The Annunciation

It was August 2021, that weird time when we all thought the pandemic was over and life would be normal. But in reality nothing was normal, no one remembered normal, and isn't that just a setting on the dryer anyways?

Well, normal or not, we were going to take a few days off as vacation. Could we spare the time? No. Had we taken vacation over the past few years? Again; no. Were we going to do it? YES!

The problem was where, how much, and what would it be?

I am married to a man of the outdoors. He is at home in the woods, or on a boat, or in a tent, or on skis, or sitting in a blind. (I've been with him in everything but the blind, and that would be too small for a vacation.)

I didn't want an outdoors experience, unless it was Niagara Falls- which is my favorite outside place to be, bobbing in a little boat amid the foam of the Horseshoe Falls. But alas, that wasn't meant to be. I wasn't ready to try border crossings, and well- maybe something closer to home.

So we settled on Chicago. I'd been to the Chicago Art Museum once before, and I wanted to see the Georges Seurat A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, which is a mesmerizing painting made using the pointillist technique. It's BIG, and I wanted to see it again and experience it with my husband. He had never been to this museum.

In fact, we hadn't done much together during the 12 years we'd been married by way of vacations. We worked opposite shifts, I'd worked for THREE companies that had collapsed spectacularly, there was a pandemic, yada yada yada. Suddenly, I'd shifted away from retail and with his encouragement began working at a nonprofit. Yes- we took a big hit financially, but we were going for feeding the soul and healing the spirit. I just wasn't sure there would be room in the budget for vacations.

In Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago is huge and just so happened to also have a line of people at all times trying to find one of the newest installations: the official portraits of former President Barack Obama and his former First Lady, Michelle Obama. (Yes- we also joined the line and they were something to see. Not just for the paintings, but for the reactions of the patrons, too.)

We went to the sculpture gallery, saw the furniture collection and bronzes, saw jewels, artifacts, and yes- also the Seurat and the wall of Monet wheat stacks across the seasons. We saw saints, sinners, nobles, and peasants. We marveled at architecture, people-watched, and kept our masks on as we navigated the huge building. And then we went to the Contemporary Art Gallery and started playing the 'what do you think this is supposed to be?' game.

We roamed through the rooms, trying to navigate the Covid-19-enforced traffic pattern in and out of the rooms, sometimes with less than successful results. Twisting, turning, backtracking- finally neither of us were sure which room in the gallery we occupied, or even the right way to exit the place.

It was with this somewhat disoriented frame of mind that we entered Gallery 291 and saw a HUGE painting facing us. Hung about three feet off the ground, and standing over 10 feet high on its own, this painting dominated the wall and commanded attention.

We walked towards it down the length of the room and halfway to it I said out loud- "It's an angel, isn't it?" Now, why? Why would I have said that? Objectively speaking, I think it looks more like a cow hide tacked for drying, but still. Still. I just knew it was to be angel. And my husband agreed.

When we got to the painting we found that the artist was Jay DeFeo and the title was The Annunciation, and it was painted between 1957 and 1959. Standing at the bottom left of the painting and looking up it was easy to feel the awe and jolt of trepidation that Mary could have felt when beholding a being appearing unannounced.

But- it wasn't like that for me. I could see the angel, the strength of its wings, the raw power in the undefined spaces, and the lack of humanness in the portrayal. More than that; I could feel the message, and a message that was also for me.

It's Been a Minute

I was born Catholic, spent my teens in a Methodist youth group, was baptized again in the fundamentalist Plymouth Brethren church, I'm now a non-denominational minister. I know the story and various interpretations of the Annunciation in religion.

The angel (widely accepted as the archangel Gabriel) appears to Mary, telling her not to be afraid, that she has found favor with God. That she would bear a son who would be mighty, and conceived of God through the Holy Spirit. And, by the way, her elderly relative Elizabeth is even now pregnant although she was barren, proving that nothing is impossible for God.

That is a LOT to unpack. And people have been unpacking it for thousands of years. You, dear reader, likely have your own reaction to the truth, possibility, mythology, speculation, or impossibility of the scene. As for me: I only know what I have read by people that weren't there, and interpreted by people who believe themselves experts. I wasn't there myself, so I don't know the words or the actions of that described encounter.

I don't know, really, DeFeo's intention when she created the painting. What I do know is my reaction to that painting. It's the same reaction I had the first time I stood in that small boat, getting drenched by the spray of the Falls in Canada. I am small, so small, when seen against the whole of creation.

But I am seen. I am seen, loved, and reminded that there is no need to fear. Everything is for a reason, everything, for a purpose. My place is to open myself for becoming part of that purpose, to find my place, and to channel love. My Annunciation message was that everything would be alright.

You can find out more about Jay DeFeo and her body of work, which includes a painting I would like to see in person- the equally impressive and more well-known work The Rose.

~~~

That museum trip led to this Fiction story, too. In fact, I mentioned the inspiration in the article you just read.

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