Rick’s Paintings

Rick Nelms Artist in Residence for Under The Thinking Tree

Please click on the buttons below to find out about Rick.

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Hello all, it has been a long time since I last posted anything, not for lack of trying, but just because I have had more to do than I am capable of, and under such circumstances invariably my ability to communicate suffers for which my humblest apologies. I have painted a great number of paintings most of which have been seen by nobody except for me and the Holy Spirit, abiding within me, and waiting patiently for some obedience on my part.


Autumnal Reflection

Perhaps it is appropriate that I should have painted so many paintings about autumn (or fall) since, in the Bible, patience and waiting and autumn are linked together, for example in James chapter 5:7-11, where James writes “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Indeed we call blessed those who showed endurance. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.”

Such a beautiful and encouraging passage I always think.


Light, Mountains and the Changing Seasons

And more specifically about the loss of leaves by deciduous plants, unsurprisingly, the Bible talks about that too, for example in one of the prophets James was talking about above, Isaiah, often uses the analogy of grapes and vines for the trials and tribulations facing God’s chosen people. The Jewish people remain God’s chosen people, for the promises made to them of old have never been withdrawn, but the good news is that we are all now God’s chosen people grafted into that grape vine by the life and death and resurrection the Lord Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah, and My Lord and my God.


In chapter 34, Isaiah, in a passage which appears to be about the end of this age and the beginning of the new Jerusalem, the new world in heaven, the time which Jesus talks about in Chapter 14:1-4 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” That mansion glimpsed in the distance in John Martin’s beautiful apocalyptic painting, ‘The Plains of Heaven’ . Isaiah writes about that time like this; “The stars in heaven will melt away, and the sky roll up like a scroll, and all the stars fall like a leaf from a grapevine or one from a fig tree.” Which all sounds a bit drastic until you remember that Jesus is waiting there for us, that all we have to do is ask, all we have to do is believe.

Autumnal Reflections

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Autumnal Landscapes

The Narrow Way…

And finally a study in Autumn Light, the same scene painted various ways, each perhaps illustrating something distinctive about the beauty of God’s creation and of Jesus, Light of the World.

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In a joyous mood for so many reasons, I have found my artistic obsession taken by the great beauty of the iridescent feathers of peacocks and peahens. One could, I suppose, lump them together as peafowl, but fowl seems an inappropriate word for something so beautiful. We’ll stick with Pavo cristatus, its Latin name, really Latin in this case since Linnaeus coined the name in 1758 and translated it means ‘crested peafowl’. I like that because both peacocks and peahens have a crest as you can see from the paintings below. In both cases their feathers of crest and neck are spectacularly iridescent. Like most birds with shiny green or blue or rusty orange feathers, it is iridescence not pigment that gives them their colour. Whether you believe in the chance origin of everything (really rather a lot of everything to be honest), or you believe that God made physics and set everything off, including the stellar origin of elements heavier than helium and hydrogen, plus biochemical and then biological evolutionary processes, or you believe that God literally made the universe in 6 days and rested on the seventh is, in the case of Pavo cristatus the creative process was spectacularly successful.

There was a period which lasted most of August 2023, when I was coming out of the sea of pain and fatigue from coming off Ropinirole (see further down the page for the gory details) and simultaneously sliding into a sea of pain caused by something leaning heavily on my right sciatic nerve. There was a point in the middle of the month when I thought my next trip out of the house was going to be to A and E (the Emergency Room or whatever it is called where you live). However, I had understood one thing and that is that the exercises which have always worked before when I have had sciatica, were making it worse this time. At about this time I painted the painting below, prefaced ‘No Matter How Bad The Storms In Life Get’ and entitled ‘God Keeps His Promises‘. My dear, wonderful Sue found a video intended for people to do exercises to reduce sciatica while seated , and following the advice in this has gradually eased the pain. So, here we are at the beginning of September, and I am free of Ropinirole withdrawal symptoms and the sciatica is down to twinges. I love this painting and this a quite a decent sized copy of it (A3 at 300dpi) so if you would like to print a copy then please do. At the moment I am pushing very hard to raise money for the Motor Neurone Disease Association so if you do print a copy please will you send them (or the equivalent in your country) a donation https://www.mndassociation.org/get-involved/donations . Together we can beat neurodegenerative conditions.

Dear all, in Isaiah 40, verse 31 says, ‘Yet those who wait for the Lord Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.’ Those are pretty mountainous promises and inspired these paintings of a rainbow mountain sunrise with a soaring golden eagle.

Isaiah 40:31 God’s Mountainous Promises version 1
Isaiah 40:31 God’s Mountainous Promises version 2

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As the clouds of depression (from coming off the medication called Ropinirole) lifted, I was filled with joy and painted three different versions of the same painting, ‘Depression Lifting’. I hope that you enjoy them. I know a lot of people have been praying for the depression to lift and rarely have I been more grateful for answered prayer. Thank you all and thank you My Lord and My God. Thank you God that I do not deserve your love but you love me anyway. The pain and fatigue have not yet cleared completely, but I am confident that they will follow shortly.

‘Depression Lifting’ in three flavours

Dear all, here is the next in an impromptu series of ‘holding onto the light’ paintings. It is now (2nd August 2023) just about 6 weeks since the last dose of ropinirole and my legs look fantastic (in the sense of having ankles and less fragile skin). I thank God (meant in its most literal sense), that the depression has lifted. The pain and fatigue has some way to go until (my) normality is restored. The depression lifted as though I were standing in cloud on a mountain and (as happened once or twice in earlier life) the cloud base suddenly lifts above your position and the glory of the view fills you will joy. Doubtless, every now and again the cloud will briefly obscure the view, but as of now, I am no longer depressed. I know this for sure because I have been here before. I am filled with joy!

One consequence of this is that I have had some parts of some days in the last week when my brain has actually been working, resulting in the sketch below and the painting further down the page, which was made using the lessons learned from making the sketch.

The sketches are increasingly my testbed for composition and colour palette, as well as for testing out illusions like the deep woodland on the right of the painting into which one feels one could walk, and even elicit a sense of what the scent might be like and the feeling of the dense leaf-mould underfoot. In the photograph with which this painting began the entire right side was black and there was a rusting car thinly disguised in the bottom left corner. The sketch allowed the development of both of these scenic areas as well as the colour which was almost completely monochrome.

