Don Cutter (Full name Cookie Cutter) relishes in making their last name self evident. [This was done as a trade for a friend!!!! At present, she has no socials for me to link to, but I will update this if that ever changes!!!! (P.S. the name is *unofficial* but I am campaigning hard for her to canonize it!!!!)] P.P.S. this is the first image I am uploading of my (admittedly rather limited) backlog/body of work, so expect more updates in the near future [followed by a WHOLE lot of nothing for a while (I work SLOW ;-;)]!!!!
Water heals and purifies. It also kills and destroys.
Few symbols encompass both the life-giving and death-dealing properties of water as the sacrament of baptism, which represents both the passing of the old self and their rebirth as a new creature (Romans 6:3-11).
Here, the image of death & rebirth is also reinforced by a dragonfly motif; the dragonfly spends the first years of its life in the deep waters as a nymph, and is completely transformed into a new being as it rises to the surface.
Unlike butterflies, a dragonfly undergoes several molting processes after its emergence, showing that, while the creature is already made new, it is not yet perfected, and must grow in its new identity through what is called progressive sanctification.
The work's title refers to the Christian daimyo, Konishi Yukinaga, whose baptismal name is Augustine, and is the primary subject of this image.
