Arts Collective

Domestic Arts :: "Working in the Garden" by Chris Adams

Posted by Miranda [3]

 

In 2009 there was a world food crisis leading to the doubling and tripling of grain prices, food shortages, and even riots in some parts of the world. This caused me to wonder, if even if only in a small way, how I could be part of the solution. Around the same time, we purchased our first home with a nice sized back yard. Curiosity about the possibility of growing my own fruits and vegetables began. Since then, I have encountered the many joys and frustrations of gardening, learning some lessons along the way!

 

Seasonal Lessons

 

In addition to the routine tasks of gardening, there are other aspects of gardening that draw me in to worship-filled contemplation of God. Austin is blessed with a climate where we can garden year-round. Each season brings opportunities to plant new crops and, as a result, completely different harvests for each season.

 

“Plants that start out looking like a utilitarian vine or bush are transformed into a beautiful show of color when they are heavy with fruit.”

In the spring and summer, my favorite vegetables to produce are many varieties of hot peppers. In the winter, I love to pick fresh lettuce and carrots. As I spend time in the quiet backyard, the variety of crops and changing seasons cause me to consider God as the magnificent Creator, working all seasons and plants together to bring variety that we too often overlook. Plants that start out looking like a utilitarian vine or bush are transformed into a beautiful show of color when they are heavy with fruit. This fruit proves that the preceding weeks and months of work were not in vain. All of this reminds me that God is still at work in me and in creation, and he will ultimately complete his work one day.

 

Shared Enjoyment

The garden has taught me many life lessons and brought me much joy. However, while the composting, pruning, and harvesting are essential to my enjoyment of the garden, I have come to believe that my enjoyment is not the gardens greatest offering.

“However, the greatest joy that I get from all of gardening’s hard work is when I am able to share a meal with friends and neighbors using the crops from my garden.”

While gardening can be a solitary endeavor, it also brings a wonderful opportunity to commune with others. This can look very different from person to person. Some just take the vegetables and say "Thank you." Others receive them and offer some of the food that they make in return (bonus!). However, the greatest joy that I get from all of gardening’s hard work is when I am able to share a meal with friends and neighbors using the crops from my garden. Sitting around the table, communing, thanking God for his bounty and enjoying together His gift of gardening.

 

I could write much more about worshiping through the art of gardening, which shows me that as I garden God is at work in my heart, drawing me toward himself and desiring to make me more like Jesus. As I continue to learn and grow in the art of gardening, I pray I may become even more aware of God's patient love and leading in my life, constantly pointing me to the greatest love of all… God Himself.

** Chris is husband to DeeDee and father to Jude (10 mo). The Adams host the Eastside City Group in there home every week and throw killer 4th of July parties. When Chis isn't busy doing all of that he works as a web developer.

 

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Domestic Arts :: "A Baker's Delight" by Rachel Brooks

Posted by Miranda [1]

 

"…remember that He who created you to be creative gave you the things with which to make beauty and gave you sensitivity to appreciate and respond to His creation. Creativity is His gift to you and the ‘raw materials’ to be put together in various ways are His gift to you as well.” --Edith Schaefer.

 

Baking Creatively

 

How cool is it that God can take a weeping willow tree, giant burning star millions of miles away, rolling green hills, the most marvelous shades of blushing reds, violets and blues, a wispy breeze, and order them ever so perfectly to create the most wonderful sunset you have ever seen? By God's grace He does this day in and day out around the world, all to proclaim His glory. It is simply astonishing. 

 

When I switch on my mixer, I find myself thinking of God proclaiming his glory through my creative hands and with His ingredients to bring about something truly delightful… COOKIES! By combining a pinch of salt, couple eggs, flour, sugar, etc. with the right technique, all in the right order I can create something delectably divine! This, I realize, is exactly what I was made to do, not specifically bake cookies…but to reflect my Creator through baking cookies.  


Baking Imperfectly

Rachel Brooks - cookies In the process of baking cookies, it’s not perfection that I seek (I am extremely aware I fall completely short of that). Cookies will burn, look odd, or I will simply forget to add an entire ingredient because I got too wrapped up in a phone conversation (Now I almost never take calls while my mixer is going). Yes, I may get bummed a bit, but perfection is not the point.

Failure actually reminds me that I cannot rest on my ability to bake alone. My ability alone will always fail me, but I can rely on God's grace by finding my identity and worth in Him through Christ’s work at the cross. This frees me to be more adventurous as I bake, more creative, and more at ease. Because my identity rests in Christ, I am not confined to the title “baker”, but able to cling to my identity as a child of God. This is a zillion times better than any compliment or label someone would tag onto my name.