The sketch is, of course, small and any attempt to enlarge it would reveal the limitations of the essentially mathematical processes underlying its production. The painting on the other hand, was designed to be be A1 sized at 300 dpi art quality from the outset, so that if one wished to print it that size, you would see the flowing brushstrokes and not the pixels. My experience is that paintings made this way also project beautifully up to much larger sizes for public display. Should you wish to see the painting below larger, if you are using a PC you can easily enlarge or shrink the browser page by using the mouse wheel while you press down the control or ctrl button. On an Apple computer there is a ⌘ or command key and if you hold that down and press + or – the browser screen should expand or contract. The copy on this website is not full size, but it is a high quality jpeg file and should still look good twice the normal size (200%).

As the ropinirole withdrawal depression has lifted, the only limitations on my ability to think and work are now the pain and fatigue, both of which are higher then ‘my’ normal of three months ago, but extremely variable, so that I get some good clear periods of low pain and low fatigue during which I can think clearly and properly again. I have been able to make progress with ideas relating to the Connections project at the Fitzwilliam museum (beautifully described in Rob’s blog article here ). I have also made good progress on the second painting for the lay summaries of scientific papers in the Readable Summaries referred to in the button a bit further down the page. It is now finished and submitted, but it will be a couple of weeks before it appears because it is the middle of the summer holiday season.

I finish with a reminder that, to the Jewish people, Jesus was not a surprise. They had been waiting for him for hundreds of years, and while many Jewish people remain unsure about whether or not he was and is the long promised Messiah, many Jewish people, Messianic Jewish Christians, are convinced. And it is his fulfilment of so many old testament prophecies that makes them convinced. As I was painting this painting, the words of the Old Testament prophet, Job, (19:25) came unbidden into my mind ‘I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth.’ I too know that my redeemer lives, and that He, Jesus, is the light of the world. And so I hold onto that light.

I remembered hearing a great sermon recently about prophecy, among other things, by my beloved wife Sue, who, apart from being my full time-carer, is a Licenced Lay Minister, the Bishop’s Advisor for Disability, Ely Diocese and an interesting and challenging preacher. I thought you might like to read it too, so I have made it into a pdf and put it here .

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Recent History: submitted perhaps a month ago. Dear all, you may have been wondering why I have been very quiet for a few weeks. It started out as simply a period where I was very busy initiating a number of new projects and going to the MNDA EnCouRage 2023 conference in Northampton on 27th and 28th June. The new projects don’t replace this work as Artist in Residence here at Under the Thinking Tree, but will complement it (some of the items below the painting give some information). However, as Robbie Burns put it “The best-laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley,” (the last part of which means often go wrong).

In this case the derailing factor has been the withdrawal symptoms from coming off Ropinirole, a dopamine enhancing drug used for treating Parkinson’s Disease (which I don’t have) and restless leg syndrome (which I did have some years ago when I started taking it). The withdrawal symptoms had already begun to have some impact when we were at EnCouRage. They will, we hope, gradually fade away over the next couple of months, having peaked a few days ago, at which point the distinctive searing pain, fatigue, cold and hot sweats, stiffness, terror of falling and depression had become so overwhelming that I am struggling to do more than eat, sleep and meet the most important of my commitments. I have managed to do almost everything I said that I would but if it was your task that did not get done, my humblest apologies.

On the upside my legs are no longer swollen and various regions which I had thought would never heal have regenerated normally, revealing actual proper skin which is brilliant 😁, and I remain absolutely determined to keep on keeping on even though being positive remains extremely difficult to do (difficult but not impossible) at the moment. The painting below tries to visualise why it is not impossible. In those horrible times when the consuming clinging darkness of depression tries to break in and smash you down; especially in those times it is so important to keep focussed on the light; to remember that not only do some people love and respect you (however much of a social clutz you may be, and believe me, I write from personal experience), but even more than that, the God of Love, the immensely powerful God who created all that magnificent beauty here on Earth and across the incomprehensible vastness of space, that God of Love, actually cares about you, actually loves you. How awesome is that!

The painting visualises what John wrote at the start of his Gospel, 1:5 “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” Notice the tense used, even in English it is striking. At no time in the past, in the present or in the future is there any circumstance in which the light can be overcome by the darkness. In ancient Greek the word John uses for light is φῶς (can be transliterated as phōs), and it is carefully chosen, as so much of John’s writing was carefully chosen, to emphasise that this was not just any light, but light that keeps on giving light, forever. For someone struggling with the black tide rising, knowing that the light keeps on giving light forever and will help you to push the black tide down again is incredibly reassuring.

I have decided to add the sketch on which this painting was based since is has a unique beauty all of its own. It is below the painting with all its lovely curly swirly brushstrokes.

Various items you might find of interest:

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One way or another Sue and I hope to go to Basel in December for the MNDA International Symposium. I have managed to get two abstracts submitted, one for the International Alliance of ALS/MND Associations, Allied Professionals forum (4th to 5th December 2023) the other for the MNDA International Symposium (6th to 8th December) thanks to the brilliant teaching of Dr Scott Allen from Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN), one offering a poster about the diverse range of ways art can support quality of life in MND/ALS, the other much more specifically about the use of art in support of lay summaries of scientific papers. Whether they will be accepted is anyone’s guess, but bearing in mind how unwell I feel I am immensely pleased to have got something submitted.

Translational Neuroscience in the title of SITraN refers to the institute’s key role as one of the most important international centres of expertise specifically aimed at Translating laboratory science (ideas for drugs that come from small scale studies) into Therapeutics that can be manufactured in huge quantities by leading pharmaceutical companies and improve the quality of life of people living with neurodegenerative conditions.

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Grief as a shared experience. ‘Giverny Grace’, a painting of a beautiful place and some beautiful birds

And an excerpt from the painting at full size

Dear all, You might not feel in a good place to read this, but then, I wasn’t in an easy place when I wrote it.

