painting

Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #47 — Journey to the Cross

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From now until Good Friday, I will be posting resources and inspiration geared towards Easter. Perhaps you or church will be inspired to do something creative to help others experience the breadth and depth of the Easter season.

Journey to the Cross is an interactive prayer walk focusing on the stations of the cross. It was done by the worship arts ministry of  Level Ground Mennonite Church in Abbotsford, BC. The entire service with participant directions, readings, audio and video walk-through instructions is posted on rethink worship.com. If you’ve ever wanted to do Stations of the Cross but wasn’t sure where to start, everything is all laid out for you.

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Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #32 — Mark Lawrence Art

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Mark Lawrence is an artist with a heart on a mission! In Mark’s words:

My vision is to encourage and strengthen everyone who views my scripturally inspired art, through sharing the amazing love and grace that God has poured into my life. The closer I grow to God through Jesus Christ, the more I feel compelled to share with others the reality of my risen Lord and Savior.

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Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #14 — Fragments of Light

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Colleen Briggs is an artist who shares her work and life with beautiful transparency on her blog Fragments of Light. For example, in her post, Lunge for the Light, she shares that it is “for the days when leaning for the light is not enough,” referencing a previous painting entitled “Lean for the Light” posted two weeks earlier with a short poem of ragged intensity.

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Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #10 — Paint Mojo

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Tracy Verdugo is an artist from Australia who’s paintings are bright and vibrant and speak life, beauty and joy!

“Tracy is an inspiration instigator, prolific painter, singer/songwriter and lover of the written word, smitten traveller and soaker up of all that is beauty-full.  She teaches her Paint Mojo and other creative workshops all over this amazing planet and reminds her students of the wonder that already resides within them.” (tracyverdugo.com)

I wanted to point specifically to one of Tracy’s workshops—one that is highly-accessible to all.

Tracy Verdugo

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Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #8 — AMOK Arts

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Introducing my creative friend Dave Weiss of AScreen shot 2014-12-16 at 4.03.32 PMMOKArts —devoted to helping creatives in the church and helping churches to be more creative! Dave is a pastor, an artist, a storyteller, a blogger, an author*, and a wonderful proponent of the arts in our churches. Dave visited our church last Spring for our Sunday morning service. As he painted he told wonderful stories of God’s redeeming love and amazing grace. He also shared a part of his testimony and the saving message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was very powerful! This is some of his artwork hanging in our church: D Weiss art Continue reading

Create-A-Day 2015: your daily dose of creativity

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Just as One-A-Day® Vitamins help restore the nutrients we deplete in our bodies, so too do we need to refill, replenish and renew our creative souls. So in 2015, I will be doing a daily* post to undergird your ministry, to lead you to resources to nurture the creative spirit within, and to draw you more deeply into your worship of Jesus Christ. Starting in January, watch for “Create-A-Day” blog posts. My goal is to provide you, the creative Christian, with over 250* resources to help you develop your ARTistry, CREATivity & capacity for BEaUty. What kind of resources? Books, worship arts ministries, video series, websites, conferences—all geared towards artists, creatives, worshipers and people serving in worship and creative arts ministries.

Whether you are a musician, singer, composer or worship leader; a painter, sculptor, sketcher, photographer or graphic artist; an actor, playwright or film producer; a weaver, potter, seamstres or silversmith; a writer of poetry, prose or non-fiction; a dancer, flagger or abandoned worshiper, I hope to post resources that will help you as you develop the creative gift God has placed within YOU!

So, visit my blog every day* to see what creative resource I’ve hunted down for you. You can stay connected daily by following me on Twitter or Facebook. Or better yet, sign up to receive email updates by clicking the button to the left. We’ll watch the resources pile up as the year unfolds!

** I am a proponent of family time and Sabbath rest so don’t look for posts on weekends or Holidays.

Jody Thomae is the author of God’s Creative Gift—Unleashing the Artist in You, a devotional book with Bible studies to nurture the creative spirit within and to serve as a resource for creative Christians, artists, musicians and worshippers. She has been involved in worship arts ministry since 1997, serving as worship arts ministry pastor, worship leader, and creative arts director. She has coordinated artistic involvement in church services and regional worship events through dance, drama, poetry and fine arts and has had the opportunity to perform, teach, choreograph, preach, coordinate and lead workshops in the area of creativity, spirituality and embodied prayer. She has also recently released a devotional CD called Song of the Beloved.

