St Luke, Working from Home by Sheena Cruise
Our Patron, St Luke, is also the patron Saint of artists and physicians – and as a church, we are blessed with creative, inventive people whose works and activities inspire others.
I thought about Luke, the man, and what his work room might be like. Having been in many artists’ studios, they are often small and cluttered, with the things that inspire them and their tools and and materials laid out around them. And I thought about people having to work from home over the last year, often in difficult surroundings that were not intended for that use, making do with what they had to hand to try to make it work.
This painting is a diptych, designed to hang on either side of the arch that frames the chancel in St Luke’s, enveloping the alter and the big window. It depicts St Luke in his studio, surrounded by the paraphernalia of his callings – writing, painting, and medicinal, and the results of his work – his Gospel, his painting of the Virgin and Child (he is reputed to have painted the first icon), and the herbs that form the basis of his medications.
As a person, I draw inspiration from the people of St Luke’s. As a painter, I draw inspiration from world around me, from nature, and from how other artists (in this case, El Greco, Holbein, Gwen John, Artemesia Gentilleschi, Rembrandt, DaVinci,)