It is not wrong to grieve, it is normal, right, appropriate and largely runs its own course. There is a period when it is fresh, sharp, when tears come easily, and that is all normal. Even ancient grief, decades old, still has the power to surprise, to trigger tears, and that is all normal. We all do it differently as a wise friend pointed out; and there is no right timescale or right way, Only in recent times has grief become seen, in some parts of society, as in some way abnormal, weak even. And that is not just ridiculous, it is harmful.

Grief is as old as humanity; is hard wired into humans. Elephants do it better than some modern human societies https://drrickblog.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/of-death-and-elephants-and-mourning/ . I once met a child whose father had been dead two years and the child had not been told, had been comprehensively lied to. How is that child ever going to trust anyone again? And why avoid the ‘D’ word? Passed on, Moved over, sounds like a road journey. How much simpler to stick to the truth, the appropriate words are death, died, dead.

My mother died in March 2023 in the care home she loved, surrounded  by the people she loved. No distress, just a gentle, peaceful, graceful and beautiful shutting down of her life process and then a stillness as her soul left for eternity. The best possible death in today’s world, but still I grieve, still tears run down my cheeks as I write this. And that is not weakness, that is normal, that is human, that is love. My father died in 1981 and I still find it difficult to say that without tears. And that is not weak, that is normal, human, love. My father was a doctor and his speciality was extracting people alive from crashed racing cars and aeroplanes, so I became obsessed with motor racing in the 1960s, and still find it difficult to talk about my childhood hero and role model, Jim Clark, multiple F1 world champion, without tears and that is not weak, it is normal, it is love.

I have many friends at the Arthur Rank Hospice, who look after us so well, and in the local MNDA branch who also, with the national Motor Neurone Disease Association, look after us so well and some of those friendships are short, intense, special because we know that our time as friends is limited. Some of my friends have died and I weep as I write and that is normal, it is human, it is love. I would not have missed their friendship for all the money in the world. Their friendship has enriched my life in a way I could not have imagined as a school teacher and academic biologist and educator, before MND came along and changed my life forever and Rick the artist emerged, determined to remain positive however hard it got, and astonished to find himself capable of creating such beauty.

God loves you and so your distress is real to God. Jesus grieved during his earthly ministry. And Jesus didn’t pretend he had a fly in his eye; Jesus wept, real tears, real distress, really cried. Jesus, fully human and fully God, understands grief and grieves with you. The  bible is about the real world, about the reality that people experience, with grief-related words and ideas occurring hundreds of times. So don’t be frightened of grieving – it is what you are supposed to do when someone dies. Done properly, grieving allows your brain to sort through the memories and place them where you can find them when you want to but not where they will jump out at you unexpectedly. Love, grace and peace to you from Rick

Thank you to Rev Julie Norris from here at Under the Thinking Tree, for the beautiful photo of Giverny, taken just a few weeks ago, and for shared human experience and wisdom. I added the ducks and long tailed tits and robins (thank you Sue), the heron and the marsh harrier. This preview is a good one but still won’t print out successfully. I will add details how to obtain a printable copy later.

Julie Reflects on working with Rick

As I listen to Rick talk I am reminded of a poem by Rumi called, ‘The Guest House.’ Rick has taken his diagnosis of MND and used it in a way that is surprising and so helpful for others.

Rick tells us that as a child he was told by his art teacher that he was hopeless at art. Now he is an artist.

He tells us how a call to tell his story of faith was dormant for many years, buried beneath work, other demands, recovery from a breakdown and then his illness. Now he has found a way to talk about his faith with perceptive resilience, which inspires us.

He uses what he calls a ‘Googly Eyed Rat,’ which is much bigger than an ordinary computer mouse, to steer his computer to paint amazing pictures of hope and faith and love.

He describes how he imagines pictures in his mind. He then finds photographs which he pieces together in a computer programme, to paint. Sometime he is using more than a thousand pictures in a single painting. He spends hours adding details, and reflecting on light and shade. The outcome surprises him, and delights us.

As you scroll down his pictures, I hope that you will find things to surprise, delight and inspire you, for this is what happens to the rest of the Under The Thinking Team when Rick presents us with a new piece.

Julie Norris
The Guest House By Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

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Power cut duck is a celebration of beauty and a reminder that beauty is part of what tells us that God exists and that he cares for and about us.We know some things about God because the bible tells us these things. We know that from John’s writing that God is Love (1 John 4:8 and 16). We know that God loved us first, and that God’s love is what enables us to love each other and also to love God (1 John 4:9-11 and 19)..So if the painting is about beauty, why am I writing about love? That is also revealed to us in the bible. This God who is love, through the agency of Jesus (John 1:1-5) in the presence of the Holy Spirit, hovering above the waters of creation (Genesis 1:2) created everythings, and abundant, lavish, beautiful creation, and God saw everything that had been made and saw that all that beauty was very good (Genesis 1:31)We know that loves each and every one of us, and that Jesus came when we messed up, as we all do; Jesus not out of anger or bitterness or to guilt-trip us, but out of love (1 John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.) that he came to save the world not to condemn it (John 3:17).

And we know from Jesus own words, his radical words, to a woman, who by the mores of Jewish society of the day, is a person who should have been invisible, and a Samaritan, who by the Jewish mores of the day, he should have ignored, and a woman married 5 times and living with a man was not her husband, you can guess what the Jewish mores would have made of that! So what does Jesus do? Jesus tells this person who God loves just as much as every other person, everything! “Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14) and when the woman, who is really getting excited, says “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Jesus replied “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” (John 4:25-26).

