Andres Amador “paints” incredible designs on an interesting “canvas”—a canvas that disappears with the tide! Working with garden rakes, he creates beautiful geometric designs on beaches at low tide. I love watching the ease with which he works and hearing his heart of creativity!
You can watch him in action here:
There are some images that live in your memory forever. Consider this image:
Kim Phuc is the name of the young girl captured in this iconic photo from the Vietnam War. Today I want to refer you to a CNN article about her journey from this terrifying moment of excruciating pain to a beautiful place of healing and forgiveness. It’s a remarkable story. I encourage you to read the entire article and watch both videos. As you read consider if there’s a matter of unforgiveness in your life, and if there’s a way for you to move from pain to healing and restoration. Continue reading
partial view of artwork
fiber, nails and plywood
by Samantha Burns
I want to direct you to Amazing Art, a blog post by Dave Weiss. It is indeed “amazing” and wait until you find out about the artist.
The picture you see here is only a small portion of the artwork, constructed of fiber, nails and plywood. You can see the entire piece by clicking the link above.
It was hung at a church that used the walls of its worship space as a gallery for the members’ artwork. What a great idea! We turned our lobby area into an art show one year for Easter. It was a wonderful way to challenge our artists to create around a theme (we used the theme “Redemption”), and a great way to display their work for our members to see! Continue reading
It’s another Facebook Friday!!
Today’s group is Bring Your Praise Dance, administered by Prissy Cosme.
Here’s the group description:
We have created this group so we can all come together and share our best praise dances. Feel free to post any praise dance video groups. Please share any tips that will benefit for groups that are starting out. Those tips will be saved on this page for future reference.
The Creation by Aaron Douglas
1935, oil on masonite, 48 x 36″
Howard University Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C.
“Art is born when the temporary touches the eternal.” G.K. Chesterton
ArtWay is a website that offers a plethora of resources for Christian creatives and artists. Out of Europe some of its resources focus on events and exhibitions in Europe, however, there are a large number of articles to peruse, as well as an opportunity to sign up for a weekly visual meditation, emailed right to you each Sunday! You can also search through wonderful artwork there by hundreds of artists! I’ve also found poetry and wonderful quotes about the arts and faith from some of the “greats” of our Christian faith. Continue reading
Today I want to connect you to a powerful article entitled The Healing Power of Art by Dr. Dianne B. Collard. She quickly admits she is not an artist but her story of healing through the arts leads her to implore believer-artists to keep creating:
“Please,” I concluded, “as a non-artist believer, I beg you: Do not stop engaging in your art. Don’t stop exercising your creative gifts. Especially don’t abandon the church—no matter how hard it might be. The world needs your gift, the church needs it, but most of all, I—a non-artist sister in Christ—desperately need it.”
Today I want to direct you to Tony Snipes who lives to “help creative people discover their purpose.” Sounds like a man after my own heart!! He offers many resources and ideas for artists and creatives.
First let’s start with Tony’s Facebook Page: Art Lessons from God. Here you can find quick links to the latest offerings from Tony. Continue reading
Today’s post begs the question: What can you do in faith when life’s circumstances blind you from seeing God?
Light in the Dark
(C) John Bramblitt
bramblitt.net
This is a remarkable story about John Bramblitt, an artist creating brilliant paintings despite being blind. You’ll want to read the whole story here where you can see his beautiful work. There’s also two videos that help tell his story and process for painting with limited vision. Continue reading
On Steal Our Stuff blog you can find some great resources. I want to refer you to a specific post for an interactive prayer walk called A Walk Through the Lord’s Prayer. It was created for a youth confirmation program, and is now available as a free download for your use. A wonderful resource for your church, ministry or prayer event. Continue reading
Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat. So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. ~ Mark 6:31-32
We visited Kendall Conner’s The Creative Pastor site awhile back. Just in case you didn’t spend time exploring the site, I wanted to direct you there again today to take advantage of a terrific list he compiled of free stock photo resources. If you use photos for your projects, take advantage of the free stock photos provided by the photographers who share their images graciously with the sites above! And thank you Kendall for compiling these resources for us!
Connecting you to an article entitled Teachers, Art and Things That Last Forever by author Michele Bledsoe, author of The Secret Kingdom, a children’s book of paintings and poetry celebrating the world of dreams. This article is short but it sure packs a punch!
If you are a teacher, especially an art teacher, never doubt for a moment that you make a difference in this world!! And if someone hasn’t told you this lately….THANK YOU!
Ira Glass is the host and producer of the documentary radio program “This American Life” broadcast on Public Radio. Today’s inspiration is a clip of him speaking on creativity. To whet your appetite, here’s a quick quote:
“The thing I would just like to say with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as what they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short. It didn’t have that special thing we wanted it to have. And the thing I would say to you is that everybody goes through that…
It’s another Facebook Friday!! And we have two groups featured today!
Our first group is Christian Authors & Writers and has almost 16,000 members!! It is administered by Mark & Claudette Elliott. Continue reading
This is a very poignant and touching example of the power of music to communicate, connect and heal!
In this video, Naomi Feil, founder of Validation Therapy, shares a breakthrough moment of communication with Gladys Wilson, a woman who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2000 and is virtually non-verbal. Feil is a Jewish woman, yet she sings Christian hymns for Gladys because she knows it is those hymns that will resonate deeply in her spirit. Continue reading
I love this inspiring story from the Dance Theatre of Harlem. It reminds me of the story of Gideon. While he was hiding from Israel’s enemies, threshing wheat on a winepress, the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” Gideon responds, “Pardon me, my lord, but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about . . . But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” Continue reading
Let’s make today a TED Talk Tuesday!
“I walked underneath it for the first time. As I watched the winds’ choreography unfold, I felt sheltered and at the same time connected to limitless sky. My life was not going to be the same.”
That picture and quote is from a very inspiring Ted Talk with Janet Echelman entitled Taking Imagination Seriously. Listen in here:
Photo by Maddy Thomae
This is an amazing video from Rachelle Chinnery about how nature informs her artistic process.
It’s 4 1/2 minutes and definitely worth the watch!!
Rap, Art and God is a powerful video with rapper Jason “Propaganda” Petty talking about the power of arts, about bringing our “excellence” to the Lord to bring him glory, and about our need for a Savior.
Our bodies often cry out to be heard, recognized, nourished. Yet sadly we ignore their cries and live disembodied lives bound by ill-health, dis-ease, and unhealthy desires!!
On BODYPSALMS, Dr. Celeste Snowber shares poetry with a distinctly body-oriented (and body-listening) spin! According to Celeste on her site:
“Bodypsalms are openings for us to deeply listen to words that hold the intention of our own depths, and call us back to living in our own skin. I write these in the tradition of the psalms, which extend from lament to ecstatic living, but are both an asking and listening at the same time. I have written them or they have written me out of the particularities of my own life, but I firmly believe that we live storied lives and we find each other in our collective stories.”
Nurturing the Creative Spirit Within 