I have a special care for this piece, not only for its dramatic conception but also because it encapsulates the full length of what my mind wanted to express at the moment, and because it was the piece that opened the door to my professional artistic career.
I wanted my pencil to draw a prayer, a plea to the Lord about the person He had prepared for me before the foundation of the world, to be my wife, my companion, my life partner, my beloved darling. I wanted to portray the woman of my dreams.
As you see in the drawing, at a simple glance, it is a flower who is opening up, and from within, she hosts many beautiful flowers. But if you wait a little bit more, this flower turns into a damsel who is dancing. Her left arm, up towards the heavens, has at the end a leaf that has the echo of a calla lily. Her right arm is waiting to enjoy the morning dew. Her hair is long and beautiful; she is rotating, looking away from us; she doesn’t care to notice any of us. You can see the layers of her mind as petals on a rose; each one of them speaks of her faith and values with arcadian beauty. In her soul is embossed her devotion to the King of kings, His symbol is engraved in everything she does. Off her mind, each flower represents the radiance of her thoughts. Each verbalizing and echoing into eternity Philippians 4:8.
After finishing the drawing, I wanted to give her depth, but I couldn’t. It had come to me so violently fast, yet it was an unanswered prayer. It was not mature.
I remember how this flower wanted to escape onto the paper. It was trapped for hours inside the pencil, and once I released it, the pencil glided through the white paper. The day before that particular evening, we were travelling back home from a funeral. We had been at least two hours on the road when we stopped at Anna Mays. It was late autumn, and the restaurant was full. A young waitress came to serve us and instantly brightened our sombre conversation with her smile. I do not recall noticing it, but my Canadian mother thought she should be someone I should ask out. Throughout the meal, she made all kinds of attempts to have us notice each other. I was not sure if I was embarrassed, tired, or touched by the waitress’s youthful beauty. At the end, after lots of insistence by both Canadian parents, I left her a note with my phone number on the table, and then we left. On the way home, we talked about this “cute girl”. Beyond her beauty, the conversation revolved around her virtuous look and her authenticity. Of course, the telephone never rang, and I never saw her again, but my soul did hear of the things that are amiable in a spouse. The next day, I knew I had to draw. After supper, we sat down to a Victorian movie that pushed me further into the palpitating inspiration that was throbbing in my mind. The pen pulled my hand line after line, shade after shade, form after form. It took me only the length of the film to start and finish the drawing, one of the fastest I have ever made. It was, and is, a sincere prayer of a young man seeking the favour of God for a damsel, an arcadian one.
Three years and some months later, during the romantic event of the World Cup 2010, my prayer was answered. I was helping at a church, and the Lord introduced me to the sweetest damsel. And, as casual as intentional, our lives got knit together. Words of care seemed to naturally flow every time we were together, and they paced unblemishedly through notes, telephones, and electronic mail, until it ruptured our hearts and ardent love placed us on the altar to commit to each other until the powers of death do us part. Such commitment was now the many layers of the answer to my prayer. And I learned I was her answer as well. God does answer prayer.
Within our first year of marriage, and as I was aching to start expressing my art, I placed those layers behind the drawing. They are the writings from the many emails and notes I sent to my family talking and letting them know about the girl I had met, whom I knew was the answer of our Lord to my life.
The next year, the Arcadian Damsel was featured at the local Art Gallery, and so, my artistic road began.