Q: What does this painting teach us about prayer?

A: It reminds us that He who is known as Immanuel (which in Hebrew means “God with us’) prayed—not as an event, but as the mainstay of daily life. And if the One who is God considers it wise to pray while here upon the earth, certainly the rest of us would do well to follow His example.

Perhaps the most significant feature of the composition is the absence of a horizon. I like to think that when He prays the limitations of this world disappear—that fetters of doubt and fear, grief and sorrow, adversity and death fall away. Prayer is like that; not just for Him, but for us, too.

Q: Do you wish to comment on costuming?

A: The Book of Mormon, in which the account of the Savior’s ancient American ministry is presented, says that He wore a white robe, and that His countenance was more brilliant than any whiteness in this world.

The white robe recalls the description provided by those who saw Him. Nevertheless, the shadows in the robe include ultramarine, yellow ochre, raw sienna, and violet—strident hues from far corners of the spectrum. I learned long ago that white light contains all the colors we can see, and so in this painting only in the shadows are other parts of the spectrum likely to be evident.

I also chose not to attempt to whiten the countenance. Nor did I wish to suggest its glow by means of an aura. This is an intensely intimate view, and in order for the viewer to draw close to the subject I wanted to make the countenance approachable by lighting and coloring it in a familiar manner. My hope is that the light that is missing from the paint will glow in the hearts and minds of those who see it.

Q: Is there any significance to the masonry on which the figure leans?

A: Not everything about a work of art is planned by the artist. In fact, it is my experience that I may be aware of surprisingly little of the overall design and significance associated with any work for which I’m the artist.

I feel my way along through the creative process. I generally start out in search of a visual expression of how I feel about something. Along the way, ideas come to mind. Props and settings come to hand. The arrangement of visual elements dance in compositional possibilities and the music to which they dance may or may not sound like the feeling I’m after. And even that can change depending upon the medium in which the composition is rendered.

In the end, I’m looking at the result just like anyone else who hasn’t seen it. I, too, wonder about meaning. Sometimes I don’t know any better than anyone else, and sometimes I don’t seem to know as readily or as well as anyone else, what something means or why it’s there.

So in terms of the masonry presented in the painting, I don’t know. I can say that I did something in preparing the ground (or panel) for this painting that I’ve never done for an oil painting. I purposely applied the gesso in such a way as to ever so subtly suggest the texture of stone. The result is that the surface texture of the painting does not suggest canvas, but here and there admits of slight ridges and abnormalities typical of stone. For reasons I’m not altogether aware of, I wanted this affect in the end result, and I’ve wondered about it through the process of creating the painting.

Perhaps I wanted this because the Savior is the Rock of Eternity, the only sure foundation on which to build our lives and hopes and dreams. Perhaps, like a stone, His image has been marred, as the scriptures put it, for our sakes. Perhaps I wanted the surface texture of the painting to reflect that marring. I don’t know, but then I’ve only recently completed the painting, and haven’t yet had a long time to think about it. It’s a good question.