piece of art, I amassed quite a collection of trials, tests, and practice pieces. This collage is made up of those scraps.

The joyful jumble of text and color seems to be more like how life really is: Made up of that which is discarded, imperfect, fragments out of order, yet all there, and somehow fitting together in a new and unexpected way.

* I have used an alternative translation: ‘Restore’ (‘Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation’) in place of ‘Give’ (‘Give me the joy of your saving help again’).

Bio: Ruth Tietjen Councell has worked in a variety of media over the years, including children’s book illustration, graphic design, botanical art, liturgical hangings, illuminated letters, and oil and watercolor painting. She studied art at the University of Redlands (California), and at UC Santa Barbara. She also studied Botanical Art at the Morton Arboretum in Illinois, and at the New York Botanical Garden in NY City. She taught art for a time at Trinity Episcopal Academy in Trenton, New Jersey, and at the Arts Council of Princeton for 13 years. Ruth currently lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan where she enjoys making art with her granddaughter.