Thirty years ago Donald Cole picked up a prayer book and randomly opened up to a page. The words he saw from the Amidah, the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy, inspired him to paint four very large abstract paintings – each inspired by one of the prayer lines, over the next five years. This exhibition marks the first time these paintings have been exhibited as a series, and is not to be missed!
DONALD COLE
Timeless Prayer Series
November 5 – 28, 2021
Learn more here!
Vashon Center for the Arts
19600 Vashon Highway SW
(Donald Cole) “I found this timeless prayer in a temple during a bar mitzvah service in 1990… I picked up the prayer book and randomly opened it. At the top of the page was this quatrain….”
Send help to the falling…
And healing to the sick…
Bring freedom to the captive…
Keep faith with those who sleep in the dust.
“I found that these lines are part of a standing prayer called the Amidah. It was written in Jerusalem 2,500 years ago in response to the destruction of the First Temple and the deportation of the Jews to Babylon.
Why are these social ills still unresolved?
During the next five years, I realized making a large painting for each line was my standing prayer.”
– Donald Cole, 2021
Donald Cole turned 91 years old this year with an artistic career spanning over 60 years. He has lived on Vashon Island since 1994.
His bright colors and weathered surfaces are hallmarks of his work, but each painting is purposefully a technical departure from the next, alluding to the artist’s desire to continually push his own boundaries. Cole playfully explores the possibilities of materials to express the experience of beholding the awe inspiring world. Cole reflects, “the appearance and the content of my work comes from several sources: the joy of painting and creating, and my own social, psychological and ethical responses to the world as I live and view it.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.