for those who worship with brushes and paint, a request

I woke up this morning hating those who for principle's sake won't sell me art supplies on the Sabbath (that was yesterday, wasn't it?). Normally, I admire them the way I admire the Amish, but today, they are terribly inconvenient. I do not know anything about painting. I've never even tried before today, but today I can see a triptych in my heart and it must get out. So, here it is in my medium, word, hoping to be translated into your medium, paint. (I was going to do it in an abstracted manner, but that's because I can't paint and I love abstraction. You do it however you like to paint.)

It's a window shaped triptych with that lovely pointed arch that opens like shutters, making a lovely little W for worship when you it lies open. On the left panel there's the virgin and child on the day of Christ's circumcision. They are standing in front of the temple and Mary is holding the baby aloft. She has her back to us, kind of a three-quarters turn and she is holding the child up toward the hinge. The wind of the Holy Spirit is blowing with great joy, and she radiates joy as her corn-flower blue skirt swirls and her head scarf is blown off (perhaps you could work in a dove and the traditional sun beams?). The baby is bawling and red with the pain he's trying to recover from. (It helps if you've held a baby who's just been circumcised.)

The main panel is the crucifixion. Christ hangs in the upper left quadrant of the panel. His agony fills his yellow-green body and the blood flows down a little hill. He is alone without the thieves. The sky is charcoal and misty grey. The hill is a verdant green. He is wrapped with a mud brown loin cloth. At the foot of hill is a puddle of midnight blue. It's Mary, her white head cloth nearly obscuring her face. What we can see of her face echoes his agony, only without the distraction of meaning, in her face pain is alone. Mary is sprawled on the ground, her left foot reaches toward us, the right is tucked up under her. Her right arm reaches up, the left lies lifeless on her side.

The right panel is the wedding at Cana. Mary and the bride, with their backs to us dominate the lower left of the painting. Mary is dressed all in white with a comforting arm around the bride's waist. The bride is wearing a rosey-raspberry and though she has been dressed and coifed with great care she isn't quite beautiful. She is worried, but not dejected because Mary is comforting her. Mary's arm gestures toward Jesus who faces us, but he is three-quarter turned toward the hinges. He is dressed in red or at least so swathed by a massive crimson drape he might as well be. He is not looking at Mary or the bride. He is looking at the cross and his face is saying, "What have I to do with thee?"

I'd like to add a border, styled like the Book of Kells. Around the main panel, I put the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil at the peak. Surrounding it I'd do a serpant entwined with himself eating his tail with the head placed near the foot of the cross. On the open leaves, I would match the shape of the border on the main panel and do a lush treatment of fig leaves. When the tryptych was closed the fig leaves would cover the snake and the fruit. You could only see it in your imagination, but I think that's worth it.

If I was going to paint the outside of the triptych for when it's closed up, (which I wouldn't because it's for this amazing triangle space in my house and no one would ever see the outside. Besides, if I could pull all that off it'd be a miracle; I would have no artistic genius left for the outside.), maybe I'd cheat like Warhol and silk screen one of the iconic images of the Virgin and Child. On the back of the case, where no one would ever, ever look, I'd figure out a way to do God the Father embracing his radiant Sun. I'd paint my father, smiling.

If you ever finish it, send me a picture. Or if you are feeling extravagantly generous, send me the triptych. I promise to use it wisely and display it proudly. I'll try to come up with word art that will be worth the exchange.