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Category: Inspiration

Collage / Inspiration / Light

A Hope and a Prayer

Hope and prayer were the inspiration for this sweet collage.

“Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops at all.”

Emily Dickinson, American poet
Hope and A Prayer, collage, on, board, art, paintonmywalls, Cheryl White Art
Collage featuring, birds brightened with india-ink and polka dot wings, set against the snow covered ground of music from The Lord’s prayer and the night sky. Click here for more about how to create a Hymnbook collage.

“It is said that the darkest hour of the night comes just before the dawn.”

Thomas Fuller, English churchman, Author, Historian

A woman I barely knew, and I, started meeting at 5:30 AM to pray in the room above her garage. My life from that moment on would never be the same. At the time there were very deep needs in our families and things did indeed feel very dark to me.

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”

Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

We were raying for answers for family members and other concerns. Six months later, a house on the same street came for sale by the owner and we miraculously got it. This enabled my dad to live with us during his last years of life. It moved us 1 mile from our church and 8 houses down from my new friend who prayed. The lives of people we were praying for started changing and miracles were happening, but the most startling thing that happened was the change inside me. Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall came and went for 4 years and we kept meeting at 5:30 AM and all the while, my own heart was changing and softening and opening to knowing God in a way I never knew possible. I learned to let go of what I wanted and wished for and to trust that if God didn’t want me to have those things, whatever He did have was better. For me, learning to pray, was not about singing the right notes, but it was about learning love the song God wrote for me more than the song I was writing on my own. It was about loving God more than I loved the idea of any of my prayers being answered.

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

Desmond Tutu, South African Anglican cleric and theologian

I could not possibly list all the answers to prayer we saw come about, but I can tell you that we serve a God who hears the prayers of His children. He is our hope and he makes beautiful things in us when we hope in Him and pray. Through life and death situations and heart conditions, in spite of us and our failures and flawed prayers, God faithfully heard and answered. Lives changed. Losses came followed by blessings. Hard hearts became soft. Many of the answers came in unexpected ways and some of those have been the sweetest.

bird, collage, hope, and, a, prayer, daytime

One of the sweetest gifts through that entire season of morning prayer was the faithfulness of that precious praying saint who taught me to pray and was a friend to me when I was convinced I didn’t need one. Turns out, I did and I’m so grateful.

“You are never too late to prayer.”

Nancy Gibson, Author NancyGibsonWrites.com and WooHoo! The Joyous Response to Following Christ.

Color / Inspiration / Palette Knife Oil Painting

Five Loaves and Two Fish

Five Loaves and Two Fish and the miracle of the feeding of 5,000 is a powerful narrative. After a day of healing and ministering to large numbers of people in a desolate place, Jesus performs a miracle with a young boy’s lunch of five loaves and two fish. I’ve painted this scene many times and every time I do it, it is a bit different.

Five, Loaves, Two, Fish, Miracle, Oil, Canvas, Palette, Knife, Cheryl, White, Art,
Five Loaves and Two Fish, Oil on canvas with palette knife, 48″ x 36″

My favorite verse out of the Matthew 14:13-21 passage is verse 20 “They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.” I love what is revealed about the character of God and how it challenges us to stretch our faith to believe that God truly desires to and does provide abundantly. There were leftovers!

If this story is new or unfamiliar to you, I encourage you to read it on your own and expose your heart to this narrative. One way my family has absolutely loved engaging with this story is by watching The Chosen. The producer/writer of this show Dallas Jenkins has his own loaves to fishes story as well and it is pretty incredible. Enjoy!

Whenever in life I have chosen not to lean on my own understanding, God abundantly provides. Through moves, changes, losses, sacrifices, when all seemed impossible, there has always been more than enough for every need when I trusted Him. This painting is a visual reminder that I truly cannot out-give God and He is an abundant provider.

Beginnings / Inspiration / Life

How An Artist Thinks About Creating Something New

Begin!

An Artist thinks about creating something new as an opportunity to embrace the unknown with courage, explore ways to learn from mistakes and discover the adventure of beginning. As an artist, staring at a fresh, blank canvas can feel exciting and intimidating at the same time. Expressing creatively through art can be a life-giving process, sometimes wrought with pain, but never as painful as not taking the first step. Whether starting a new blog, an art project, or any new endeavor, we begin, when not beginning becomes more painful than staying where we are. At some point, we must begin moving in a new direction.

Let’s just give it a go, shall we?

Take Courage!

Creating something new is like giving birth in a way. It’s an intimate expression wreathed in pain and vulnerability bringing forth new life. Painful, because the struggle requires sacrifice with no assurance of success. Vulnerable, because it is an expression of who we are outside of ourselves for others to either value or devalue. These are reasons why creating art or doing anything new can be quite a fear-inducing process, but they are not reasons we should not try. An artist thinks they are just reasons courage is needed to try.

A dear friend of mine once challenged me to change my thinking pattern about trying something new from “it could be a win or a fail”, to “it could be a win or a learn”! Our failures and pain can be excellent teachers.

Even the most successful artists face failure, rejection, or pain at some point. A perfect example of this is Henri Matisse. A master printmaker, sculptor, and painter, he overcame great suffering and loss in life and yet created some of the most vibrant innovative paintings and collages in history. Quoted as saying “Creativity takes courage” he did not view painting as a means to an end, but rather as a creative adventure in the expression of lines and color.

For examples of work by Henri Matisse, click here.

Explore!

The goal need not be getting to a destination or producing the perfect piece of art. How adventure-squashing would that be? Embrace a learning mindset. How about exploring some new ways to express creatively, grow in artistic ability, and encourage one another in the journey?

As an example, the left painting below was one I completed many years ago and considered a failure. What was needed was a contrast in the trunk and more energy exploding from the branches like confetti. Years later, the added torn hymn book pages and bright pieces of dried acrylic paint added the life and contrast needed to create the New Tree, Acrylic Collage with hymn book pages piece.

Creating Something New, Acrylic Collage, Trees, Art, Old Tree, New Tree,
Before and After Acrylic Collage renewed to new life. There is more about using hymn books in collage here.

Discover!

There is freedom in embracing creating something new as a process or a journey to discover rather than a final destination. Instead of striving for the perfect result following the shortest distance between two points; being open to the idea that when mistakes happen, they can teach us something is valuable. An adventurous mindset prepares us to notice unexpected treasure along the way and avoid the temptation to quit when the unknown looms ahead of us.

When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an adventure is going to happen.”

A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

The best encouragement anyone has ever given me as a beginning artist was to just never quit. That’s the win and where all the learning happens.

Create!

It is my hope in this endeavor to help others do just that…to join in the dance breathed into mankind from the beginning of time. The Bible reveals God as the entire world’s ultimate creator, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27

This verse reminds me that since God created everything we see with a word and formed man with his hands out of dust and breathed life into us, His image-bearers, that we too are able to create. Realizing I have this gift within encourages me…and if you are reading this, I believe the gift is inside you too and hope it encourages you as well. Whether you believe we are created by God or not, the “able to create” part of being human is too precious not to explore and too full of potential not to try. It’s my hope with this blog to embrace that creativity and to nurture and celebrate it as we journey together.