How do you paint God? What are the colors, strokes, textures? When I first read Jody Uttal's Painted Prayers, I was enchanted by the childlike watercolors that seemed to be struggling to describe her sense of the divine in all of us. Uttal's paintings, paired with a rich diversity of poems and prayers from great spiritual thinkers, create a powerful yet playful response to a painful time in Uttal's life. The book, a painted journal, came from her need to create "a private space to process the experience" of spending time with her dying mother.

There is something about Uttal's simple, bold paintings that, for me, comes closer to God's portrait than anything classical painters have achieved. Uttal's book is a brilliant collection of prayers and poems. They draw you from one page to the next.

This is a book to read and "breathe in." It gives the reader a sense of grounding, the ability to go inside oneself for comfort and healing.

-- Barbara Marter for BLOOMSBURY REVIEW, Sept/Oct 2002

 

A lovely new book puts pictures and words together for spare but powerful effects. In PAINTED PRAYERS, artist Jody Uttal illustrates poems and passages from Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish, Christian and other traditions with her airy, carefree watercolors. The prayers address eight stages of life, from waking and thanksgiving to despairing and dying, and offer comfort and inspiration for each step of the journey.

- BODY & SOUL magazine, May/June 2002

 

Culling from such diverse voices as Chuang-Tzu, Herman Hesse, Rumi, Jesus, and Leonard Cohen, Jody Uttal has placed chosen texts one to a page and created generally abstract watercolors to accompany each. Divided into eight sections (among them Prayers Upon Waking, Prayers of Thanksgiving, and Prayers of Dying), the book offers a keen-edged reflection for most every situation. Deepening washes of blue strikingly punctuated by an apple-shaped red "splot" announce the overall mood of Prayers for the Middle of the Night. A Hasidic text about "times when the love of god/burns so fully within your heart/that the words of prayer seem to rush forth" is partnered with a radiating purple and yellow effulgence that seems to burst from a red tongue. Extravagant and colorful, Uttal's paintings combine with the congenial spareness of the chosen texts, allowing time to linger over each blessed page, mingling word, image, and invitations to contemplation. It's a book to keep near the bed or on the altar--a fine choice for people in the midst of transition, or for those simply too entangled to read very much.

- NAPRA ReView, May/June 2002

URL:  http://www.PaintedPrayers.com/renewal.htm