“I’m always trying to say two things at once,” said Granlund commenting about his art, “Death shadowing life and life transcending death.” Professor of Classics and biographer of Grandlund William Freiert says, “In a way Paul’s whole life was a response and a reaction to his father’s pietism. His father was a fairly literal-minded biblical preacher. Paul was philosophical and cosmological. The Lutheran interface between faith and intellect is typical of Paul’s work…“Another expression of Paul’s Lutheranism is the way in which his works capture the theology of grace. All reality is undeserved gift….The miracle of life emerges from the cosmos, a tetrahedron. The organic emerges from the inorganic, God’s spontaneous gift of resurrection from sin and death.”
Apparently during During Granlund’s final hospital stay, a visitor told him, “I admire your sculptures, especially the religious ones.” Granlund lifted his oxygen mask to respond, “They’re all religious.”