 

 

Baking for His Glory

I love the verse our pastor, Jonathan Dodson, used in the latest sermon on work: Colossians 3:23 "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men". 

 

 

As Edith Schaefer puts it above, "Creativity is His gift to you and the 'raw materials' to be put together in various ways are His gift to you as well," then God has certainly blessed me with edible raw materials and the gift to bake… which miraculously mix together to form a mouth-watering treat! What a wonderful gift to have! It is my job and JOY to "work heartily", baking away, to glorify Him with what I have been given. 

 

**Rachel is wife to taylor and serves on the hospitality team at ACL. When she is not busy doing that she is baking cookies professionally and shipping them across the country. You can check our her cookies at her ETSY shop Cookie Crowd.

 

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Domestic Arts :: Worshipping God in the Everyday

Posted by Miranda [0]

 

"Worship is a continuously outpouring of who we are in mind, heart & body to what we desire most; everybody worships something (Rom 12:1-2).” – Harold Best, Unceasing Worship 

 

We all are continuously worshipping something. God created us to worship him, but we often exchange him for lesser gods, reversing the divine order of things. To put it another way, we all exist for our highest love. Saint Augustine points out that often we disorder our loves, making ordinary things ultimate things. The gospel enables us to reorder our affection and lives around the highest Love—God himself. This all sounds very nice, but how do we exist with love for God in the mundane of life?

The gospel enables us to reorder our affection and lives around the highest Love—God himself. 

How can we love God when we work or when we rest? What about when something awesome like family takes the place of God as our highest love? In our recent sermon series, EXIST, our pastors sought to practically guide us in existing for God in everyday relationships, rhythms and with our resources. What would it look like for us to exist with ordered love, not only in the mundane but also in the creative spheres of life?

 

The Arts Collective began to ponder what continuous worship looks like a variety of arts. In particular, we focused in on the “domestic arts”, arts that are often considered everyday and may not be “fine” but are certainly creative!

Over this week we will hear from four of our very own domestic artists through in a blog series called “Domestic Arts: Worshiping God in the Everyday.” We hope you will follow us, reflect, comment, even tweet, but most of all, be inspired to worship your highest Love.

 

(Click on the title to read posts)

Tuesday: Tim Gillen “God and the Unaware Diner”

Wednesday: Rachel Brooks “A Bakers Delight”

Thursday: Chris Adams “Working in the Garden”

Friday: Robie Dodson “Sewing is not a Soliloquy” 

**Special thanks to Jonathan Dodson for his editing contributions

 

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Advent Photography | LOVE, HOPE, JOY, PEACE

Posted by djohannes [0]

The Arts Collective invites you to join in celebrating the Advent season through photography! Advent means “anticipation” or “expecting” – Traditionally the Advent season is organized to heighten the anticipation both of Christ’s human birth as well as his coming again to renew all things. Every Sunday leading up to Christmas celebrates one theme of the coming of the Messiah: Love, Hope, Peace & Joy.

Using these 4 themes as inspiration about a dozen people in our community submitted photographs that inspired the worship of God and heightened the anticipation the coming of the Messiah. Some interpreted the themes literally, others more artistically... here are a few of our photographs:

LOVE:

Logan Pearce

"Love on a Charleston Beach"

"I love the beach.  I find the ocean exciting, and also peaceful.  I am so and cherish him more.  Being confronted with the ocean makes me consider God, and his love in his creation, and how he made beautiful things, just for us to experience and appreciate. This heart was scratched into the sand in Charleston, South Carolina in 2009."

Jessica Souza

"Mexico"

The one with the rainbow is from Mexico in 2006. The orphanage I used to visit (and was supposed to live on in 08, but couldn't b/c of the drug wars that were just beginning back then) had these steps w/a painted rainbow on them. The boy in blue was a "brand new orphan" who had just been dropped off and abandoned right before our church group arrived. He was extremely sad and quiet and never said a word to anyone. This other little boy, also an orphan there,went over to him to comfort him as he was sitting there alone at the end of that rainbow. I wanted to capture and remember that moment...I absolutely love this photo. 

HOPE:

Matt Brinkley

"Soil"

And out of the soil others will spring - Job 8:19

Andrew Prewitt

"Hope"

JOY:

Kendi Sparks

"Floating Smiles"

This photo, taken in the southern part of Bogota, Colombia, is in the middle of a community that lives a very simple lifestyle. Their homes, made of crude brick and stucco, seemingly crawl over the steep mountainous landscape. Most of them attend the local school at the foot of the mountain and make the 15 minute hike back up the steep incline daily while their parents are still working. We took the opportunity to have some activites to interact with the children following their school day. As you can see, the bubbles were a  hit. The true joy though was being able to be apart of that smile and watch the kids interact as a community when often times it is too dangerous for them to be out alone.

