by Kathleen Childs
I tend to go about my day in a blur. I move from one problem to the next. One task to the next. I fly about leaving chaos in my wake, not stopping to realize that the car I cut in front of on the highway contained a person, and that person is just like me. The lady checking my groceries, the guy sitting on the bench at the park, my mailman, the person I share my studio with, my boss, my roommate, my mom—all of them are just like me: a person uniquely created in the image of God.
They have wants and needs; a life I barely touch. They aren’t robots that power off when I’m not in the room. They are alive. Breath circulates through their lungs and blood pumps in their veins. They have complex thoughts and feelings and histories that I will never, ever know. They are loved by God just as much as I am. He made them. He sent his Son to die for them. And I have the audacity to so easily function like I’m the only person on this planet who is capable of complexity.
“A Study in Human Complexity: Brittany Anne Jarboe Jennings” by Kathleen Childs.
For my year-long internship project with Sojourn Arts, I created nine pieces about Brittany Anne Jarboe Jennings instead of the standard lone portrait—and I still feel like I barely scratched the surface of her complexity. How do I even begin to look at someone made in the image of God and try to capture them on paper? You can’t! It is physically impossible to take enough photos, draw enough drawings, paint enough paintings, to really truly convey a person in their entirety. If you know anyone in any sort of real way you already know that. And yet even knowing all of that, in my hubris, I tried.
I started by looking at her. Her long dark hair with the beginnings of grey. I tend to think of her more stony and straight-faced expressions, but I know that when she smiles it is bright and meaningful. She’s a deep thinker and wants to know and question what’s around her.
From “A Study in Human Complexity: Brittany Anne Jarboe Jennings” by Kathleen Childs, in collaboration with Beren Jennings.
I then looked at her family. Her son Beren, young and exploring who he is and what he’s passionate about. I worked with him on his portrait and allowed him to create his own art and give himself surroundings since Brittany has done art with Beren as well. Sylvan, her second born, full of life and ready to share the joy he finds in the world around him. Darren, her husband, someone I don’t know and a type of relationship I can’t fully understand, but someone she loves and someone who loves her.
From “A Study in Human Complexity: Brittany Anne Jarboe Jennings” by Kathleen Childs.
From “A Study in Human Complexity: Brittany Anne Jarboe Jennings” by Kathleen Childs.
I explored what she's passionate about. Playing the cello and the music she loves to listen to. Creating art on paper, with portraits of trees, abstract graphite, repetitive lines, and squiggly splotchy patterns with paint. I also collaborated with her on one of these pieces. I asked her to have fun and create whatever she wanted around the portrait I did of her hands which are her tools in creation.
I even tried to contemplate and wrestle with what she’s struggled with. Postpartum depression, anxiety, her relationship with her sons.
From “A Study in Human Complexity: Brittany Anne Jarboe Jennings” by Kathleen Childs, in collaboration with Brittany Anne Jarboe Jennings.
In the end I didn’t produce a portrait of Brittany; I produced my perspective of Brittany. It has giant holes and is incomplete in places. It would take more than a lifetime to be able to understand just how many holes there are and it would take even more time to create enough art to fill those holes. I haven’t shared in or even experienced something similar to a lot of what makes her herself. I don’t know what it’s like to be married or even have a significant other. I don’t have sons. I haven’t experienced depression like hers.
But not understanding and having these gaps is okay. That’s the point. Through studying Brittany I was reminded of why I started this project in the first place: in my pride I believe I can somehow fully know a person through my limited, human interactions with them, when in reality no matter how much time and energy I put into knowing someone there will always be more to know.
Yet it is still well worth getting to know them and putting in the effort. We have to keep trying. The people surrounding us are beautiful image bearers of God who are complex and unfathomable, but worth every second we spend on them.
Kathleen Childs spent the past year interning with Sojourn Arts through Love Thy Neighborhood. In the Fall she will attend North Greenville University to study Production Design. As a visual artist, Kathleen loves creating detailed graphite portraits and playing with paint. You can view her work by following her on Instagram @step.one.art.