Her passion is for the revelation of God to be made more real through the prophetic use of the arts in church and formational ministry. It is her desire to portray the message of Christ’s desperate and unfailing love for His people to help sustain the hearts of the broken and weary. Life scriptures include Psalm 27; Isaiah 50:4-7; and Zephaniah 3:14-17.

“God’s Creative Gift” Inspiring Prophetic Art

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I am deeply humbled by Colleen Brigg’s words in this blogpost about prophetic art. God is calling his artists to rise up, to speak, to make His glory known in this earth. Thank you Colleen for demonstrating courage—the courage to explore, experience and encounter God through your artistic work (which is amazing BEaUtiful)!!

Colleen Briggs Art & Writing

Whatever It Takes; 2014; 28" x 20"; watercolor. Whatever It Takes; 2014; 28″ x 20″; watercolor.

“Art is the language of the soul.” With these words, one of my lifelong friends exhorted me as I wrestled for years with an insatiable need to express myself visually. For decades I tried to suppress this language, feeling it could not urgently or adequately address the evils I witnessed in the world. It felt too slow and clumsy to reverse urgent emergencies such as poverty or abandonment. But it was a language that swelled within my being and refused to be silenced. Aristotle said, “A soul never thinks without a picture.” My own soul craved color, texture, pattern and images; and no matter how fast I trotted around the world or how passionately I tried to speak in other ways, it was a soul-whisper that would not be denied.

At times when I surrendered to my native “tongue,” images hounded me…

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Silence

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I am in the very beginning stages of writing my next book – about the healing journey of the artist and the artist as healer. This post and artwork touches on how God heals through the artistic process. It’s beautiful!

Colleen Briggs Art & Writing

Unless a Grain of Wheat Falls; 2014; 29" x 21"; watercolor. Unless a Grain of Wheat Falls; 2014; 29″ x 21″; watercolor.

There was a time in my life when I was stunned into silence. I unexpectedly received news of harm done to someone I love, two days later met the person who caused the harm face-to-face, and then several days after that received medical confirmation for my loved one of resulting lifelong disability.

It was too much, too fast. I shut down. People who cared deeply about me surrounded me, yet knew nothing of what was happening, or only bits and pieces. Grief penetrated like an arrow so deeply buried that even the shaft disappeared into the aching flesh of my heart. I stopped writing, and I stopped verbalizing anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary for some time after.

I understood why sometimes children cope with trauma by refusing to speak.  For some things, there are no words. Painting, however, over the…

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The Creator/Creation Metaphor

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Recommend you follow Dave Weiss’ blog. Great reading and resources for artists of all genres.

AMOKArts

I often wonder what people are thinking. As a speed painter, people see my work come together in a matter of minutes. The audience is privy to the entire process and there are always times in every creation where it looks like it is just not going to come together. In those moments I wonder if they think, “This guy isn’t good. Why did we bring him in?” The thing is, they don’t know what I know. They don’t know where I’m headed or what I hope to accomplish. They can’t. They’re not the creator. I am.

Every creative knows what it’s like to have a creation go through an awkward phase. That time when it looks like it’s just not coming together. The rehearsal goes terrible. The painting looks like it will never be what you see in your mind. The notes just aren’t falling into place. The story…

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Holding onto the Light

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Another talented artist friend I’ve met here on WordPress. She is definitely worth the follow. God uses her artwork, photographs, and writings to anchor one’s soul to something much deeper and more profound than this world could ever offer.

Colleen Briggs Art & Writing

Holding onto the Light; 2014; 22" x 15"; mixed media: watercolor and pastel. Holding onto the Light; 2014; 22″ x 15″; mixed media: watercolor and pastel.

Roots tuck under ebony blanket.
Tree-top, reluctant to sleep, teases black sky,
clouds swirling heavy, mounting high.

And in the space in-between,
branches cradle last light in tender arms,
as if tearfully crooning, “so long…”

But when creeping night looks the other way,
they stealthily syphon those silver rays
into secret stashes,
burning bright and clandestine,
‘til morning once more arrives.

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