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Artist makes journey of faith
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| Artist Nelly Bube began a spiritual and artistic journey when she started to read the Bible. She produced the illustrations for the Bible Society in Kazakhstan's publication 'The Parables of Jesus Christ'. Almaty, Kazakhstan. Photo: Norwegian BS/Dag Smemo (KAZ04DJ-155.JPG) |
ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Over the years she had worked as an illustrator, Nelly Bube had read many interesting books. In her early 50s, though, she began to find that none of the books she encountered in the course of her work could provide answers to the deep questions that were forming in her mind. It was not until she was introduced to the Bible that she started to understand what was missing in her life. And as her interest in the Scriptures grew, so the direction of her work changed.
“I gradually started to feel that something had to happen in my life, but I didn’t know what,” she recalls. “My first thought was that I should visit an Orthodox church, light a candle and pray. But a friend suggested that I come with her to an Evangelical church instead.
Advice
“The people there were very friendly
and I felt able to talk about my own life and ask their advice. I soon
felt at home with their way of leading a Christian life.
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“Before long, I started reading the Bible. That’s when everything fell into place and I decided to devote my life to Christ.”
Some time later, Mrs Bube visited an exhibition of icons. She was very impressed and felt moved to make something similar to demonstrate her faith to others. She decided that, although she would retain links with the icon tradition by using similar colours, she would also try to produce pieces that illustrated specific Bible stories. Less than a year later, she had painted 30 large pictures based on the parables told by Jesus.
“I immersed myself in the Bible during that year,” she says. “This greatly strengthened my faith. I tried to reflect on canvas my own experiences of the Bible.”
Impact on others
Mrs Bube’s personal journey of faith, as reflected in her art, clearly had an impact on others too, for news of the paintings reached Dr Igor Savich, General Secretary of the Bible Society in Kazakhstan. Just at this time, the Bible Society was working on a publication called The Parables of Jesus Christ, and Dr Savich realised that her paintings would make ideal illustrations.
“I liked the idea,” she remembers, “but I didn’t think that the Bible Society would be able to raise enough funds to actually publish.”
In the event, it was Mrs Bube’s own church that found the money to bring this project to fruition.
Fertile ground
“The pastor came to me and told me that somebody had given the church a large sum of money as a gift, but that it had to be spent soon. Acting quickly, the Bible Society completed the text on Christmas Day 2001 and the book – the first to be entirely funded and produced locally by the Bible Society – was published at the very beginning of 2002.”
This book – dubbed that year by Dr
Savich, “the most important event of the year for the Bible Society”
– has found fertile ground in Kazakhstan, where, among other uses,
it has been presented by the Roman Catholic Church as a gift to young
people who have been travelling the country with a performance about
the parables. While Mrs Bube has moved on to other projects, including
producing a Christmas card for the Norwegian Bible Society, there are
now plans to publish The Parables of Jesus Christ in other countries
as well. (WR 390/5 - 02.05) 