Learn more about Christ in the Psalms weekly artwork and see previous pieces here.

Madelyn Houser

About the Artist • About the Piece

A lifelong reader of poetry, I started writing poetry ten years ago while studying math in grad school. I was really interested in how mathematical rules could impose constraints upon literature that led to more creativity rather than less. I consider myself a hobby poet and was intimidated to join Project 101010, however the community and creativity of the project was a true blessing and I can’t wait to journey (again!) through Psalm 11-20 this summer.

While meditating on Psalm 19, I was really struck with how innately creation praises God in verses one through six. The strutting sun, the declaring heavens! I wanted to contrast my own human struggle to know God with nature’s inherent understanding of its own creaturehood. The first stanza is a self reflection depicting my spiritual intellectualizing, seeking to know of and about God without the vulnerability of an embodied living relationship with God. The scholar searches for ‘a clue’ rather than God himself and the dim setting reflects the spiritual darkness of such endeavors. The tower represents my own pursuits to be like God (Babel) as well as my self-imposed distance from the rest of creaturehood. The second stanza takes place outside and is meant to be bright and cheery to reflect the light (of Christ) that nourishes the flower. I chose a flower to represent nature as a whole both because of its rootedness as well as its ephemeral essence highlighted by the more staccato cadence of the words. The mirrored rhyming of each stanza connects the two experiences of both creatures while the inside/outside framing positions those experiences as stark opposites. The scholar is immersed in ‘tomes’ of words but is ultimately disconnected from her own author and unable to recognize his voice while the flower is so rooted in God she is able to speak volumes of the character and identity of her Creator without the need for words.

Learn more about Christ in the Psalms weekly artwork and see previous pieces here.

Myra Ferguson

About the Artist • About the Piece

Myra Ferguson is a digital media educator, author, and freelance designer/developer. She teaches at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

After writing How to Cheat in Adobe Animate CC, Myra authored video courses, wrote Linkedln Skill Assessments and the Adobe Certified Instructor Exam for Design and Layout, and worked with the Adobe Learn team to improve content discoverability. Myra also creates video tutorials and writes articles for CreativePro to help Adobe users learn a variety of Creative Cloud applications.

Psalm 18:10b-18:11 describes God responding to David’s distress call as “he came swiftly on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him, thick clouds dark with water.” The preceding verses paint a picture of God’s wrath towards David’s enemies, so I envisioned angry skies and wondered how a wing might be a part of that.

I started with an Adobe Stock image that showed a fierce storm forming over water. The shape of the shelf cloud resembled a wing, so looked for another stock image with a bird that had a similar wing shape.

I found an image of a golden eagle. Using an image of a wing from a golden eagle seemed appropriate, as it’s one of the largest birds of prey in North America. Birds of prey generally symbolize power and precision and are often associated with the idea of being a divine messenger.

I combined the two images in Photoshop, rotating the wing to match the orientation of the cloud. I used adjustment layers to desaturate the wing and lighten it. I applied a layer mask to blend the feathers into the clouds. And I applied the Screen blend mode to lighten the wing shape over the clouds. Lastly, I flipped the entire image horizontally to make what would be the “front” face the right to set the direction of the motion as if we were reading it from left to right.

Learn more about Christ in the Psalms weekly artwork and see previous pieces here.

Tamara Carey

About the Artist • About the Piece

The older I get, the more stunned I am by the completely undeserved gift of God calling me His child. That’s who I am… as my best friend’s bride, our three children’s mama and teacher, and friends’ and neighbors’ eager listener. I seek to behold His glory daily, so that He might transform me from one degree of glory to another. I am kept, as this Psalmist prays, by Him.

I tell my children, “There is only one perfect Artist… we simply get to copy what He has already made.” What a privilege it is to read His Word, observe His world, and then create! In Psalm 17, the writer’s plea is for God to listen to his cries, to protect him, and to act on his behalf to deliver him from his enemies. What stood out to me was verse 8, in the middle of His yearning for God’s protection: Keep me as the apple of Your eye… The Hebrew word for the phrase “as the apple” is pronounced ‘îšôn, which means pupil – the darkest, most vulnerable and protected part of the eye. I used oil pastels on the back of the transparent window to capture a rough sketch of the whole eye. The pupil, however, is the main part of this piece. It lies behind the glass – protected. I used a deep blue, for the pupil is like a window into waters of the soul that flow deep within. I hope this encourages us to pray, knowing that God knows and protects us more than we could ever fathom.

Learn more about Christ in the Psalms weekly artwork and see previous pieces here.

Whitney Grimm

About the Artist • About the Piece

It’s a privilege, yet again, to be able to create an art piece for CITP, Psalm 16. Because art is subjective, my desire in all the art I create is to tell a story by evoking emotions and feelings, or causing one to stop and think; to ask themselves what they get from it, if anything. Jesus spoke in parables or metaphors, similar to what I could be saying through this piece.

For this piece specifically, each item represents something that I felt was significant in expressing what the themes of this Psalm are. My style is clean, minimal and often simple. David knows God is his/our cup of life (v5). He also says God will show him/us the path of life which leads to God (v11). While here on earth we’re meant to grow in Him, rooting ourselves in Him and His Holy Word.