peace·mak·er
/ˈpēsˌmākər/
noun: peacemaker; plural noun: peacemakers; noun: peace-maker; plural noun: peace-makers
a person who brings about peace, especially by reconciling adversaries.
par·a·dox
/ˈperəˌdäks/
noun: paradox; plural noun: paradoxes
a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.
What does it mean to be a peacemaker today? How might it look to be a peacemaker in this world of diverse cultures and ideologies, in our nation and our communities, in our families and friendships, in our work places and our spheres of influence? How might it look like for you, in your life, to be a peacemaker? Oftentimes peacemaking isn’t what we really think it is…there is a paradox that surrounds it. Did you know there is a difference between Peacemaking and Peacekeeping? Peacekeeping moves away from the conflict. Peacemaking moves towards it. What does that look like in our daily lives? I think it’s worth unpacking and allowing for conversations that explores our roles within it as individuals and as a corporate people in relationship.
I have created a series of paintings as an exhibit that addresses these questions and their paradoxical conclusions through conceptual imagery in mixed media abstract expressionist paintings. I have included a gallery here of the paintings with written statements for each to open up opportunities for conversation.
listen with our hearts, our guts, the center of who we are
c.2019 Lisa Marten
24”x30” mixed media on canvas
Original $636. Prints Available
This painting is about intentionality within relationships. Life is beautiful and messy all at once filled with joy and sorrow, peace and pain, love and fear. There can be pressure from within and pressure from without all at the same time. It’s vital that we are paying attention and aware, that we are intentional and purposeful with how we connect and communicate with ourselves and others. Are we willing to take the time and effort to really listen, to see each other, to seek to understand, to have the hard conversations, to lay down our own agendas, to reach across the table in humility, to apologize and forgive, to see each other human to human and heart to heart? May we gather together as peacemakers for ourselves and for each other.
coffee kintsugi
c.2020 Lisa Marten
24”x30” mixed media on canvas
Original SOLD. Prints Available.
This painting is about intentional time spent holding safe space for each other through conversation. When we connect and relate to each other by listening and learning, sharing and collaborating, our eyes can be opened to truly see the beauty in each other and ourselves beyond our circumstances and problems, our struggles and fears, our pain and our sorrow. I use the imagery of conversation over coffee as a representation of this safe space being held and the time spent in meaningful relationship with each other that can help to bring healing to the broken places within us.
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, shining even more beauty on the pottery than what had been seen there before.
it’s about people
c.2019 Lisa Marten
24”x30” mixed media on canvas
Original $636. Prints Available.
This painting is about focusing on what’s really important. Too often we hold tightly to the things that create walls between us (our systems, programs, structures, dogmas, ideals, pride, judgments, biases, agendas, money, fears, insecurities, pain, false beliefs in notions that only keep us wounded and divide us) instead of holding tightly to the very heartbeats that keep us fully alive, the ones whom we are daily walking beside, perhaps even crawling beside, as we make our way through this messy but beautiful life we get to live together. Deconstruction, gaining perspective, and letting go of what doesn’t help us in relationships so we can truly see what truly is worth holding onto for the sake of a more loving and kind world. This is peacemaking, when we are people focused.
(i am) the antidote
c.2019 Lisa Marten
24”x30” mixed media on canvas
Original $636. Prints Available
This painting is about the willingness to reach out in love and compassion to inner suffering (the loneliness of isolation, the torment of a lifetime of emotional woundings, along with the pain and struggle of existence in a world that will often deem a person a pariah solely identifying them with whatever physical, mental, or emotional abnormality society has labeled them with). Knowing that I have been infected with the same kind of woundings, pain, and struggles that others have (because I’m human), I recognize that the antibodies for this kind of disease are within me. I have the capacity to reach out to those in pain and bring healing (through holding safe space for them with compassion offering love, peace, joy, and hope. We can be this for each other...we can help bring healing and transformation, if we are willing to not let fear win but stay connected to each other (especially through difficult times).
e Aloha (be the Love)
c.2021 Lisa Marten
24”x30” mixed media on canvas
Original $636. Prints Available
This painting is about the choices we have in how we respond to difficult circumstances and others around us. When we are faced with a challenge that is laced with aggression and toxicity, that can feel confusing and daunting, we can either choose to fight out of anger and defensiveness, push away out of fear and insecurity, or we can choose to respond counter-cultural and become a peacemaker amidst whatever struggle is ensuing around us. We can offer ourselves openly out of love, listening with intention to understand, seeing beyond the surface of what is transpiring, to immerse ourselves in the back story of others. And by doing so, we can pour out grace and forgiveness where there has been misunderstanding, where there has been wounding and hurt, where there has been wrongs done. And in doing so, perhaps we can help to restore hope when all has been lost. May we be the love (even when no one else is).
perspective
c.2021 Lisa Marten
24”x30” mixed media on canvas
Original SOLD. Prints Available
This painting is about perspectives: oftentimes our views, thoughts, opinions, positions on subjects, beliefs about ourselves-others-God, emotions-feelings-reactions, and the language and narratives we speak from are all dependent upon where we come from (our family systems, economic backgrounds, education experiences, our genders, our ages, our race and nationalities, country and cultures, our freedoms and privilege or our lack of, our specific religious-spiritual backgrounds, where and how we were raised, where and how we live, if we’ve experienced any kind of abuse or trauma or addictions, relational conflicts, if we’ve been in prison, been homeless, if we have any kind of physical disability or mental health issues, our jobs, our interests and talents, if we’ve experienced loss and grief, if we’ve ever experienced sickness-hospitalization-surgery or other treatments, our personalities, if we’ve ever overcame hardship or been healed or been given a second chance, our marital status, if we have children or not, etc.) Our perspectives can oftentimes trick us into thinking we hold the only and right perspective and we can easily judge, misunderstand, dismiss, invalidate, and fight other differing perspectives. If we are willing to sit in a different chair (to view from someone else’s perspective) we can learn to see from other perspectives with compassion and understanding and this can bring us closer to each other…human to human. This is the way of Love.
