Dearest Ladies and the former European Task Force for Baha’i Women.

I share with you some of the things that have happened to me professionally the last 1 - 2 years.

I’m trained as a painter from the Arts Academy of Oslo. On and off some time back I did quite a few illustrations for the Norwegian Baha’i News - illustrating some chapters of the Sun of Truth - stories from the life of Baha’u’llah. I enjoyed this very much - linking my profession to serving the Faith - and people thought the drawings added to the interest of the stories in the magazine.

The introducing of the 5 year plan made me do some rethinking of what I would do for the Faith at this specific point of time. In fact I prayed to be shown how to use my creative skills to serve the Baha’i Faith.

Autumn time 2001 I was asked by a member of the Institute if I would make some new illustrations for Book 4 of the Ruhi-material which was set into translation. After a bit of hesitation - thinking I was not too familiar with the cultural and historical time of Persia of the age of Bab and Baha’u’llah - I accepted the task. I studied some library material and the photos of the most essential Baha’i literature of the time - eg. The Dawn-Breakers - and then I started to prepare the sketches.

 Immediately I got very inspired - it became a real challenge to find motives and ways of forming the pictures - for instance the appearing of The Heavenly Maiden in The Black Pit in Teheran - and the dream of the father of Baha’u’llah amongst others. I even found that my concentration improved and the skill of the hand in doing the actual sketching was better than what I remembered from before.

The Institute was pleased with the result and gradually the Norwegian version of Book 4 was copied with the new drawings. This made me think of making actual prints of the drawings - of interest for the Baha’is? I thought and of possible use in teaching the Faith. I then started doing the first etchings of some of the motives, and luckily I was allowed to spend some months at my "old" school, and made 10 etchings and the test printing went quite well.

It so happened - for many reasons I had not been exhibiting my paintings for quite some time - that the owner of one of the most "prestigious" galleries in our region invited me to exhibit my newest paintings. I was bold enough to show him my Baha’i illustrations / prints too, and he liked them very much. The December 2002 exhibition then included 10 prints from the history of the Bab and Baha’u’llah displayed on century old rustic wooden walls at the Gallery of Soli Brug in South East Norway.

As if I had been actually answered in my quest for using my creative skills for the Faith - I was asked to exhibit paintings and the mentioned "Baha’i prints" at a gallery in Alta, the northernmost part of Norway in January- and at another gallery in Enebakk in the upcoming month of March.

In many ways this has been months of real joy for me - doing what I like the most - and for service to the Faith too!

Loving Baha’i greetings from Norway,

Christine Krohg Plur

Collins Gate

Bab's house in Shiraz

Shrine of The Bab

Baha'u'lah's Father had a Dream ...

Baha'u'llah received a scroll of Writings from The Bab