„Let it be done to me” — about the moment when art stops being just art
By Anna Biela, Ph.D, MFA, OCAD Alumna
May 20, 2026, Wroc[love], 13:33pm
There is a moment in the Gospel of Luke (1:38) when Mary says:
“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.”
This sentence is not just agreement.
It is a moment of complete openness to something greater than one’s own plans, control, or understanding.
And I know this moment.
It did not happen in a church.
It did not happen in ideal conditions.
It happened somewhere between “normal” life and something that is difficult to name.
Before I came to Poland, I had an experience that is hard to place into simple categories.
It can be called an encounter. It can be called intuition. It can be called an inner voice that was stronger than everything else.
Something — or someone — came to me with a very clear message:
that my art would not be just art.
That it would become a channel.
That what would pass through it would touch people more deeply than aesthetics, technique, or trends.
That it would be a flow — something alive.
And that I was to agree to it.
This was not a strategic decision.
It was not a career plan.
It was a moment very similar to the one described in Luke:
will you open — or will you withdraw?
Because opening to something like this means one thing:
you lose full control over what your creativity is.
From that moment, painting stopped being just about creating images.
It became listening.
Not always comfortable.
Not always logical.
Sometimes even incomprehensible.
But real.
I do not claim that I fully understand what happened then.
And maybe that is the most honest place from which one can create.
Because instead of saying: “this was definitely it,”
I can say: “this changed me — and it continues to guide me today.”
If someone calls it a flow of the Spirit — I understand that.
If someone calls it deep creative intuition — I also understand that.
What matters most is what comes from it:
that art can be more than an image.
It can be a space through which something happens between people.
I am not the source.
I am the consent.
“Let it be done to me” in practice means:
I allow something to flow through me — even if I do not yet fully understand it.
And perhaps this is how things begin that later someone will call a movement.
Today I am on a path in a very concrete sense — I am participating in a Renewal in the Holy Spirit Seminar, which is part of the Catholic Charismatic Movement, which began in 1967. This experience becomes for me another confirmation and deepening of what I had already sensed in my art: that there is something like a “pouring out” — not of ideas or style, but of a living presence that moves a person from within.
And today, standing in the time of preparation for baptism, I look at my journey differently than before.
I see continuity.
I see process.
I see that what once came as an image or intuition is now taking the form of an experience that is guiding me.
My reflection is simple, but profound:
what was meant to happen in art was not only an artistic vision.
It was an invitation to participate in something greater.
Addendum — the root of this path
When I was 16 years old, I received an experience that I now understand as something like a charism of healing — although at the time I did not yet know this language or concept.
This experience entered my life in a way I could not then name. For a time, it was associated with a practice I knew as Reiki, but at the same time there was always something deeper and more personal within it.
Because regardless of the form, I always prayed to Jesus.
And it was always Him who was the one working through it.
Looking back, I see that this was not a separate path, but part of one continuous journey — leading me step by step to the place where I am today.
The experience of healing that appeared back then never disappeared.
On the contrary — it formed a deeper meaning in my life and sensitivity.
And today I see it as part of the preparation for this moment I am in now.
Because all of this leads me to one thing:
to a prayer.
A prayer that the Holy Spirit may descend upon me anew —
that He may fill me and my art,
that what I create may become a space of His action,
that what flows through my hands may carry a life that does not come from me.
And if I must say it in the simplest way:
I desire that the Holy Spirit be poured out upon my art.