Later on, Peter, poor bumbling, confused, the disciple who by being such a complete prat, helps me more than any other, this Peter, who I have just subjected to a terrible character assassination gets it, understands, and says these magnificent words, on the day the Church went from a Jewish Church of Christ, to a worldwide Church of Christ, for everyone, for me and for you. What Peter says is this ’34 Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, shows no favouritism, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. (Acts 10:34-35) We are all acceptable to the God who is Love and who made all that beauty. And it is a free gift, we don’t have to earn it. Paul, another one whose ability to grasp the wrong end of the stick so firmly helps me so very much, since grasping the wrong end of the stick is a speciality of mine. Well, Paul in writing about how God loves us so much that through kindness he gives us the limitless riches of his grace, writes this ‘For by such grace you have been saved through faith. This does not come from you; it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8)

So Power Cut Duck is to remind you that God who is love, loves you, and God made the connection between beauty and love in creation and through Jesus who says “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” (Luke 10:27); Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35); and “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” (Matthew 5:45). And Power Cut Duck reminds you that through the grace and kindness of God, you are loved without condition and forgiven as a gift, a free gift. It does not matter how clever you are, or how stupid, it does not matter how hard you try to be good, all that matters is that you accept the gift and believe. Once you have accepted the gift and believe, you are free to invite in the Holy Spirit and the transformation of your life will begin. You will have become a disciple, a learner, and you won’t get it right all the time, but you will know that when you stuff up and you say sorry, that you are forgiven. So from a duck without power: love, beauty, grace and forgiveness are all revealed. Wow! Love from Rick

P.S. Power Cut Duck! If You would like a nice A2 size print 59.4 x 42cm of this on 5mm Foamex, which is what I print all my exhibition prints on, it will cost about £24 from a commercial printer such as Vistaprint (other brands are available) plus a donation to the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity Living Well Service who look after me and my family so well. You need a high quality file and that I have to email to you – please don’t print any of these little previews because the results will be disappointing. My email address is drrickz@gmail.com and you need to send me a request and your email address. BBC email addresses don’t work because the file is too big, but gmail, hotmail and other providers should be OK.

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Guide Our Feet In The Way Of Peace. A very large painting, of which this is a much better preview than those elsewhere.
This is the top left corner of the painting above, at full size, to show you how I have persuaded Corel Painter to paint in my preferred pointillistic impressionist style. I am obviously making progress, because this is the first successful pointillistic painting of stars that I have made.

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Everybody Who Has Ever Lived

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‘Do Not Worry’

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To Give Light To Those Who Sit In Darkness

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‘The Dawn From On High’ high quality preview.

This is a painting initiated by Kerry Devine on the BBC Radio Cambridgeshire Folk Show on 11th December 2022 when she talked about the light and the frost and the trees and this picture popped into my head in a way with which I have become very familiar. As I have said often before, I believe that it was placed there by the Holy Spirit. As before I have also known immediately the scripture to which the painting refers, in this case, to the prophecy of Zechariah, father of John the Baptist. In Luke’s Gospel, the prophecy is a the end of chapter 1. In verses 78 and 79, right at the end of the prophecy, Zechariah says just who John will go before, for whom he will prepare the way.

This, of course, refers to Jesus, and Zechariah says “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

So this painting, so appropriate for this time of year, is called ‘The Dawn From On High’. With Love, Grace and Peace from Rick

Reorganisation

Over the next few weeks, I will be reorganising the pages where most of my paintings are found here. This will also be the start of a new policy for my contributions here. Putting new items right at the bottom of a great big list of items means that it requires time and patience to find them. I will post new paintings and ponderings at the top of the page, which should make them a lot easier to find. I will also be removing duplicates and paintings that are significantly poorer in composition or technique than my current work and simplifying some of the older stories.

My typing is deteriorating all the time and so the proportion of correctly typed letters is now under 50% even though I have a double sized keyboard and metal key guide to try and help me hit the correct key more often. This means that in a paragraph like this one there are only two or three correctly spelt words when it is typed. It takes much longer to proof-read than it does to type, and I inevitably miss errors, so my apologies for the typos which will become more common as time goes by.

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Ascension of Jesus at Bethany 40 days after his resurrection, painting above (maximum size A0 300dpi) and sketch below (maximum size A2 300dpi)

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In memory of Queen Elizabeth II,  21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022, became queen on 6 February 1952.

Comment to Louise Hulland, after mentioning how moved I had been to see the Queen alone at Prince Philip’s funeral, which made Louise say that sad image was not what she wanted to remember. Louise read out the following on on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, Sunday 18th September 2022, “You are, of course, right on the money Louise! It is the olympic opening ceremony, it is the day her horse won, it is paddington, it is that mischievous grin, it is a tin of dog biscuits as therapy that I want to remember. She’s in yellow in my painting. How many people could rock yellow?! Love from Rick the artist.”

More seriously, here is a link to the excellent booklet ‘The Queen’s Way‘, published to mark the Queen’s platinum jubilee, which reflects on her faith in Jesus Christ, quoting very many of her own words which in turn quote the bible. Her very clearly articulated faith gives me confidence that, to paraphrase words Jesus himself used, on the cross, albeit to a different person, today Queen Elizabeth II will be with Jesus in paradise. I find that a really helpful reminder that God loves each one of us equally, whether we are the Queen of the United Kingdom or a criminal crucified alongside Jesus. Love from Rick

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Beautiful flowers – God’s ongoing creativity

Some of these paintings celebrate the beauty of God’s infinite creativity. Some are followed by a button and some thoughts inspired by the particular painting.

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Angelonia, the photo was pre-Raphaelite, and the painting is ‘Tiffany glass’ (Vanessa Clarke)

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Pyramidal orchid, Anacamptis pyramidalis

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Peace Paintings inspired by the words of Jesus

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The first Peace painting was stimulated by the Spirit-led wisdom of one of my friends, who wrote, when I was struggling, “Maybe for you one tool might be to see if you can paint the peace that God offers us; not the darkness, just the peace. You may not be able to paint it when you’re in the hole, and that’s ok. But even if you can paint it when you’re out, maybe it will help you next time you’re down there!”
The next day she wrote ” I didn’t have a clue how you could actually find a peace painting but you’ve done it!”
The Holy Spirit led me to this painting and these words of Jesus during that night, as I emerged from the hole: John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

In John 14:27, Jesus, talking about the Holy Spirit who will come and be inside each one of us, if we ask, says these beautiful words ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” And so, in a world where life is not always easy, Jesus gives us Peace, and that Peace is what this series of paintings are exploring.

Three paintings inspired by Jesus’ words, “Peace be with you,’ in the locked room after the resurrection, in John 20:19, 21 and 26. Please click the button below for more information.

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Peace, another journey in digital painting. Three more paintings inspired by Jesus words, “Peace be with you,’ in the locked room after the resurrection, in John 20:19, 21 and 26. Please click the button below for more information.