Robie Dodson

"Nuggets & Chocolate Milk"

PEACE:

Jonathan Dodson

"peace"

Miranda Dodson

"small town texas layered in dirty windshield"

"When I stop to see the beauty in the details of life... that is often when life makes the most sense"

Luke Dodson

‘rest in peace’

On a stretch of 183 just south of Zypher, TX rests three rusted out American icons from the 1950’s. Although I was probably trespassing there was a peaceful-ness as I climbed through the barbed wire fence and listened to the wind gently breezing through the broken windows and around rusted springs. Why did some one keep them? Did these cars once bring them great joy? Do they hope to get them running again? Or was it for love?

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Reflections from E.A.S.T

Posted by djohannes [0]

This Sunday the Arts Collective hit the town to view some really great art. East Austin Studio Tour is in its 8th year and it is as big as ever!! Artist all of the city spend months gearing up for this event... and it never disappoints :) We viewed art in homes, in studios, in galleries & in exhibition spaces... literally any where you could display & sell art it was happening all over the east side. Here are a few reflections from my experience.

  • I had NO idea that Austin contained that amount of really GOOD art. --These artists are talented, dedicated & bring a quality to our city that can sometimes go unnoticed but I venture to say that if it were gone completely... everyone would notice
  • The Artist community here seems very open and helpful to patrons and fellow artists. -- I was able to volunteer for a few hours to help the tour and everyone that I met (and I met them at the 11 hour before the tour started) were kind and very helpful
  • Based on the shear amount of good art that I encountered in a few hours of enjoying the tour... it is clear to me that we need more interaction between the CIty and the Arts. E.A.S.T is doing just that and I am so happy to have gotten to be apart.

 

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Arts Collective | E.A.S.T

Posted by djohannes [0]

Sunday, Nov. 14th after the Sunday gathering, the Arts Collective will be heading over to Wahoo's Fish Tacos for lunch then over to the East Austin Studio Tour. 

E.A.S.T is in its 9th year and is truly one of the unique arts experiences in Austin. 
 
For more info check them out:

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Why Art Should Matter... to Christians

Posted by djohannes [0]

Check out this article from relevant magazine on Why Art Should Matter to Christians. Really good stuff.

Let us know your thoughts!

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"For The Beauty Of The Church" | Book Signing w/ David Taylor

Posted by djohannes [0]

Arts Pastor David Taylor has a new book out called "For the Beauty of the Church: Casting a Vision for the Arts". It is a collection of essays written by experts in the fields related to the Arts in the church. David also contributes to the content detailing some of the things that he learned while serving as Arts Pastor at local congregation Hope Chapel. This Saturday, June 12th @7PM there will be a book signing hosted at Hope Chapel to celebrate "For the Beauty of the Church". Here are some of the details:

David will be asked a few questions about the authors of the book, the process of editing it, and the responses received so far to it (which include reviews in Christianity Today, First Things, and The Christian Century). Other questions that might be explored are:

- How should churches use the arts well?
- How can churches and pastors respond to artists well?
- How should Christians conceive their role in creating art in the marketplace?
- What can artists teach churches and their pastors?

The evening will also include:

1. Some of the visual art that was featured in the book.
2. A musical performance by professional musicians Ellen Johnson (flute), Karla Hamelin (cello) and Kim Perlak (classical guitar).
3. Possibly a modern dance piece.
4. A reception at the end of the evening, courtesy of gourmand Randy Lewis

We will be there... and we highly encourage you to be there as well, it will be a great night!

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Veritas Fashion | Collective | Project

Posted by djohannes [0]

Veritas Fashion is more than a brand of really cool clothing, it is a network of hope. Using art, fashion and networking to make this world a little better. Founder and CEO of Veritas Fashion is Ty Clark, who is also the artist also known as SAMO4PREZ and designs all of Veritas Fashion. Ty’s network of friends involved in art, film, music, literature, fashion, dance, sports and humanitarian work stretches across the globe. His vision is to pull them all together through a specific medium in order to combine efforts and creativity to help those in need. Using skills and knowledge of the retail industry he learned in five years of working for Quiksilver, the world’s leading actions sports retail company, he began to map out a vision that could utilize his passions, creative gifts, and his network of friends through a fashion brand. In 2007, years of ideas finally came together to create Veritas.

I love Ty & his wife Mande for many reasons, but the reason that I am letting you know about them is because, they felt God's leading them to a vision that is unlike any they had ever seen or heard of before, and they stepped out in faith and began to create & network with excellence. The art and fashion that they make is excellent, they work hard and walk in faith everyday.

Check out Veritas HERE. Buy a wicked cool shirt...attend one of their events. Spread the WORD!

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