Art journaling for Jesus

After much delay from a variety of sources, here is the front and back cover of my first attempt at Art Journaling for Jesus. The delays were caused by lack of focus, lack of sleep, logistics, time crunch, garden variety artist self esteem issues, and competing responsibilities. I'm not in love with the finished product so much myself, but I enjoyed the process and I love the possibilities. I will definitely continue - now I have to fill it up. I hope He likes it.

I've been thinking and talking about the restoration of the sacred to art. Thinking about re-reading Francis Schaeffer's "How Should We Then  Live" which examines the loss of the sacred in thought and culture, including the arts. And thinking about how so much of what passes for Christian art and music today is commercial schlock - nauseatingly sweet and devoid of power. I'm not saying I'm so great or that I've got the inside scoop from the Holy Spirit on what it should sound like or look like. I do know that there's little out there that moves me into a closer experience of the divine - and much that has the opposite effect - and makes me want to apologize to non-Christians for all those big-eyed figurines and flowery teacups with Bible verses printed on them.

...on art journaling

I' ve been away from the blog for a while, I know, and a lot has happened. The church went through transition - with the founding pastor "passing the baton" (literally) to the pastor I serve as an administrative assistant. It was a beautiful, emotional and well done. My husband Walt had an appointment with his cardiologist and was discharged, which freed him up emotionally to move on with his life. Our LIFE Leadership business is revving up. I took a week of badly needed vacation time. Well, it was a staycation, and it took me most of the week to unwind with a mixture of rest and activity, mostly aimed at trying to get our badly neglected house back into shape. It'a amazing how bad things can get when you begin in a disorganized state and add a year of serious illness. Although the house is by no means in "lets have company over" condition, I made progress and that was very satisfying.

The biggest reason for my absence has been that I haven't been sure what I wanted this blog to be. And truthfully, my vision for it hasn't distilled completely, but toward the end of my time off I started to feel really antsy about starting to make art again. My space to make art is really limited & there are no funds to rent a studio, which was frustrating to me because I like to work big, really big, and that just wasn't going to happen. And then one day when I was noodling around on Pinterest, I "stumbled across" a bunch of people who are into art journaling. I'm fascinated. Beautiful, thought provoking, awkward, funny, raw and revealing, this art form really struck a chord with me, and it can be done on my dining room table. Here are some examples of pages created by other artists.

 
 
I found these on a fabulous  blog. To visit and see a lot more beautiful and provocative arty contributions, go here.

One of the things that struck me in looking at this stuff, and the many other pages I researched was that there is very little art journaling by Christian artists. The spirituality reflected in the majority of the work is relativistic, and some of it is downright sticking it in God's eye. We've come a very long way from the days when all art was sacred. Art reflects the artist's search for meaning and the culture that she lives in, and lets face it, we're living in a largely empty, status and entertainment oriented world. Looking at most art today simultaneously makes me swoon at the beauty (if it's good) and sad. I remember all of the stuff I made, trying to make sense of the world, yearning for God yet not ever satisfied, until Jesus "found me" and I experienced the peace that passes all understanding. I see that same quest reflected in the hearts of other artists, and I pray that He will find them, too. So that's what's happening in my heart and mind these days when I'm not working on other things.

I've started working on my first journal pages and hope to share them here soon.