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Like John, Luke describes Jesus, when he joined the disciples in the locked room in Jerusalem after the resurrection and before the ascension, saying ‘Peace be with you’. In Greek, the form of words Luke uses is precisely the same as that used by John, and so this painting has the same title (Luke 24:36, translated this way in all the main bible translations such as the NRSV and NIV). This is a completely new painting because I had always wondered if I had misunderstood the composition, and when I tried to repaint it with the grey-brown dove it was suddenly clear to me that I had indeed misunderstood. It is somewhat unusual and unsettling to have the main subject apparently about to fly out of the painting, but there is no doubt that the painting has more impact and more pose and balance laid out this way.

Peace Be With You, Luke 24:36, please click on the button below to find out the story of this painting.

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Experiments in painting Peace

Very early in the process of painting peace, I became convinced that it was possible to paint, inspired by the words of the writers of the epistles. Released on the morning of my first Art Exhibition, promoted by Under The Thinking Tree, I wrote that morning “here we have Peace from Paul’s words. It remains the case that, since it is the morning, it seems appropriate to choose the very start of the book in the Bible I know best, Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians, Chapter 1, verse 2 ‘Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.’ The painting is still called ‘Grace To You and Peace’. “

Epiphany is Good News! It means that God loves you just as much as he loves Archbishop Desmond Tutu (7 October 1931 – 26 December 2021) who, in 2001, said “There will be peace on earth.  The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ puts the issue beyond doubt: ultimately, goodness and laughter and peace and compassion and gentleness and forgiveness will have the last word.” An original painting based on a public domain photo of Archbishop Tutu. Epiphany is one of those words that just won’t stick in my head, but it is good news for the gentiles like me because it describes the revelation of Christ the saviour and king to the gentile magi. This is, so far, the only peace painting using words from a contemporary person.

An interesting take on Peace, since this is inspired by Isaiah 55:12-13, Very early in the war in Ukraine, I wrote “What great verses for this week, peace and joy and a reminder that God is in charge.”

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“Children, you have caught nothing to go with my bread have you?” John 21:5

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The Life that Was The Light of All People (John 1:4b). This painting is so intrinsically peaceful that it seems to have found its way into this series of experiments. Down in the rainforest itself, dawn is often quite noisy with calls of birds and primates dominating the soundscape, and yet, an undisturbed area of rainforest like this while superficially noisy with sounds is such a peaceful place in other ways. I have woken just before dawn in a rainforest, and it is a truly remarkable experience; there is a lot of noise and yet that noise is precisely because it is so peaceful. If the forest is disturbed, silence falls in an instant, and the peace is destroyed. In the dawn chorus of the rainforest one has a real sense of God’s presence and his ongoing creativity. It is a beautiful place to awaken and a beautiful place to pray.

Another approach to peace, here, in this beautiful countryside there must be peace because if there were any disturbance the red deer would be spooked.

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Peace for Ukraine, A relaxed and peaceful herd of endangered European bison or wisent, at peace in the Ukrainian Carpathian mountains, in a country at war – a symbol of peace.

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Paintings on the Theme of Care for the Planet

Bourn Brook Water Voles

Here is Rick’s painting ‘Bourn Brook Water Voles’, celebrating the return of these endangered, charming, harmless vegetarian mammals to the whole length of Bourn Brook, a watercourse from which they were never entirely eradicated by the introduced predator, mink. The population of water voles in the UK plummeted from 8 million in 1960 to 220,000 by 2004, prompting the highest level of legal protection. They cannot be harmed, nor can their homes be damaged or obstructed. 

Rick is currently concerned because plans to put in an East West Railway have been drawn up which will cross Bourn Brook between Comberton and the Eversdens in the centre of the West Cambridge Hundreds. This is an area of outstanding beauty that is hugely valued by local communities.

This painting is inspired by the passionate defence of biodiversity by our young people, by the successful recolonisation of the whole of Bourn Brook and by the threat to the water voles posed by the only proposed course of the railway. 

Paintings Rick is currently working on

Rick is currently working on a large piece which focuses on the Natural World. This is an encouragement to us to enjoy the amazing splendour of this beautiful planet, and to take steps to make sure, that as we come out of the pandemic, we take steps to look after it.

These are sketches, which means that Rick continues to work on them, but they are such a delight we thought you would like to see them in progress.

A Piece of the Rainforest

This beautiful sketch has existed now for two years. It is an uncluttered and relaxing view from the top of a South American rainforest tree, some 100 metres (330 feet) up, looking out along a branch towards the canopies of other rainforest giants. It is a glorious celebration of God’s very good creation and its biodiversity.

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This busy view with squirrel monkeys, a gaggle of blue and yellow macaws, hummingbirds, cicadas and orchid bees is the picture as it originally came into my head, although I did not have the technology to produce it at the time. I am delighted that it now exists to complement the sketch, as a beautiful and wonderful celebration of God’s ongoing creativity in the world and a reminder to us all of the need to protect such beauty.

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The First Sketch of a Chalk Stream

This sketch has also existed for nearly two years and it too is a painting in its own right that will continue to exist in this form. On the right is a forested bank, mixed ash and oak, wil alder trees along the river bank and wood anemones and lesser celandines on the floor. The small river came from springs in the chalk rock and is, like the River Cam, a chalk stream, nutrient rich and temperate. To the left is a water meadow, flooded for a brief period each year, bringing in nutrients and maintaining high diversity of grasses and meadow flowers, with chalk hills, called downs, yet another biodiverse environment, rising up in the distance. Above all, in the morning sky, roosting starlings swirl into the air in a spectacular murmuration and a dove reminds us that the Holy Spirit will guide us if we will let him.

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And this is the painting that has been in my head ever since I started the chalk stream and found that, with the technology I had at the time, I could not finish it. Here is an illustration of enormous biodiversity on our own doorstep, a celebration of God’s creativity. Britain’s unique badgers are here (the only badgers in the world which live in communal sets), and rarities such as the bittern, little egret, marsh harrier, osprey and hobbies, tiny falcons hunting dragonflies, as well as meadow flowers such as fritillaries and various orchids.

