Last month we announced a new collaborative project with Katie Schuermann, a book entitled He Restores My Soul. Envisioned as a sequel of sorts to He Remembers the Barren, this new book taps into the wisdom of twelve female writers to broaden the discussion of suffering in the Church and apply the theology of the cross to a wider range of topics. (We’ll be posting a complete list of authors and topics very soon.)
Now it is our pleasure to announce the artist from whom we have commissioned a painting for the book cover of He Restores My Soul. Rebecca Shewmaker is an artist working in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Visual Arts from Rice University (2006) and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Intermedia from Texas Women’s University (2018), where she also taught Art Appreciation, Watercolor, and Basic Drawing classes. Recently her work was included in the Good Shepherd Institute’s Sola Faith-Grace-Scripture exhibition at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Selections from her body of work have been shown in several galleries in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where she lives with her husband, Tim, who is the music director at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Dallas. When not making art, Rebecca enjoys singing in the church choir, knitting, listening to audiobooks, and entertaining her two cats.
A word from Rebecca: “In my work, I study the beauty I find in the Northeast Texas landscape. My maternal family has lived near Bonham, Texas, for several generations and I grew up playing in 300 acres of pasture and woods. The seasonal colors and topography of the land serve as my inspiration. I often spend Saturday mornings exploring this rural area and photographing the landscape. Based on the photographs and my childhood memories, I create landscape-based artwork.”
We are honored to be working with Rebecca Shewmaker, and we look forward to revealing the cover art this summer! In the meantime, please visit her website to admire her beautiful paintings, including unique thread paintings that use custom-dyed cotton fabric for the peaceful colors of both sky and land.