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"Christians in the Arts" - 5 new articles

1. Taking a Break
2. Christian Wiman: Image's Artist of the Month
3. Luci Shaw's Breath for the Bones
4. "How I Work": Beverly Key, Visual Artist
5. Arts Moments Yesterday
6. More Recent Articles
7. Search Christians in the Arts

Taking a Break

After 300 posts, and almost 3 years, I'm taking a break from this blog. I am pursuing other interests this year, including the CS Lewis Fellows Program, as I've mentioned recently. The Fellows Program is a one-year intensive study program that will allow me to read books and articles by great Christian thinkers, to meet with and discuss the readings with other fellows and mentors, to meditate on and memorize related scripture, and to write about what I'm learning. I've already started the reading and have learned so much already. It's going to be quite a year.

I plan to continue writing my other blog, Beauty and the Beholder, about the beauty around us. I post on Wednesdays and often discuss art as well as creation. Check it out if you haven't already.

I'll also continue writing occasional articles, essays, and devotionals and whatever else God leads me to.

I've enjoyed this blog so much and have met many fascinating people through it. Thank you for reading. Thank you, also, to all the artists, art experts and enthusiasts I've interviewed through the years. Artists, stay true to your gift and your faith. And God's blessings on you all.

In the Name of the Greatest Artist of all,
LeAnne

Christian Wiman: Image's Artist of the Month

Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry, poet and essayist, is Image's Artist of the Month for July. Wiman was raised in a conservative Baptist home but his faith "fell away", he says, in college. He felt its absence, though, and in the past few years has returned to his faith. Read his essay, God's Truth is Life, in Image's 60th issue.

Luci Shaw's Breath for the Bones

I'm reading so many fascinating books this summer--some for the CS Lewis Fellows program and some about creativity and faith. Right now I'm just on chapter two of Luci Shaw's Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination, and Spirit: Reflections on Creativity and Faith and I have already underlined much of the book. Here are a few favorite passages from the intro and chapter one:

"The artist, then, becomes something of a prophet: the seer, the mouthpiece. The role of the artist is to call to attention."

"The artists--the prophets too--are called to this role: presenting pictures and models, words, and visions. They have a special calling--to recognize God's creating hand, God's storied art, God's order."

"There is another calling for the artist, and that is one of linking earth to heaven, pointing the human to the divine, finding the connections."

"In art and creativity, we make visible to others the beauty and meaning God has first pictured, or introduced, into our imaginations. In that sense we may each think of ourselves as a small extension of the creative mind of God."

"How I Work": Beverly Key, Visual Artist

Today my mind is on my friend, visual artist Beverly Key, who I enjoyed coffee with this morning. This post is from my original interview with her two years ago when she talked about how she works and gave some advice to young artists.

LeAnne: What are your favorite forms or methods of painting?

Beverly: Recently 
I've begun to do large abstract oils, and for many
 years now I have been painting large abstact 
landscapes on paper with watercolor, where I pour
 paint through paper filters using dried beans and peas 
and string for design elements.  I also do collage.

LM: When did you know you wanted to paint?

BK: When I was in first
 grade, I tried to sneak a box of crayons into the 
grocery cart. As I was growing up I always thought of
myself as an artist. I was one of the ones in school
 who was always doing the bulletin boards for the 
teachers. Both my parents painted as a hobby so I grew 
up with the smell of oil and turpentine. I took some classes after school with a wonderful woman,
 Abbott Downing (of course, in south Alabama we called 
her,"Miss Abbott"). However, I graduated from college
 with a degree in special education, and thought that 
would be what I would do. I taught a few years, got
 married, had 2 boys and in 1986 we moved to Atlanta.
 At that time, my husband and I decided to try to have another child 
and I also took some art classes at the Atlanta
 College of Art. Since that time I have been painting
 professionally.    

LM: What advice do you have for young or new artists who are Christians?

BK: I would say "trust yourself". You are the 
only person who will see the world the way you see it.
 Take confidence in that and draw from your own
 experiences. Keep working some every day. Most work
 gets recognized because the artist just kept at it.

Arts Moments Yesterday

Hope you had a great July 4th celebration.

Yesterday was a full day for me. There were three points where the arts particularly touched me:

1. During the worship service at church, our back-up worship singer sang Watermark's "Captivate Us." It's a gorgeous, intimate song, and she sang it beautifully.

2. My family and I watched The Incredibles. The amount of Christian worldview and symbolism in that movie took me by surprise. We loved it.

3. I finished the book, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a novel about the German Occupation of one of the Channel Islands during World War II. The story was told entirely by letters--the kind that show up in a mailbox. I thoroughly enjoyed that book.

What arts moments have you enjoyed lately? Leave a comment and let me know.

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