I was at my chiropractor’s office, waiting, which doesn’t happen often. I noticed the carpet, picked up my cell phone camera and took a picture of it. I liked the colors and the texture. With my graphic app I drew a circle that echoed the green in the carpet. I applied a border in the same color. The yellow of the carpet became other graphic program brush stokes, and I added text without much thought but with great satisfaction. At home I was greeted by my extrovert son who alerted me to a Susan Cain Ted Talk on her work with the world of introverts, which my son knows I am. I immediately bought her book “Quiet” remembering the satisfaction of the graphic composition and its word “quiet”. It proved a life giving connection. I hope someday she reads and sees my little story because her book has given me many moments of joyous insight as I skipped around the book finding and honoring my life story.

Part of the series, Exile and Healing. Last one…maybe. :0)

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Feel free to ask if you would like more information about the series.

More of us should try it.  If you wish to use this, let the artist know:ME. :0)

I think what inspired this piece is the cold-hot-cold pattern the weather has been offering me this first half of the year to date. I’m ready for a normal spring where I don’t have to decide which set of clothes to wash in preparation for the week.

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I am an artist. Please ask permission if you wish to use the graphic.

Contingency - A provision for an event or circumstance that is possible but can not be predicted with certainty.

I came across this idea in my reading. I was puzzled how to connect this word with my faith as the writer had done with his. Later I was going through some of my stored images, and felt attracted to one that had felt unfinished. I added strong blue lines over the angel form and background and concluded it was complete. I thought to myself, this is The Contingency Angel, ready for all that is possible but not predictable in our lives. God communicates with us in all our circumstances, amid all the surrounding events. We connect to the angels among us by keeping our eyes and ears open to knowing, wherever and however it comes.

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This is the work of an artist.  I’m happy to share so please ask me. :0)

I pray, but with  this disclaimer — prayer as discipline is my nemesis. I am more likely to slip into a discussion with God unannounced, attracted by the distraction of the moment. A beautiful sunset. A person in need. My own need. So I’m always looking for something to attract me to a disciplined prayer life, and I am prone to thinking I have found the book, the retreat, the method, the source that will discipline me. With this need to be good at prayer in mind, I bought the book by Christine Valters Paintner, LECTIO DEVINA, THE SACRED ART: Transforming words and images into heart centered prayer. Christine hosts a site called Abbey of the Arts, which has been important to my visual art exploration.
I got the book and made it all the way to page 41, “Creating an Opening Gesture and Ritual”. What she wrote in that section inspired my visual skills and I stopped to create the series of prayer images below. I spent quite a long time working on them, centering and adding borders, making changes in the figures, and adding text that draws on Christine’s words. I got busy printing off a set and in other ways exploring this way of getting into disciplined prayer.
I am using them daily…well almost daily. I’m not sure when I will get beyond page 42. For now I’m remembering these images and being attracted to prayer as I remember them. It’s enough discipline for now. Use them as you find valuable. Let the prayer discipline spread!

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The images above are ones I created.  If you want to use then please contact me.  They are free but it is an encouragement to know someone cares.  The words with the images are from the work of Christine Valters Paintner in her book as mentioned above.  Her website is Abbey of the Arts.

“But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.”

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The images above are original designs.  Please contact me for permission if you would like to use them. Thanks. Kathy (KCB)

I Corinthians 13:12 (KJ)

We look through many windows and see reflections in many mirrors, and what we see is dimmed by looking at and through variations in our personal story, our history and our culture. The humanity of Jesus, God incarnate in a human person with a human story, gives us the sense that one day we will see God, ourselves, and others fully and understand all things clearly. Until that day the only truth we can count on is what is illuminated by faith, hope, and love. 

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The art is my work. Please ask before you share. Thanks.

I was working on personal issues of health and healing as I developed this image. It draws on the song that begins “Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place”. Embedded in and enfolded by the large red cross is a personal image, a kind of stick figure of my own vulnerability, which I had come to understand as a self portrait. This figure appears in other ways in pieces from this period of my work. This work expresses the comfort of a personal faith in Jesus.

This image began as a rough cross form which expressed the pain and suffering of Jesus. The color of the cross changed in my work from brown to red changing from rough wood to personal sacrifice and personally embodied power. The colors became the colors of Easter morning. The window is a fixed point through which we see both the Good Friday event and the cross traveling through the ages. The lines were added last recognizing dynamic movement.