In preparing this painting for printing I have been able to make a number of compositional changes and additions so that it more closely represents the image in my head. It also now had a thin region all around the edge which printers term ‘bleed’, to allow for any slight misalignment of the image during the printing process. I also took the opportunity to make the painting exactly the same ratio of height to width as A2, A3 and other A ratio papers. I changed the dove to a Eurasian collared dove, and will change the older ones at some stage.

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More paintings celebrating biodiversity and our responsibilities for its future well-being.

These paintings remind us of our role in looking after God’s beautiful, intricate and fragile creation and especially the two or three billion poorest and most vulnerable people on Earth, those with the closest connection with creation, who get their water directly from the Earth and grow their own food in the ground. If the soil is contaminated or turned into desert by climate change, these people do not have any alternative way of obtaining water and food and will be driven from their homelands as climate refugees.

We have to act now, shutting down the 1500 coal-fired power stations around the world still churning out carbon dioxide and acid rain, putting out the thousands of fires burning in the world’s forests, changing our diets to eat less meat, turning down the heat and putting on more clothes… but most of all, praying for COP 27 and future COP conferences not to be failures as all previous ones have been. It is not too late but one day soon it will be. The Earth has to act now. Now is not the time for wars, now is the time for cooperation. So I pray that the Holy Spirit will fall upon the warmongers and upon those who don’t believe that there is a climate crisis, so that the scales fall from their eyes and they see the truth.

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Beautiful Biodiversity, a celebration of subtropical species from around the world.
Sea Grass, with many species including a manatee and distant view of a whale shark, so iconic yet so little known that no-one has ever observed or filmed how they give birth, or even knows exactly where. This painting is not replaced by the one below, and both will remain valid versions of the painting. I always wondered how artists like Monet and Cezanne ended up doing multiple copies of the same painting and now I know!
Quite a lot of additions mainly of items I could not find or make when I first painted this, such as the queen conch and purple spiny lobster in the centre. To the left of the conch is a turquoise patch which the exposed part of a mud dwelling bivalve called Atrina, with two small anemones attached and a much larger typically sea grass anemone next to the Atrina,. In front of the Atrina are two Sea Grass fan worms. In addition the repainted painting is now clearer, A4, A3 and other A ratio paper can be used and it has bleed allowance around the edge.
Britain, about 1970, a murmuration of lapwings, which I used regularly to see as my dad drove us from Birmingham to Devon. Today almost all the British lapwings have gone, nest sites destroyed by modern farming methods. It is not too late to reverse this with just a few changes.
End of the Rainforest? This beautiful rainforest pool, teeming with tetra and cichlid fish is, like one third of the original rainforest, completely undamaged by human activity. It is not too late to save the rainforest, even though huge areas are on fire or have been cleared for mining, cattle ranching, growing soya or palm oil. We have to protect the undamaged rainforest properly, or the amount of undamaged forest will be too little to sustain its long term future.
A small excerpt from End of the Rainforest, so that you can see the brushwork which I have taught my computer to do for me.
This one I made a few changes , mainly to stop problems at the edges when it is printed, but the main addition was lots of little red glowlight tera fish in the bottom left corner.
A coral reef, one of the jewels of this blue planet, biodiversity exceeded only by tropical rainforest. Incredibly sensitive to high water temperatures linked to the climate crisis, which cause bleaching of the coral, and repeated bleaching events lead to coral death and the end of the reef. It is not too late to end the climate crisis, but we have to act now. In the background the distant shape of a blue whale, the largest animal that has ever lived, hunted down to the last few individuals in the 1960’s but now recovering to a population of several thousand, showing what can be achieved if the world agrees to act together.
Preparing the painting of the reef for printing, I had to work on almost all of the edge of the reef region, moving items away from the edge to leave space for ‘bleed’. I made a few additions, notably, the two ghost pipefish at the bottom right near the signature.
In practical terms, the printer I had to use for time constraint reasons could not print square painting and so I adapted the it into the Reef Below.
In the foreground, spikenard, the plant from which the biblical ointment nard was made, smeared onto Jesus’ feet by one of his loyal female disciples. and further back, tea estates, a snow leopard and golden eagle soaring above the foothills of the distant Himalaya.
A small except from the painting above featuring the beautiful but rare snow leopard.
The mountains and islands of Vietnam, one of the most beautiful countries on Earth, with a hornbill coming in to land perhaps, and distant parakeets and black kite. This is a peaceful, restful, uncluttered scene. As an artist I am not entirely satisfied with the horizon, which, unusually for me, I did not level during production of the painting, I wish this version of the painting to continue to exist but may well amend the horizon…
This is a much busier painting and was produced in this form for printing for an exhibition, in which I wished the emphasis to be more on the biodiversity and less on the peacefulness. The pale trumpet flowers on the right are a native small tree, Fagraea ceilanica. The orange flowers in the centre belong to a species of Ixora, a genus with a pantropical distribution, so these are native species to Vietnam. The yellow trumpet flowers at the left are Allamanda which I was so sure was native to Vietnam that it was not until very late in the process that I discovered that they originated in Mexico. They are very widely planted in the tropics. There are sunbirds, iridescent purples and greens, parakeets, blue and orange rollers, and in addition, the first tropical bats I have painted, coming home to roost after a night feeding on fruit trees.

Paintings which encourage prayer and work towards securing the future of all the beautiful biodiversity shown above.

Coal-fired power stations are a thing of the past… or are they? There are 1,500 of the working today and nearly 200 new ones under construction. If they were being used to improve the quality of life of the three billion poorest and most vulnerable people on this planet, I might not have painted these two paintings. They are however mainly being used to improve the living standards of people who are generally among the most affluent on the planet.

The paintings which follow are focused on the forest of the world. If they were all gone I would not have painted them, but one third of the rainforest is entirely undamaged by human activity and that is quite enough to sustain biodiversity into the future, if we protect it all starting now. The paintings show desertification resulting from clearing forest for agriculture and then using unsuitable methods which lead to soil erosion and formation of brick-like laterite soils in which no plants will grow. They show a regional view, a night view close to a forest fire in rainforest, which burns remarkably well considering that it is often thought of as wet. The final paintings show views from space of fires burning in Amazonia and in Borneo in South East Asia.

