Abbey Lambert and Brittney Fontana (0wner)
Jazz City at home in Bean Town
This painting has a pretty interesting story. I didn’t share this with the buyer at the time because it was unfolding as we spoke. A few years ago I was selling my artwork at a local Christian book store “The Open Door.” The only requirement that they had was that it had to have an obvious Christian element to it, scriptures, crosses, etc. I don’t generally do paintings with obvious Christian elements to then. I don’t believe that I have to do that in order to express my faith. I am a Christ follower with everything in me, I cannot separate that from the things that I create. Just because I create a piece of art without a cross or Jesus in it, makes it no less spiritual than any other.
[Jack steps off soap box...takes a deep breath]
So back to the story…I was running out of “Christian” art to hang at the book store. So I took “Jazz City” and painted the windows to spell out some sort of scripture thing. It was cheesey (but have you seen the stuff that sells in Christian bookstores…ugh). Something in me felt really bad about that for a long time. So I pulled it down, and repainted it. I painted over the scripture reference and asked God to forgive me for cheapening my faith and my gift.
The very same day that I painted it, get a call from Gail Hayes who was interested in buying it for her niece’s wedding present.
It was still drying when they came to look at it…I am glad they didn’t want to take it with them!!! The photo above shows the painting hanging in the home of Nick and Brittney Fontana in Boston, MA.