This is a commissioned piece painted at S. A. Walton Studio on a custom built-wooden cabinetry substrate . It was done for a young married couple who requested a Day of the Dead style “kissing skull” design that has been a popular theme in their age group. I accepted the challenge, but wanted to personalize it in a unique and meaningful way just for them.

I wanted to lighten the mood, so to speak, and decided to use Passion Vine flowers, rather than the traditional roses of the iconic Day of the Dead designs familiar to travelers in Mexico, while drawing inspiration from a Biblical verse that seems a particularly good piece of advice for newlyweds to “be not anxious but to cast their cares on God. “

This Passion Vine species is a gorgeous plant native to the American Southeast and to points south, which have long been associated with Christ and His crucifixion, his apostles, the Holy Trinity, and the crown of thorns. It is ready-made religious art.

The Raven in my painting recalls the verse in the Bible, Luke 12:24, advising us to “Consider the ravens.” Ravens, often scorned and associated with darkness in Europe for centuries while also being admired around the world as problem-solvers of great intelligence, actually play an important role or two in the Bible, despite being ritually “unclean.” In one, they are tasked with feeding one of God's prophets, Elijah, when he is told by the Lord to hide out in the wilderness from the evil King Ahab and his evil wife Jezebel, worshippers of Baal who were hunting down God’s prophets :

From I Kings 17: 2-4 :

Then a revelation from the LORD came to Elijah: “Leave here, turn eastward, and hide yourself by the Brook of Cherith, east of the Jordan. And you are to drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.”

Cherith is in an arid wilderness, but in a land already struck by drought the deep canyon there is a trickle that is the last to dry up.

Ravens inhabit such remote places, and neither sow nor reap. They instead do what we humans often forget to do, or are too proud to do, and rely entirely and un-anxiously on God to provide for them.

In Noah’s case, Ravens were sent out before the dove, and while the raven’s failure to return has brought scorn by some who call that unreliability, that is an injustice. Ravens are smart enough to find their way back, of course. But there was no need to do so to deliver the message that waters were receding. By not returning, the message was clear that somewhere, in high and remote places, there was finally an environment emerging that was suitable for ravens, true scavengers, to inhabit. It meant that in a little while longer, when the waters receded further, there would be places where even doves could settle and nest.

But enough of Noah and back to Elijah: In this task, the ravens dutifully undertook the burden of feeding a prophet twice daily, even though they already relied entirely on God to provide for their own meager survival needs. That’s some faith, for an “unclean” bird species. And for this task He provided them not only with their usual fare, but with enough to share. This sort of timely provision from unlikely sources echoes throughout the bible.

In my design here, the Raven also serves as a ring bearer, for they truly do admire shiny objects but (unlike humans,) not so much that they hoard them. They readily give their treasures away, often leaving things in trade for something else or simply leaving them for reasons of their own. It is all OK, they know God is good and will provide his creations, even ravens of the barren places and wilderness, with what is needful throughout their lives. By faith in God can we be as free from worry.

Here I also included the fritillary butterfly, an insect that undergoes an extreme transformation from lowly caterpillar to glorious beauty, to remind the owners of this piece of the resurrection to come, and of Christ’s transfiguration.

The male skull bears a crown with a grape and vine motif which also has great meaning for those whose sins have been washed away by Christ whose blood was shed for us.

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