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How a mural happens

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The mural process? "How did you think of it?" my friends ask. "Does it have a spiritual meaning? The vine and the branches (John 15)? The tree planted by living water (Psalm 1)?" No. Creative stuff happens in my world. Randomly. In bursts of energy, music, and/or color - which is why we have this mural. My first attempt at a project or art form will typically mean making something big or audacious ... because I don't know if I want to do it twice. What if I hate it and the process feels like drudgery rather than fun? Better to have something worth keeping (or giving away) than fooling around with little samples. I'd rather perfect a skill by tackling another project, from another angle. As you can imagine, I try a lot of big things. Have big failures and big fun, along with some keepers. For me, art is rarely planned. It happens along the way. When we rented this house (7 years ago), we noticed the gorgeous guava tree beside the porch. The bark? Heart-stoppi...
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The God beyond magic

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I’m reading the first letters and updates from the missionary movement following the Pentecostal outpouring of the early 1900s. Two things amaze me: first, the courage and conviction of the early missionaries that sends them across the world in rickety ships, on donkeys and camels, and carried over treacherous ground by native bearers. Second, the naive and uninformed decisions that lead to tragedy and harm. An appeal in the Sept 20/1913 issue of Word and Witness warns those who want to be missionaries to test their calling, not to rush out on impulse because it is a desperately hard life. The author tells those who speak in tongues that they still must learn the indigenous language because God will not magically give them understandable native speech. And the writer adds that life will be difficult beyond imagination – culture shock of foreign food, ill health, and persecution is to be expected. Only those with a sure call will survive. And many of them will die trying to tell other...
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Birds of a feather - fast fixes

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You find something that's a little off but you still like it. Can it be fixed? A big acrylic painting of three birds catches my eye in a Bali market stall. It's a stereotypical painting that is generally interesting and balanced. The vendors try to talk me into "something more expensive and worthwhile." No thanks. This is the one for me. We negotiate $10 for the 26"X36" painting. One head is disappearing into the background trees. And the central intersection of branches, tails, and beaks is visually confusing. Those are easily reworked with a handful of acrylic markers. To match the yellow added to the neck of the back bird, I paint a touch of yellow on the necks of the 2 foreground birds. Immediately the heads stand out against the background. I also reshape the black-and-white tail and the brown body of the background bird. The branches get a light coat of green to fade into the background. The subtle touches make sense of what I'm seeing. Wasn't ...
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