Dan Mandish is the owner and proprietor of The Salt and Light Gallery. Dan has worked for the last 5 decades as a professional, award winning illustrator and graphic artist, working for a host of Fortune 500 companies, all while endeavoring to build a body of fine art with his drawings, paintings, and printmaking efforts. Besides the Salt and Light Gallery, he is presently represented in galleries in California & Oregon.

While the idea for The Salt and Light Gallery is decades old it has remained a mere concept — until now. Dan has elected to launch an online gallery, one that speaks to “who we are, where we came from, and where we’re going”, those basic questions life challenges us to answer. Art attempts to quench our desire to understand. Ideally it is purposed to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”*

Dan is aiming to speak to his faith as well as celebrate God’s creation through his art. The Salt and Light Gallery is in service toward that purpose. Dan, along with other artists showing their work in the gallery, will endeavor to offer Salt and Light to all that visit the Gallery.

 Why “Salt and Light”
“Salt” is connected to purity, flavor, and preservation (enduring). “Sharing salt” with someone was a symbol of friendship and/or peace and even described as a covenant. In scripture Jesus pairs “Salt” with “Light” (Matthew 5:13-16), the Light that shines to the nations. “Light” often serves as a metaphor for wisdom and understanding. Isaiah connected Light with “God’s Instruction”. Likewise, we are called to be a “Light”, an embodiment of and a witness to God’s instruction. Isaiah refers to “The Servant” being the “Salvation”, which is the Hebrew word “Yeshua” (translation: Jesus). In Isaiah 42 God says to The Servant “I will make you a Covenant of the people, a Light to the nations to open blind eyes …”

*I searched far and wide for the origin of that quote and found it has many ancestors, having been used to describe everything from journalism and political activism to poetry but, for my money Art is the appropriate application for the aphorism.