Inspiration

Day 123/366 and Day 124/366 (5/2/2012 and 5/3/2012)

How I am really enjoying teaching my art students!  This week we switched gears away from Georgia O'Keeffe, a classic art master, to Mia Pearlman, a contemporary artist based primarily out of New York.  Her work in paper sculpture truly took my breath away when I saw it presented in a paper craft book.  DO check out her pieces at http://www.miapearlman.com.  As a class we are working to present a collaborative exhibit in the style of her work.  I'll keep posting pictures as the process continues to unfold.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee^(K) from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens,^(L) you are there;
    if I make my bed^(M) in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,^(N)
    your right hand^(O) will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark^(P) to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;^(Q)
    you knit me together^(R) in my mother’s womb.^(S)
14 I praise you^(T) because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,^(U)
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made^(V) in the secret place,
    when I was woven together^(W) in the depths of the earth.^(X)
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained^(Y) for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a](Z) God!^(AA)
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,^(AB)
    they would outnumber the grains of sand^(AC)—
    when I awake,^(AD) I am still with you."

Psalm 139:7-18

God, we are made in Your image, and you are the Great Creator.  Thank you for endowing us with even a breath of your creative spirit.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Day 122/366 (5/1/2012)

Well, I am so grateful that the Lord is in control...because I obviously am not.  I was all over this photo project for a month and a half, then it was all over for the next two and a half months.  But it's May Day, and I'm back!

With my middle school art students, we have been studying Georgia O'Keeffe.  What an interesting women who suffered some very painful things in her life.  Nature was her muse.

"When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else."

"It [the desert] is vast and empty and untouchable--and knows no kindness with all its beauty."

– Georgia O'Keeffe

She captured the art of looking at something from a different (and usually very up-close) perspective.  Think of all the worlds she saw and lived in.  These worlds can be viewed by all of us; we just have to be willing to crouch, to bend, to crane our necks upwards...  Our God is the Master Artist.

"Consider how the wildflowers grow.  They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you, not even Solomon and all his splendor was dressed like one of these."

-- Luke 12:27