The Good Shepherd

The Good Shepherd 2009 (36" x 48", oil on canvas)

I did the above painting for my vicarage church in 2009. The name of the Church is Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Hayward, CA. As a gift to the congregation for taking on a learning vicar, I wanted to give them something that they could have as their own. If you are familiar with the SF Bay area, then you know that this landscape is what you see off to the east. Most of the year, the hills are a golden brown because of the little rain that the area sees. If you look closely in the center, I also incorporated Hayward's university library that sits atop a hill that can be seen from almost any place in Hayward. (Though, I still have doubts about whether it fits with the painting.) The 16 languages (Counterclockwise from the Right: Portuguese, Korean, Tagalog, French, Romanian, Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Italian, Greek, German, Tegrinya, Chinese, Tamil, English, Spanish) of John 10:27 that are emanating from the Good Shepherd are a reference to the 68 different languages that are said to be spoken in Hayward. The cross form leads to the silhouette of the Good Shepherd with the lost sheep. You may see the sun as setting or rising depending on how you want to look at it. At any rate, it carries with it the sense of the end of the day or beginning of a new one. In much the same way, we await the new age to come that comes with our Lord. I honestly do not have a strict reference involved in what the sheep whose head is up means mean other than it is one who hears. Perhaps someone else might see something different.

As I said above, I wanted to create something that might have meaning for the people there. Not as a contextual veneer, I sought to show how the Word of God speaks in this specific context. I hope and pray that those who see it there in Hayward notice how the One Good Shepherd speaks to them all and calls them into the One fold.