Ministering to artists ministering through the arts.
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"Dave Weiss was at our church tonight and all I can say is wow! What a gifted artist and fine preacher! People really responded well to him and I hope to have him back again. Some of the finest preaching I have heard in a long time."
Jim Baker,
Pastor, Lorida Church of the Brethren, Lorida, FL
New from AMOKArts.com
Many Parts... One Body: A Creative Way to Teach the Importance of every member in the body of Christ. Available in three versions: Small, Medium and Large Group Sizes.
Running AMOK: Random Musings for the Creative Hands of the Body of Christ by Dave Weiss
I made this video to support World Vision’s ReLENTless act:s of Sacrifice, a movement to get people involved in sacrificing for the good of others. One of the things that has really touched my heart in this is program is their act:s to end Malaria campaign. 2,000 children a day die of Malaria for want of a six dollar bed net. What could be more amazing than to help to save the life of a child for less than the price of a fast food meal. What a small sacrifice to save a life.
In the last post I began a three post series on the basics–Three things we all need to know if we want to serve the Lord. Yesterday we dealt with sin. Yes I know for some of you this is really basic stuff. My challenge for you is to share it with someone who needs to know.
So what do we do about sin? Well the answer is pretty simple but the actual doing can be a real challenge. It’s repentance. Now I know this is another really unpopular word. Say the word ‘repent” and many get an image of a straggly street preacher carrying a big sign and screaming about the end of the world. While there may be some truth to what the street preacher has to say, I think he paints a bad picture of repentance.
Repentance basically means “turn-around” it’s looking at the stuff that you know is wrong in your life and deciding to turn around and go in the opposite direction.
It’s pretty simple really. God and Jesus have nothing to do with sin. They are diametrically opposed to one sin. To sin is to go in the exact opposite direction of the way God is moving, so if you find yourself there, resist the temptation to keep going and see how it works out and turn around.
Repent.
Bible Reading Guide
An important part of following God is knowing what He wants and a great way to know what He wants is to read His Word. Follow this plan and you will finish reading the Bible in a year.
Numbers 19-20; 1 John 4; Psalm 99
You can also download your own chart here.
The folks at IllustrationFriday.com set up their weekly challenge. Each week on Friday they post a word that people are supposed to illustrate. I have found it a great way to stretch myself creatively. This week’s word was cultivate. As soon as I saw the word three things popped into my mind. The first was a very literal farming reference, cultivation being a very large part of farming. The word cultivate also means to begin or engender and enhance something so eventually cultivating friendship came to mind. Secondly I thought about the opposite type of cultivation, cultivating animosity, and since garden tools are used in literal cultivation and the fact that one of the primary cultivating tools is a hoe, this play on words just seemed to work. Finally I got the idea of a sound alike pun and decided to use it as well. I know there’s an edge to two of these but I hope the members of the AMOKArts tribe will see them as a response to a creative challenge and not be offended.
I encourage the members of The AMOKArts tribe to try this creative challenge and I welcome those who come here from Illustration Friday My purpose with this blog is to encourage artists to use their gift to make a difference. I hope you will take a look around and if you want to learn more, you may contact me at amokarts@aol.com or better yet subscribe to the blog. Bible Reading Guide
An important part of following God is knowing what He wants and a great way to know what He wants is to read His Word. Follow this plan and you will finish reading the Bible in a year.
Leviticus 22; John 16; Psalm 83
You can also download your own chart here.
I first found this story in Seth Godin’s new book Poke the Box. I thought this band showed remarkable creativity and determination and by the way the video is genius. Here is the story of Hollerado.
“Any artist who says that the reason they’re still unknown is because they don’t have a manager or a booking agent or a devout following that will lift them up and carry them on their shoulders to stardom needs to seriously get over themselves and check out this band’s story.
These guys are from a little town in Ontario, Canada. They decide they want to tour the States but no one will book them because they’re unknown. So they decide to drive as far away from home into America as they could get. Then they would walk into a club where a band was playing and make up some story to the manager that they’re 2000 miles from home, had a gig down the street but it fell through. So they would ask if they could play a short set and miraculously, IT WORKED! They did this countless times but might have only gotten a few drinks or pizza out of the deal.
They still needed gas money. So they’d go to the mall, get a CD burner and a few spindles of blank CDs. They’d burn 100 CDs in the parking lot and stand outside the Hot Topic with a discman, asking anyone to listen to their demos. If they liked it, they got a CD in a ziplock bag with some goodies for $5. The band made $4.50 off the deal. They did this for two years and made it home!
Then they decide to release their new CD, Record In A Bag, in 2009 (packaged exactly as from the U.S. tour). To promote the CD, they took the concept of a residency gig, where you play the same club once a week and pumped steroids into it. They launched their RESIDENCY TOUR, playing a show in seven different cities for each night of the week for a month. So Sunday night it’s Boston, Monday it’s Pianos’ in NYC, Tuesday was Quebec, followed by Hamilton, Ontario, Toronto, Ottowa and Montreal. Then: Repeat 4 times. 12,000 brutal Canadian winter miles in 28 days!
They finally found a distributor who would take on their special “packaging” and to date, have sold more than 10,000 copies of their CD and have reached the Top 5 on Canadian Alternative radio.”
What would you do if you thought you could not fail? Well you might fail. Do it anyway.
Bible Reading Guide
An important part of following God is knowing what He wants and a great way to know what He wants is to read His Word. Follow this plan and you will finish reading the Bible in a year.
Leviticus 21; John 14-15; Hebrews 8
You can also download your own chart here.