Provocative paintings, but if we pray and if we pull together, all 8 billion of us, the rainforest can be saved. There is enough undamaged forest left. It is especially important to encourage the annual COP conferences to stop failing and to change the world. We need to encourage our politicians and our Church leaders to provide global leadership. The Bible makes our responsibilities very clear, so Church leaders especially have a global leadership role into the future. Jesus never flinched from difficult conversations during his incarnate ministry, and we need to follow that example. I will add a button here when I have made the pdf.

Pictures to Encourage

Rick uses one of his Threshold Pictures to talk about how we might find hope as we come out of the pandemic. Rick recognises that just as we are all together in the tunnel of the pandemic, we can emerge together into the refreshed world beyond it. There is always something in the picture he is working on that astonishes him, and which is symbolic of hope for the future.
Final promise

Comment by a friend,

“ You reminded me of this reading from John’s Gospel,

“Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.  Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. ”                                       John 4: 35-36

“…as well as a reminder of God’s promises, [this pictures] is a call to action by the Church as the fields in the painting look ripe and ready to harvest

Rick Talks about his Paintings…

A Spring of Water Gushing up to Eternal Life

A Panorama of Opportunities Ahead

Rick painted this picture during a Quiet Morning.

Later he saw it a the vision from the the threshold and reshaped the picture from the inside of a large window.

In all the pictures Rick paints of thresholds, the dove is present. The dove is a symbol of peace, or hope, of Spirit. The dove guides beyond the threshold.

An Opening Door to the Future

Open Door Choices in the Light.

Rick has painted this picture reflecting on the choices that we have the other side of the door of the pandemic.

Light is very important to Rick. It symbolises being able to see ahead with clarity, hope and purpose.

Biblical Paintings which bring strength to the weary and comfort to the troubled.

“Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God.”

The galaxy in this painting is M31, the Andromeda galaxy, the nearest large companion of the Milky Way galaxy.

M13 Public Domain Picture

Dazzling Easter

The crucifixion of Jesus, fully man and fully God.

This is the most abstract painting I have done since I was 17. The stars in this picture are from a Hubble telescope picture of an area near the centre of our Milky Way galaxy.

There is a hand made cross (not much different to the one I made a few years ago for St Mary’s Church, Comberton, Cambridge,) with nail holes in the conventional locations and a placard with technically correct inscriptions in Latin Greek and Hebrew.

On the cross is an abstract form representing the nature of the incarnate Jesus who was crucified, fully man seen in the diagrammatic representation of a strand of DNA, and fully God seen in the abstract shape alluding to Jesus, the Word, light of the world.

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16–17)

Come see His hands and His feet The scars that speak of sacrifice Hands that flung stars into space To cruel nails surrendered.

The Servant King by Graham Kendrick
Faure’s Requiem played for 48 hours straight while I made the Photomontage and painted this.

The whole painting, whilst being about the crucifixion, intentionally refers back to the first few verses of John’s Gospel in the Bible, which I read and re-read as I tried to make a painting of the image in my head.

In the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. he light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. John 1. 1-5 NRSV Bible

“I can confirm that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”

Rick Nelms

The Angel Rolled away the Stone

This is essentially a landscape with abstraction seen in the representation of the burst of energy experienced by the Angel in doing the work. It is set at first light and this posed some interesting technical challenges.

This is the moment that the seal was broken (told in the Biblical readings Matthew 27.66 and Daniel 6.17) and the stone was rolled away from the empty tomb after Jesus’ resurrection.

“It was very early in the morning of the third day, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome, Joanna, these faithful women, are even now on their way to the tomb having set out in the darkness, travelling at dawn, as the angel was rolling back the stone, but they will not arrive until the sun has risen.”

Rick writes, based on Mark 16. 2

It isn’t clear where the angel was as the stone was rolled away. The encounters with the women, who are drawing near to the tomb, take place within the tomb. I have followed this in placing the angel inside the tomb at the actual moment of the stone’s movement, hence the light pouring from within the tomb showing the immense amount of energy released by the angel as the work was done.

The high viewpoint is such that the guard, there to watch over the tomb, is out of sight underneath the foreground of the painting, at the entrance to garden. He is terrified into immobility.

The picture uses extensively modified elements from a public domain image of a tomb near Jerusalem, with a round stone beside the open entrance. The available image had been cropped so that sky could not be seen, so I used another image of a suitable rocky landscape for the area behind the tomb, the skyline, early dawn sky and morning star (originally part of Yorkshire).

Since this previously unused tomb is in a garden, I have included some olive trees so that the reflected light looks more realistic.

In Him All Things Hold Together

Inspiration for this Painting

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? … Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,  nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8. 38-39
…in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:16-17

Aged 17 Rick saw himself as an atheist. Nevertheless, he painted this abstract picture of Creation.

“I was persuaded to exhibit it in the local Church art exhibition. The vicar looked at it for a very long time, turned to me and said, ‘It is a very odd painting for an atheist to paint.’ “

Creation of the Universe

“I painted that painting showing the creation of the universe, with life in the green spiral to the left (oil pastels and pencil on paper). I had painted a whole series of entirely abstract paintings using colour blending to prove to myself that my art teacher was wrong and that I was not ‘useless’. I wanted to paint a picture that represented something. I thought about what to paint and this picture of a hand with the forming universe pouring out through its palm came into my head. The only thing I could do was paint it, and so I did. “

When Rick talks about these two paintings he sees them as significant. The 17 year old with an interest in science was trying to make sense of whether God and Science are compatible. The 17 year old thought not. Ten years later, Rick recognised a connection.

The hand that I painted when I was 17, was the hand of Jesus Christ ‘for in Him all things in heaven and on earth were created’. 

“In this morning’s homegroup we were considering encounters with God with reference to disciples on the Road to Emmaus.”

Two disciples were walking on the Road to Emmaus, when they found themselves accompanied by a stranger. As they walked and talked they became more curious about who this stranger was, who seemed to know so much. Eventually, they reached their destination and sat together to eat a meal. As the stranger broke bread at the table, they recognised that this was Jesus with them.