extend love, kindness, mercy, grace
c.2021 Lisa Marten
24”x30” mixed media on canvas
Original $636. Prints Available
This painting is about humility in the midst of conflict and struggle, confusion and misunderstanding, frustration and anger, hurt and pain, and insecurities and shame that can create behaviors of aggression for defense, walls for protection, and isolation for masking what’s really going on within. It’s recognizing the opportunity to take a breath, slow down, and be present in the moment…for yourself and for others. This is the pause…to extend love, kindness, mercy, and grace in the very moment everything within us screams fight or flight. Instead of moving “away from”, we intentionally choose “move towards” with compassion…like a hand on the shoulder saying “I’m here. I’m with you.”
eye sight (see)
c.2019 Lisa Marten
24”x30” mixed media on canvas
Original $636. Prints Available
This painting is about the process of learning to see more clearly, to hold safe space for ourselves and others, to really see who we are beyond the surface. Do we really see each other? Life for all of us can be complicated and messy, beautiful and hard and full of all kinds of challenges. Even when someone looks okay (presents normal) on the outside, it’s important to remember and understand that they may be dealing with difficult things within. It’s good to pay attention, to ask questions, and not just assume or judge or project from our own vantage point. May we take the time to yield to the process to see each other more clearly.
fully understand (immerse)
c.2019 Lisa Marten
24”x30” mixed media on canvas
Original $636. Prints Available
This painting is about learning to immerse oneself in the real authentic beautiful messiness of our lives with intentional care. Are we wiling to listen to, know, and be involved in each other’s stories? Are we willing to immerse ourselves in the process to fully understand our own stories? Like a potter fully immersing their hands into the clay to form and shape and hold safe space for the pot that is emerging, to allow it to become…this is the way of Love.
ranger: come alongside (contend)
c.2019 Lisa Marten
24”x30” mixed media on canvas
Original $636. Prints Available
This painting is about contending, defending, and peacemaking. Are we willing to truly see, hear, and take the time to learn and understand each other? Can we come alongside one another through difficult times to be advocates for each other and even ourselves? Sometimes that requires us to go beyond our judgements and comfort zones our biases and even our insecurities and fears. When we are open to entering into conflict with humility, laying down our differences by reaching across the table through conversation into the messy and the hard, we are helping to break down walls and be Love.
peace be with you
c.2020 Lisa Marten
24”x30” mixed media on canvas
Original $636. Prints Available
This painting is about how it’s so easy in the midst of hardships to forget we have the ability to experience Peace in the middle of our storms (no matter what our circumstances are or appear to look like). It’s not about ignoring or denying the hardship, it’s about knowing that we have a choice in how we respond to what’s taking place around us. We can either choose to be overcome by the storms in life or we can be overcomers in the middle of the storms. The pillow in the back of the boat represents that choice that is given to us each day. Can we live from a place of Peace within (undeterred by fears and stress), even when all we see is the raging storms of our circumstances? Can we rest in the Hope that is offered to us beyond what we see?
see
c.2017 Lisa Marten
24”x30” mixed media on canvas
Original $636. Prints Available
This painting is about letting ourselves see more clearly. As we experience the complexities of life oftentimes the things that make up our life stories can block our vision from getting to truly see what is really going on in a circumstance, in a relationship, in someone else, in ourselves. It takes a yielding to the process of self awareness and the work of clearing away anything that has hindered sight into truth. Learning to understand someone or something (or even ourselves) beyond the surface of a conflict, getting past presenting behaviors, setting aside immediate circumstances. Sometimes being able to see clearly requires us to do some hard work within (which is ultimately a more loving and kind approach). May we gain better vision that we are able to see true beauty in each other.
listen
c.2017 Lisa Marten
24”x30” mixed media on canvas
Original SOLD. Prints Available.
This painting is about taking the time really listen to each other. Like standing at the edge of the ocean when all your senses are awake and alert and in tune to listening to the resounding roar of the waves crashing upon the beach, allowing oneself to truly hear what’s being said by someone (not just verbally but also non-verbally, not just literally but also figuratively, not just on the surface but deep within) it’s allowing oneself to listen beyond what is spoken. Getting to the core of the matter not getting distracted by circumstances, outside influences, and all the things that can cause chaos, confusion, misunderstanding, and even harm that may muffle our heartbeats. Can we learn to understand, to resonate, to flow into rhythm with each other? Can we learn to connect with ourselves and each other to really hear?
luminous extension
c.2017 Lisa Marten
24"x30" mixed media on canvas
Original $636. Prints Available.
This painting is about the beauty of contagious light and love, how we influence each other and how that influence is transferred. If we are shining light and love from our own hearts we can influence each other to transfer and continue shining that light and love further than we as individuals could ever have influence. The more light the brighter we all shine and the darkness that closes in upon us cannot overcome us. When we hold safe space for each other we are holding safe space for countless beyond.
*In July 2021 I was able to have a public art show in a local venue displaying some of the paintings from this series. There was an opening night reception where I was able to bring people together for an evening of live music, live painting, local food and drink, and connecting in conversation. I love being able to creatively collaborate with others and this evening gave me the opportunity to do that. I have long standing business relationship with the venue's owners at Bright Eyes Coffee (formerly The Coffee Studio) along with long standing business and friendship relationship with singer-songwriter performing-recording artist Naomi Psalm. Together we created a wonderful evening for many in our community to come and enjoy and support local. The painting I created live was gifted to the owner of the venue. Here are some photos from that opening night. Click on the images for them to expand larger.
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