Contact One might ask, "Why might you call your painting 'Contact?'" This, like some others, is spiritually symbolic in nature. The uniquely bright star in the painting represents a contact -- a communication -- of sorts. My intent was not for this to be any ordinary contact -- as with that in the S.E.T.I. Project in its Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Instead, it represents a Spiritual Contact -- a very positive sort of contact -- one marked by a clear understanding and appreciation for a power greater than ourselves which requires our own active and humble participation in it. The earlier painting "Peaceful Message Above," painted in January of 2001, showed a "pathway of hope, and knowledge" leading out to God. God was represented in the painting as a large and beautiful flower in the universe. The path of our desire to know God represented just that -- the "road" to understanding through Prayer and introspection. In Contact however, there is a shift in view [of God] marked by a more definitive "answer" or response to Man's quest to "know" God. The bright star is much like a beacon or signal from the "outer" universe, indicating that something very important has been discovered within the inner Universe. It was my intent to remove a part of the mystery in our past understanding of what we only "thought" God might be telling us. It was my intent to visually symbolize this "Contact" with God as a more personal and positive appreciation for what His Will for us really is in each changing day. The colorful, branching "limbs" represent a more joyful expression of what in past paintings were strictly "lines" of communication (as found in "Messages From Beyond III," painted in May of 1987). Back