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Limina – A transformational project is complete
3/31/2023
“David has poetically, patiently, and emphatically created an image of grace and beauty that transcends words and thought. David has brought something before us that unveils layers that speak to the inherent tensions of human life and death. With simultaneous humble vulnerability and hopeful boldness, the figure safely shelters while captivating the visitor.”
Over the last few years David has had the privilege of working closely with Lise Owen Struthers to create the piece titled Limina for the Garden of Remembrance at St. John's Shaughnessy.
Lise, a longtime friend of the Robinson family, reached out to David in the midst of grieving the sudden loss of her husband. She had been engaging her grief with a level of deep, direct attention that I think few could muster in such a tumultuous time. And as she processed layer after layer of that tearing-away, she had come to discover new and surprising depths of life and beauty.
During contemplative moments, a vision had come to her, and she felt called to manifest it in the world. And so began a conversation with David about the piece that would eventually become Limina.
"David spent hours journeying with me, attentive to what I was experiencing, feeling, thinking. We exchanged beautiful prose that came into our orbits from others who have lived through similar loss. David Robinson is long-suffering and kind, thoughtful and attentive, contemplative, and through his work has remarkable skill and an uncanny knack for expressing the inherent tensions of human life - and holds you there suspended in that space. He is a creative national treasure."
Many people gathered around this project and contributed expertise, opportunity, and financial and emotional support, so that Lise and David's vision could be realized. Limina would not exist without the collective contributions of the Trustees at St. John’s Shaughnessy, Reverend Terry Dirbas, the SJS congregation, Incarnation Ministries, and the many people who personally invested in the creation of this artwork.
David writes:
A stone’s throw from the fast arterial flow of the street this silent vision would stand in the way of all art: that is, dreaming out loud for the benefit of them that pass. This lone figure, this empathic embodiment in bronze and steel, astride the elements, the seasons, generations - is heedless of time... With only gesture and poise her story is told in a single frame - the turning of a single page: That at the liminal moment a grace may rise. That the veil may yield to the yearning hand. And that light may fall upon the vigilant eye.
I myself have come to think of the vision of this work as like an anchor-hold of memory within the church garden; that there would stand this waiting and vulnerable figure, keeping vigil in dark northern hours, and ever attuned to a glimpse of the southern sky in which abides the sun; humanity’s most ancient dream-motif of the divine.
3/31/2023
“David has poetically, patiently, and emphatically created an image of grace and beauty that transcends words and thought. David has brought something before us that unveils layers that speak to the inherent tensions of human life and death. With simultaneous humble vulnerability and hopeful boldness, the figure safely shelters while captivating the visitor.”
~Lise Owen Struthers
Over the last few years David has had the privilege of working closely with Lise Owen Struthers to create the piece titled Limina for the Garden of Remembrance at St. John's Shaughnessy.
Lise, a longtime friend of the Robinson family, reached out to David in the midst of grieving the sudden loss of her husband. She had been engaging her grief with a level of deep, direct attention that I think few could muster in such a tumultuous time. And as she processed layer after layer of that tearing-away, she had come to discover new and surprising depths of life and beauty.
During contemplative moments, a vision had come to her, and she felt called to manifest it in the world. And so began a conversation with David about the piece that would eventually become Limina.
"David spent hours journeying with me, attentive to what I was experiencing, feeling, thinking. We exchanged beautiful prose that came into our orbits from others who have lived through similar loss. David Robinson is long-suffering and kind, thoughtful and attentive, contemplative, and through his work has remarkable skill and an uncanny knack for expressing the inherent tensions of human life - and holds you there suspended in that space. He is a creative national treasure."
~Lise
Many people gathered around this project and contributed expertise, opportunity, and financial and emotional support, so that Lise and David's vision could be realized. Limina would not exist without the collective contributions of the Trustees at St. John’s Shaughnessy, Reverend Terry Dirbas, the SJS congregation, Incarnation Ministries, and the many people who personally invested in the creation of this artwork.
David writes:
A stone’s throw from the fast arterial flow of the street this silent vision would stand in the way of all art: that is, dreaming out loud for the benefit of them that pass. This lone figure, this empathic embodiment in bronze and steel, astride the elements, the seasons, generations - is heedless of time... With only gesture and poise her story is told in a single frame - the turning of a single page: That at the liminal moment a grace may rise. That the veil may yield to the yearning hand. And that light may fall upon the vigilant eye.
I myself have come to think of the vision of this work as like an anchor-hold of memory within the church garden; that there would stand this waiting and vulnerable figure, keeping vigil in dark northern hours, and ever attuned to a glimpse of the southern sky in which abides the sun; humanity’s most ancient dream-motif of the divine.
~ David Robinson
