Scott Avett (1976 – ) may be familiar to many of you for his musical talents as part of The Avett Brothers Band. May I now introduce you to Scott Avett, the accomplished visual artist, with this composition of layered meaning and painted questions. To begin at the beginning, Scott was born into a varied legacy. His grandparents included a Methodist minister and a concert pianist. His father was a welder and his mother a reading teacher. His upbringing in rural North Carolina was filled with music and art encouragement. He began painting seriously in 1999 and founded The Avett Brothers in 2000.

God Was Here was part of an exhibit entitled “The Light of Unlearning.” The image, the title, the exhibit name are wide open to interpretation and seem timely.

It could be implied here that God is in the sacrament of baptism, in the time-worn faces of a couple, in hiking shadows, in a make-up mirror. It may represent Scott’s unlearning of limiting God to any lived place or time. We each might recognize this growth in our own faith and paint additional places and times of God in our thoughts as we also continue to deeply value worship in a faith community. We can notice in God Was Here that the baptism scene fills more than half of this 51”x105” canvas.

As we begin this Holy Week, may we remember Jesus’ call to the unconditional truth of God and love and possibly additionally inspired by Scott Avett, answer again and again with the same. Amen.

In gratitude, faith and hope,

Sandy Prouty
Minister of Children and Families
Montview Church