I have long admired the painters amongst us and the art lessons they provide. My Godmother Nola was a painter. Frankly, she was an artist of many talents — painter, wordsmith, dancer. That’s her magnificent tree giving shelter to a young couple on the left. I admired this painting for years, and now it hangs in my entry way, reminding me daily of the many lessons Nola left behind. Art lessons and life lessons.
One of those lessons was this: notice all the beauty of God’s handiwork.
Tears of Gold
Of course, each one of us is God’s handiwork (Ephesians 2:10), and as the ultimate artist, God makes a masterpiece of all our lives. This is a truth that guides Hannah Rose Thomas‘ artwork. I had the very good fortune of spending an afternoon with this young British artist and human rights activist a few weeks back. Hannah is trained in the early Renaissance and iconography style. Those are two of her portraits above, next to Nola’s tree.
Hannah has climbed deep into the pain and sadness of some of the world’s most desperate women, listening to their stories and helping them process traumatic memories, heal, and rediscover a sense of self-worth and dignity. She has conducted art workshops with survivors of rape, religious persecution and genocide in Jordan, Iraqi Kurdistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Romania.
“Art is a way to express that which we cannot find words to express,” she says. Hannah has recently released a collection of her portraits in a volume titled, Tears of Gold from Plough Publishing. It includes a foreword written by His Majesty King Charles III.
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