Milk and Honey Day 20: What I Hope People Feel

One of the questions artists get asked most often is what their work means. Its a great question and I love that discussion.

Of course the paintings mean something to me. There are stories behind them, symbols woven into them, Scriptures that inspired them, and ideas I've spent weeks exploring throughout this project. The wheat means something. The bees mean something. The rivers, honey, roads, clouds, and fields all carry meaning for me because they're part of the language I've used to build this collection.

But that's only half of the story.

The other half begins when someone else stands in front of the work.

One of the things I love most about art is that it leaves room for people to bring their own experiences into the conversation. A painting doesn't arrive in someone's life in a vacuum. It arrives in the middle of a story that was already unfolding long before they ever walked into a gallery or visited an artist's website.

Some people encounter a painting while they're building something new. Others find it during a season of healing. Some are celebrating. Some are grieving. Some are standing at the beginning of a journey while others are looking back on a road they've already traveled.

Because of that, art doesn't have one fixed interpretation. We all bring our own experiences and outlooks into the narrative.

The same painting can mean different things at different times.

What feels like a promise in one season may become a reminder in another.

A painting that once represented hope for the future can eventually become evidence of God's faithfulness. Years later, the very thing you were praying for, working toward, or hoping would happen may simply become part of your life. The artwork hasn't changed, but you have.

Maybe that's why meaningful objects stay with us.

They become attached to our stories.

They witness ordinary mornings and difficult seasons. They hang quietly in the background while life unfolds around them. Over time they become connected to memories, relationships, milestones, answered prayers, disappointments, celebrations, and all the moments that shape who we become.

Eventually they stop being something we own and become something we live with.

When I think about what I hope people feel when they encounter the Milk and Honey collection, hope is probably the first word that comes to mind.

Not because life is easy.

Not because everything works out exactly the way we imagined.

But because hope changes the way we move through uncertainty.

Every symbol in this collection points back to that idea in one way or another. Wheat speaks of growth and harvest. Rivers speak of movement. Honey speaks of sweetness and provision. The Promised Land speaks of inheritance and fulfillment. Together they tell a story about becoming, about trusting the process, and about believing that what has begun is still unfolding.

Underneath all of that is a simple belief that God is faithful.

Not faithful because life is perfect. Faithful because He remains good through every season.

But you don’t need the same faith I have to appreciate the art. Even without it, the hope remains because situations change. Restoration, and rebuilding is possible. The story is never finished as early as we think it is.

More than anything, I hope these paintings remind people of that.

I hope they bring a sense of peace into a room.

I hope they create space for gratitude.

I hope they encourage people to lift their eyes toward possibility instead of limitation.

I hope they remind someone to hold on when they need courage and remind someone else how far they've come when they need perspective.

And if the same painting manages to do both over the course of a lifetime, then I think that's a beautiful thing.

At the same time, I don't believe art has to carry that much weight in order to matter.

One of the wonderful things about beauty is that it doesn't require explanation.

A person doesn't need to understand every symbol hidden in a painting in order to connect with it. They don't need to know why I chose a particular subject or what inspired a particular composition. They don't need to agree with my interpretation or even be aware that one exists.

If someone walks away from this collection feeling hopeful, encouraged, grateful, or reminded that there is still goodness ahead, I'll be happy.

If they walk away thinking it's beautiful, I'll be happy then too.

Because sometimes the world is ugly and choosing beauty matters.