Click the photo to download a display box you can make for your Mosquitoes Are Death Cards
Hopefully by now more and more of you are working on cards for the Mosquitoes are Death project. If you haven’t started yet go to http://www.amokarts.com/sgmad.html to find out more. This is an ongoing project until 2015.
One of our participating artists, Joy Kiefer from the Foundry Church near Philadelphia suggested I make a little display box for placing multiple cards at a single location. I have now completed that. Click the photo above to download the box.
It’s pretty amazing when I think about it. Through this medium called the internet, God has allowed me and AMOKArts to connect with over 1000 people all over the world. I love that God has allowed to to have this platform and today I want to use it. As most of you know I have been working on the Mosquitoes are Death project as part of World Vision’s act:s to END MALARIA program. I’m still looking for artists to join me in that program. You can get the details by going through the archives of this blog or by going to http://www.amokarts.com/sgmadjoin.html.
But today I thought I would just put out a straight up plea. All totalled I have 1036 people on my various social media enterprises. Yes I know there is a lot of overlap but if every one of us would go over to http://www.actstoendmalaria.org and donated six bucks to buy a kid a mosquito net we could save 1036 lives today alone. If 2,000 die a day from the disease. We could cut the death toll in half. In this season of giving that would be a pretty cool gift. Give more if you can but every little bit helps.
Speaking of which check out today’s art video. It’s another take on the Seurat painting that talks about how we get to our dreams and visions “dot by dot” a little bit at a time.
This is the video I created for the Mosquitoes Are Death page at AMOKArts.com
For anyone who hasn’t heard, Mosquitoes are Death is AMOKArts project for World Vision’s act:s to END MALARIA. A Spiritual Graffiti project to generate awareness and funds to prevent this dreaded disease. Sing 1950 41 million people have died from Malaria and it is easily preventable. Artists join the project. Everyone else spread the word, take this video viral and make a donation to World Vision.
Just updating you on the progress of the MAD Mosquitoes are Death project from AMOKArts for World Vision’s act:s to END MALARIA. To donate go to http://www.actstoendmalaria.org
Help Save Lives With World Vision's act:s to END MALARIA
So far we only have one person signed up to create cards to help spread the word about World Vision’s act:s to END Malaria and I’m hoping for more. It’s really easy to do, just drawing mosquitos on 3×5 cards, sticking a label to them and putting them around on community bulletin boards and other public places, you can even pass them out at your church.
My goal is to get artists all over the world to draw a total of 2,000 cards to represent the 2,000 children who die EVERY day from Malaria for want of something as simple as a $6 bed net. The original goal was 20 artists to draw 100 cards, (I’ve drawn over 20 in the last two days just while watching TV) but if 100 cards is too much for you, do what you can, every little bit helps. Please help.
See the post below on Art as Activism for details.
I’m looking for a few good artists who want to make a difference.
Did you know that 2000 children a day will die from Malaria? That’s 2,000 children dying from something as simple as a mosquito bite.
The saddest part of this statistic is that many of these deaths could be easily prevented by something as simple as sleeping under a treated bed net that costs six dollars.
I’m looking for artists to join me in a Spiritual Graffiti project to benefit World Vision’s act:s to END MALARIA
I call the project M.A.D. which stands for Mosquitos are death. It’s really simple. I need at least 20 artists or arts groups all over the world to get a pack of 100 3×5 cards and create 100 cards like the ones you’ve been watching me make in this video. Design them however you want just be sure to include some sort of mosquito on them. Make them as cool and attention getting as you can. We need at least 2,000 cards representing all the children lost in a single day but we will gladly take more. We want to reach as many people as possible. Once you’ve finished your drawings, there are a few things you need to do.
1. scan or photograph a few of your cards and send them, along with your name and location to me, Dave Weiss, at amokarts@aol.com so that I can include you in upcoming videos.
2. place the label you can find linked to the amokarts blog on the back of each card http://amokarts.wordpress.com these labels will provide a link to a web page containing all the information to give.
3. then post these cards all over your community.
The first step is to sign up and let me know you’re working on your cards. Simply comment on the amokarts blog or send me an email at amokarts@aol.com to let me know you’re participating. In this way I will be able to let you know when the first video is posted, the web page is live and it’s time to start posting your cards. The web page will also contain a link to a zazzle t shirt store where the profits will go to act:s to END MALARIA, as well as some give aways and, of course, links to World Vision’s act:s to END MALARIA page.
Remember the idea behind this project is to do good. We are giving people original hand made art in the hopes that they will see it and be inspired to give to put an end to this dreaded and easily prevented disease. So sign up, get to work, get your friends together and start drawing those mosquitos. I’ll be letting you know shortly when to begin posting your work.
By the way I got this idea from watching Scott Erickson’s Art as Activism videos from the act:s to END MALARIA web site if this project doesn’t work for you, go to the site and see if you can find something there that fits. At the very least go to the site and make a donation as little as six dollars could save a life.
As with all Spiritual Graffiti projects a few rules apply.
1. Never use your work to deface anyone else’s property.
2. Only post your work at places where it is acceptable, such as community bulletin boards or places where you have permission
3. Keep it clean and G rated
4. Always make your work as cool and eyecatching as possible. Do it as if you were doing it for Jesus and make it easily removeable.
Remember the purpose is to make it as easy as possible for people to take with them. Spiritual Graffiti is supposed to be a gift.
5. NEVER, EVER, EVER put your pieces in people’s mailboxes unless you mail them. This is a criminal offense.
6. Always use permanent marker or other permanent media for your pieces so they will not run and do damage if they get wet. The purpose of Spiritual Graffiti is first and foremost to be a blessing and glorify God.
