Devotional Drawing

Today I was reading Romans 9 and saw this verse. “Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?” Romans 9:21 (NIV)

Here’s what I came up with.

Inspiration and Expiration

One of the highlights of the Creative Church Conference for me was meeting potter Dave Blakeslee. Dave uses his art of Pottery to share the Gospel. I got into Boise a day early, so I helped with set up. One of the things I got to do was help Dave unload his equipment. In that moment, it was clear, I had met a kindred spirit. You see I have often noticed when most speakers show up to speak they don’t have to first unload about a ton of equipment, but guys like Dave Blakeslee and I do. This led into some pretty nice discussions, as I got pointers on the finer points of traveling ministry from a fellow artist who is a little further down the road than I am. It was a wonderful time and oddly enough it perfectly demonstrated Dave’s keynote.

He started off by having us breathe in. Not so unusual, a lot of speakers will calm their audiences by having them take a deep breath. The difference is Dave had us hold that breath for a pretty long time. Then he did the reverse, he had us empty our lungs and hold that for what seemed like an equally long time. The breathing is the most literal expression of what so many of we artists seek, inspiration. His point was, well, breathtaking. When we breathe in, when we’re inspired, we can’t just hold it in. We have to expire, to breathe out. Likewise when we expire, breathe out, sooner or later we have to inspire, breathe in, or we will, well, expire. Blakeslee’s point was we receive our inspiration from God, not so we can hold it in and keep it to ourselves but so we can let it out to the world around us.

Likewise we cannot keep breathing out, putting our work out without receiving God’s inspiration. We need to receive from God and release into the world, like inhalation and exhalation, breathing in, breathing out, inspiration, expiration. Dave then began to talk about the three people we need. People who are further down the road than us, who we can help, people who are our peers who can walk by our sides and people who are behind us in the journey that we can help along. In the same way, we must also be those people to others—Inspiring and being inspired—giving and receiving. It was a wonderful message, something I really needed and I believe something we all need if we are going to create God-inspired and God-empowered art.

Who inspires you? Who are you inspiring? Who walks beside you?

What are you expiring?

Here’s a clip of Dave sharing a message and making his art. I think you’ll find it inspiring!

Ten Paintings One Canvas-or What Lies Beneath?

Back from vacation and I want to share my vacation project with all of you. Please share this video with others, I consider this to be one of the best things I have been blessed to make so far.

I’ll be the first one to admit it, this one started out as a mistake, well actually more of a misstep. I set out to document a new painting idea I had, but quite frankly it didn’t come out quite the way I wanted so I decided to paint over it. I was also experimenting with doing the video as stop motion so I decided to keep filming and what I came up with is probably my favorite video to date. What started out as a meaningless little experiment ended up being very profound to me.

The idea behind the video is pretty simple. Ten paintings on one canvas, one on top of another culminating in a self-portrait. To me, very simply it’s a reminder that when we look at someone, we never know what’s behind the surface unless we are willing to spend some time looking beneath the surface. More simply put, you can’t judge a book by its cover. Remember not all the pieces in this work are autobiographical though they become increasingly moreso as we go along. Strangely, I went into this piece not looking for any meaning to come out of it but as it moved along it became more and more meaningful. It even ended up being the illustration I used for my sermon on June 27 which can be seen on my Tangle page. I recorded this message in my studio prior to the service, as an experiment.

I am going to resist the temptation to explain all the elements of the video and let you make your own interpretation. As you’ll see in the sermon that is something I am not completely comfortable with. I usually like to explain myself so I am not misinterpreted but that is sort of the point of all of this.

When you look at people, resist the temptation to make snap judgements and actually get to know them. Meet them right where they are and find out what makes them tick. That’s sort of what Jesus did. We could argue that He already knew what made them tick, but no one could argue that He met people right where they are and took them where He created them too be. At least I know that’s what He did for me.