Artist’s Statement

Expecting is about a looking forward to the birth of a new life. The sculpture shows a young couple in the later days of their pregnancy. Looking at the sculpture, we’re prone to wonder about this couple’s unique story. Are they married or perhaps unmarried? Or, is this their first, second, or third baby? The answers to these questions were purposefully left open to capture the wide variety of people God who find themselves expecting a new child. It could be that this is a very young, teenage couple that had made a bad decision about sex but through godly counsel has made the right decision to bring their child to term. On the other hand, it could be a young married couple that has planned for months the coming of their new arrival. Whatever the story, this couple shows by their posture that they’re expecting to see and hold their new life any day.

Expecting is about looking forward to the future joy, privileges, and responsibilities of fatherhood. The sculpture shows father tenderly embracing the mother. His caressing arms say to her, “I am for you and our child, I will protect you both, and I look forward to growing as a man and father.” This man shows he’s expecting a new arrival by sweetly placing his hand on the mother’s tummy, feeling for the movement of his unborn son or daughter. He’s being guided by the Word of God, which I demonstrate by the Bible he holds in his right hand. He knows that to be a loving and godly father, he needs the guidance of the Bible and the grace of Christ.

Expecting is about confidently anticipating and waiting for the blossoming of motherhood. This young woman knows there is a precious life being knit together inside her. Recognizing the preciousness of her unborn child, she caresses her even before she’s born with the soft touch of her right hand. In her heart, whether she knows it or not, she revels in what God says about her yet-to-be-born child in Psalm 139:13-18.

You created my inmost self, knit me together in my mother's womb. For so many marvels I thank you; a wonder am I, and all your works are wonders. You knew me through and through, my being held no secrets from you, when I was being formed in secret, textured in the depths of the earth. Your eyes could see my embryo. In your book all my days were inscribed, every one that was fixed is there. How hard for me to grasp your thoughts, how many, God, there are! If I count them, they are more than the grains of sand; if I come to an end, I am still with you.

Expecting is about affirming God’s great love for unborn human beings. As an artist who is a Christian, I have a responsibility and joy to reflect God’s great redemptive themes and truths in my work. Some of the greatest artists of all time did this (consider Rembrandt’s The Prodigal Son and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel). In this spirit of celebrating a facet of God’s goodness, I took up as my theme for Expecting the love and joy of God in His knitting together a new human being in a mother’s womb. God loves life and especially the unborn, saying so in many places in the Bible (Psalm 139, as quoted above, is just one place). As human beings created in God’s image, we too can rejoice in what He rejoices in. That’s why the couple in Expecting is so obviously full of joy.

It is my hope that whether you are a mother, father, Christian, or non-Christian that you will find your own heart affirming the God-implanted, natural love for the unborn that the couple in Expecting exude.