On Art

In the House of My Pilgrimage, by Grace Carol Bomer

Encaustic—the use of heated beeswax and pigment—is a traditional technique that is enjoying something of a renaissance. It’s both highly tactile (with its often thick-textured surfaces) and wonderfully organic both in surface and in fragrance. The earthiness of it makes a great medium for Grace Carol Bomer’s In the House of My Pilgrimage. The artist notes that a line from Psalm 119:54, “Your laws are my songs in the house of my pilgrimage,” has been partially carved into the wax-covered Hebrew text. “Jesus, the Word Incarnate, gives us life and words to live by,” says Bomer. The work is in a traveling exhibition organized by Christians in the Visual Arts.