Worship Painting at Karitos 2013 in Chicago

"Living Stones"

Mixed Media with Illumination on Wood

18"x18"

$450.00

"Living Stones" was painted Friday night, July 12, 2013 at the Karitos Conference.  In praying about the conference I kept getting the words "living stones",  so I used part of 1 Peter 2:5 in the illluminated page which I painted and gilded with 23K gold before I left Charleston. When I woke up Friday morning, it occurred to me that I needed to put some dirt from the Wheaton Academy campus in the painting (I frequently put matter in my mixed media work these days - it's great texture and there's something symbolic about it also).  I also glued some rice paper onto the foundation before I started painting.

Being part of Karitos 2013 was really exciting, with a few challenges thrown in - what do I take (the clothes were easy...) and how best to transport my art supplies - I ended up using my Pissaro Artist Portfolio which I checked on my Southeast flight - it was perfect because it handles up to a full sheet of watercolor paper and has room for supplies.  When I found out that Southeast Airlines allowed 2 free checked baggage, I threw my French easel (which is like an old friend - I even painted on the Southern Steps of the Temple in Jerusalem with it...) in a suitcase! And then just carried my laptop since I was using powerpoint presentations with my introductory lectures.

I painted at the plenary sessions Friday and Saturday night and taught 3 classes in the visual arts track.  One class was 70 minutes long, and the other two classes were 140 minutes so that the participants would have enough time to paint.  All my classes were set up in the art classroom so it was great to kind of "camp out" there, keeping my easel and supplies there until it was time to paint at the evening sessions.  I was also able to attend 2 excellent classes, one with author John Desjarlais and a double (140 minutes) class with artist/calligrapher Timothy Botts (who had painted a fabulous word picture at Thursday evening's open session).  

The people at the conference were wonderful.  And the offerings were so varied and excellent!  The different tracks were visual arts, dance and movement, literary, film, worship/vocal, theatre and signing.There was another "Mimi" there - the actress Mimi Sagadin and we had a surprise invitation to stay late Thursday evening and view a new award-winning movie "Return to the Hiding Place" in which Actress Mimi played Corrie Ten Boom!  It tells the "Hiding Place" story from the point of view of the youth that were part of the same efforts with Corrie Ten Boom to help the Jews escape from the Nazis.  What a highlight of the conference - and then to find out that it was at this same Karitos Conference several years ago that Mimi was encouraged to pursue an acting career...

Many thanks to the Visual Arts Coordinator, our own Alex Radin of Artist on Fire, for inviting me to be part of this incredible gathering!