For Julia Hendrickson, art is both meditation and prayer—a practice she calls opera divina, or “holy work.” Building on the Benedictine motto ora et labora (“pray and work”), she suggests that our work itself can become a form of prayer. Her process is simple and intentional: she wets thick white paper with broad brush strokes of water, then repeatedly dabs or splatters a single hue—Payne’s grey. While the surface is still wet, she sprinkles salt across the paint. The crystals repel pigment and absorb water, creating unexpected starbursts that reveal the marks beneath. As the paint dries, the forms shift and fractal patterns emerge. Though her technique repeats, the results are always unique and surprising.

Hendrickson’s work teaches us to anticipate transformation. John tells us the Incarnation is light shining in the darkness. In Hendrickson’s time-lapse videos, deep blue-gray pigment spreads across white paper until the salt crystals touch it—and suddenly the darkness breaks open into glimmering light. We wait, and we watch. The Incarnation is not God briey slipping into human skin. It is something more mysterious—like salt, pigment, and water remaining themselves yet becoming something utterly new together.

For further reflection on this artwork, read this Christianity Today article: “Art and the Incarnation” by Elissa Weichbrodt