“I realised that, just as the disciples on the road to Emmaus were a very long time recognising Jesus, so too was I. Almost ten years before I came to faith.”

Everlasting Love

This is a painting in the Heart Sings series

The bouquet of Freesias, Narcissi from the Scilly Isles and Tulips was given to my beautiful Sue on valentine’s day, and made my heart sing.

The lovely florist made them up for me and they have been so very beautiful.
I imagined the flowers in a handsome old window with a frosty view beyond, and a painting came into being.

This painting is very special as it makes the bouquet permanent so that Sue will always be reminded of the love that has been an enduring part of two thirds of our lives. Even when the bouquet has gone, even when I am gone, the painting will remain and until we re reunited in heaven, will be an aide memoire for beautiful Susie.

To borrow an idea from the poem, ‘My Box’ by Gillian Clarke, this painting made out of winter nights, and to put my own spin on it, the painting was also made out of love and because God made each of us as a gift for the other, it is a painting made out of light too. It is a painting I will never forget.”

Creative Photography Painting

Sunset, Mon Choisy, Mauritus
Through a Glass Darkly
The photograph of the sunset was taken on a visit to Mauritius for work. Rick then painted over it to give the impression of looking through glass. He was exploring how our vision of life gets obscured, or overlaid by our present troubled experiences of pandemic and other challenges. We cannot fathom the whole of our own life, or of the wonder of the world, but maybe one day we will.

“For now we see through a glassdarkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”  1 Corinthians  13.12

Threshold Painting Series

We are looking out at the world from a dark place of the pandemic. Ahead lies a refreshed world. We stand on the threshold. What is it like?

Rick has painted a series of paintings to depict the experience of standing on the threshold.

Threshold 1 On the Threshold of a renewed world

In this painting Rick depicts the dark place of the pandemic this side of the Threshold. Ahead he sees a renewed world, a beautiful world, full of colour and fresh possibilities.
Each orchid is individually placed. There are over forty different varieties included in the field. These symbolise the many opportunities that lie ahead, the other side of the dark pandemic.
The tree in the centre of the picture was painted from a photograph Sue Nelms took of a tree in Wimpole National Trust Park.
Clouds and doves are significantly featured in Rick’ s paintings. The symbol of the dove represents for Rick the Holy Spirit. The dove guides us out of the threshold, out of the dark place, into the renewed world.

We are in a liminal space, a time of transition and change. There are possibilities ahead, but we are not yet there. It is work spending time in the liminal space to reflect on where we are, how we feel about where we are, and the possibilities we see ahead, and who we are becoming.

Threshold 2

A Doorway Out into a Renewed World

Rick captures the colour of the threshold in this painting.

The liminal space on the doorway is an interesting place to spend time in. Ancient gateways were places where disputes were resolved, decisions made, and where wisdom was sought. This liminal space is like a lockdown garden which is being tended.
The threshold ahead in this painting has very little detail. We don’t know yet what the future is going to be like. We do know that it is full of new possibilities. This is the threshold of refreshed world. What will it be like? What choices will we make now that can bring detail to the landscape beyond the door.
Clouds are really important in Rick’s paintings. You can see below how this cloud emerged in the shape of a cross as Rick squeezed the cloud to make it fit the doorframe. The dove is again a key feature of the painting. She leads out of the doorway into the new world beyond. She faces the cross of suffering and enables hope to flourish.

“Whatever lies ahead, there is hope.”

Rick Nelms

Threshold 3

This is a second version of the same picture.

It might not seem  as though the colours around us at the moment are vivid  or the paths ahead inviting, as we move from lockdown and enter the renewed world beyond, but we are going on a journey

There are lots of details in the picture, from the koy carp to the ferns.  If you look close up, you see the dots and points of the painting technique, but you also miss the detail of the picture. If you stand back then in every direction you see something new.
There are many paths going in all directions representing the myriad opportunities beyond the dark place.  As we pass out of the threshold, there are many opportunities, many different paths we could take.
This Japanese garden is lavish with green ferns and bright hydrangeas. The paths go in every direction. There is no wrong path, each is full of colour and delight.

The threshold gardens are full of plants and paths,  but if you stand up close it is difficult to see the different paths and  to follow them .  You need to stand back.  Then you see things such as the koy carp  and the paths under the cherry blossom. 

It might not seem  as though the colours around us at the moment are vivid  or the paths ahead inviting, as we move from lockdown and enter the renewed world beyond, but we are going on a journey.  In the future we can see that there is life in it. 

“Jesus is right there, through the pandemic and dark times that we pass through, and his Spirit will guide us to the  renewed world ahead.”

Rick Nelms

The symbol of the dove

I all of the Threshold Paintings Rick includes a dove. He sees the dove as the Holy Spirit. The spirit that hovered over the creation of the first inkling of the natural world, and hovers over out creative impulses and activities. This spirit was there in Jesus’s baptism, giving him greater insight into the path of his vocation. The dove-spirit is with us as we explore the paths that we are called to.

The symbol of the dove is a powerful image of hope for Rick. Sometimes she hovers over something beautiful. Sometimes she beckons, or invites us to move over a threshold. Sometimes she appears to be guiding. Sometimes she carries a sprig of hope. In the Obstacle picture she seems to be demanding justice as well as giving a promise of hope.

The Obstacle Picture

In all of Rick’s paintings the threshold is wide enough for a wheelchair to pass through. In the following picture Rick expresses some of the challenges faced during the pandemic, not just for people who are coping with disability, and all that this entails, but also for any of us for whom the future is presenting us with what seem like unmovable hurdles.
In Rick’s first picture, the world ahead looks inviting, there are green trees and bright light. However, there are obstacles in the way that are impossible to cross in a wheelchair.
In Rick’s second picture, the scene ahead is now foggy. The future is unclear and the obstacles are unmovable. However, Rick says of this picture,

“The dove represents the Holy Spirit, who is there to guide us out of the dark places and into the renewed world. When I cannot get over the obstacles, and feel defeated, and there are no footsteps, or marks of the wheelchair in the ground ahead, it is then the God’s spirit is carrying me and my wheelchair over the obstacles, through the fog, into the renewed world beyond.”