{create for joy}

Who I am is what I do.  I believe in this.  It's the reason I became a teacher.  The reason I still teach.  The reason I consider my hands the next most important part of my body other than my heart.  The what I am doing matters for those around me.  For what those around me see is the what I am.  And what I am?  It matters.  It matters to the hearts in my home.  To the hands in my community.  To the holy One who has gifted me the very passion that I breathe.

I think that's why art is so very important to me.  It's a platform for expression that has the ability to supersede words and transcend emotion. Who I am is so much what I do in every piece I create.  Art is time sensitive.  It's feeling driven.  It's vulnerable, too.  I think that's life.

I lose when I don't heed the intricate mechanics of my heart. When I stop short of creating, I deplete the reservoir God has stored up just for me. This very thought is how I know that I am destined to create.  My love swells when I am in cadence with the act of expression.  Be it writing, painting, teaching, encouraging--who I am is what I do.  This particular piece on display was a gift.  It was born from an impromptu notion for a friend.  This comrade is a person who lives this same mantra I speak of.  She is life living who she is. Our stories are not extremely similar nor are they extremely different.  Yet, through Him, we have a common bond of honesty, humor, realness, style, teaching & encouragement.

It was important for me to act on this notion.  It was important to create this free handed abstract piece to chronicle her story. I prayed for her in the sanding. I spend little time deliberating over colors.  The day was spent alone in the outdoors moving in what I do. In my note attached to this gift, I wanted her to know that her story mattered.  Not just to me, but to so many who are reading it.  Through her, we learn more about who she is in what she does. In her courage.  Her commitment. Her resilience.  And in her journey to celebrate and serve Him in all ways and through all things.

Perhaps what I love most about abstract art is that it begins in thought but never really surfaces as a true, full-on concrete presence.  To me that's faith in its purest form. Who I am is what I do.  And my passion to create cannot be contained to a profession.  It can only grow in goodness when I spread it out to those I love and to those who inspire my walk here in the abstract.  Thank you, Claire.

.mac :)