The Adam’s Nursery; “Aslan & Lucy”
When Alyx first reached out about this commission, she was not even pregnant yet! Just dreaming of her future child. In February of 2024, Alyx told me she wanted a painting depicting the following quote from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian:
“Aslan’, said Lucy, ‘you’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one”, answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
-C.S. Lewis
Like trying to see the fullness of a giant through a keyhole, so is the one with little faith trying to grasp the fullness of God. It isn’t until our faith grows that we begin to see just how big He is. Likewise, this scene from Narnia is a metaphor for the Christian faith. The greatness of God is something that is constant—steadfast. When we start to see God as “big”, it is not because He suddenly becomes more prominent in our lives, but because our faith becomes large enough to reveal how prominent He is, and was, and is to come in our lives.
When I asked Alyx what this painting means to her, she told me, “I’ve found in my walk with the Lord that as I come to know Him more, my understanding of my sin gets bigger, but so does He, and so does the sacrifice of Jesus. My hope for my daughter is that her faith and her view of God are just like that. That as she comes to know Him, He only ever grows and takes up more space in her life.”
This piece is a 12”x12” acrylic painting on canvas paper with the quote cut and pasted directly from the book. In this interpretation of the book scene, Lucy is reimagined as Alyx and Walker’s daughter with her bright blonde hair, fair skin, and vibrant pink bow in her hair. The base of the painting is a classic, baby-girl pink. You can see the pink blanketing the forest floor and poking through the canopy as the sun rises at dawn. The timing depicted in the painting is an intentional Biblical reference to the Son of God rising at dawn. Lucy and Aslan are positioned so that the light shines directly on their embrace, symbolizing a blessing over their relationship and Aslan’s metaphor of faith. I left Lucy barefoot not only to symbolize innocence, but also to exaggerate just how big Aslan is by how far she must stretch out to reach him (plus, what’s cuter than little tippy-toes?!). Lucy’s deep red cloak, symbolizing boldness, sweeps behind her, suggesting that she ran and jumped into Aslan’s embrace, while Aslan’s giant paws lay relaxed and open, suggesting that he was patiently waiting for her. Every decision in this painting from the ground-up perspective, color choice, time of day, formation of figures, and light was intended to further the metaphor of faith that Lewis already established in his beautiful story.
