HopeArts

 Arts Ministry Weekly Update

Big news this week: firstly, Saturday 01-19, Hope Chapel moves back into its building. Loads of hands are needed for that chore, especially in the morning time. After several long years we will now have our building back entirely, and this means some changes for the upcoming semester as well.

Starting Wednesday 01-23 the regular Wednesday Family Night resumes, and the Arts Hope Group will begin having access to the coffee shop / auxiliary gallery space for meetings. Since the 23rd is a scheduled “open creating time” we will meet in the coffee shop for those wanting to be around others and create/write/discuss.


In general, the Arts Hope Group follows the Hope Group Schedule on Hope.Org and regular Family Night meeting times. We will meet every Wednesday from now on, with actual group meetings and discussions on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays, as we had been doing in the past at Liz Morgan’s house. We will continue to reserve the 2nd, 4th, 5th Wednesdays of the month for open creating time, and when the studio is completed (a task still not begun) the studio arts group will be able to fully utilize that space on those 2nd, 4th, 5th Wednesdays while non-studio artists (like the writers) can utilize the coffee shop / auxiliary gallery for open creative time.

Work on the studio will begin roughly in early February, and we will update you as things progress on that front, but that project too rests entirely on the efforts of those volunteering their time and elbow grease, much as the work on the building and the move-in did.

Beginning Wednesday 01-23 HopeArts is starting a “52 Project” — every week artists of all mediums are encouraged to produce some new piece of art, or choose from that weeks worth of production one piece, and share the work to the HopeArts Realm Group. This project will feed into upcoming goings on, to be sure, so keep up the effort. There really are no parameters or themes to follow, except those that make 52 weekly projects sustainable to you.

Lastly, for this week’s update at least, we will soon be making an open call for art for the themed gallery show “Gates & Fences”. Follow the HopeArts Blog posts on Realm, Hope.Org, and HopeArts.org for entry forms and updates on this and other opportunities. And be sure to check out and chime in on the latest HopeArts Art Topic of the day.

Remember, our very own Ashley Littlefield heads up our Instagram and Social Media presences, so be sure to pop into those places for more from current and past HopeArts goings on.

This particular gallery exhibit is a joint partnership between Hope Homes Foster/Adopt Ministry, and Hope Chapel’s Art Ministry, displaying Partnership for Children’s “Heart Gallery” Project.

Exhibit Reception is Saturday, December 8th, from 7-9 P.M., with food, musical performance, storytelling and spoken word.

The show hangs in the gallery through New Years, and is viewable anytime the church is open (call office for more times).

Taken from the Heart Gallery website: “The Heart Gallery of Central Texas is an art exhibit and community education/outreach initiative featuring children who are waiting for adoption. We work to find forever families for children through direct recruitment opportunities and education of foster and adoptive families.  At the core of this outreach is simply a picture. But there is nothing simple about it; our volunteer photographers truly capture a child’s spirit in every shot. These pictures speak louder than words, they say, “I’m here and I am special.”“

Hanging this show in our gallery is more than just offering wallspace to a really good cause. The viewer, at the reception, encounters an experience of profound and deep connection:

We are all adopted by God, “adopted” children and co-heirs with Christ; all of us “orphaned” in some ways, but as Christ promised, not ”left as orphans in this world”; we all have the experience of choosing those who are not our own, and may or may not receive us back; all have experience rescuing the abandoned or of being abandoned ourselves; being lonely yet put into families, and welcoming into our families the lonely; all just as God does with us with His incomparable Father’s Heart.

Echoes of this connection reverberate and deepen as we engage our spirituality corporately worshipping amidst the very efforts to place the lonely in earthly families, to defend the helpless, to provide for the needy, to welcome the little children as our Savior did. Viewing the exhibit we realize we stand together amid the very heart of God for the restoration of all persons within His design for creation  (spiritually and practically).

And, hopefully, we are quickened.

The bi-monthly 1st & 3rd Weeks Arts Hope Group will INFORMALLY meet at Genuine Joe’s Coffee Shop for December. Same time as regularly scheduled, but without childcare provided.

December 8th is a new Gallery Reception at Hope Chapel’s Gallery Space, from 7-9 PM. You can find details on Hope.Orgcalendar, and likewise on HopeArts.Org.

Today’s writing prompt(s) <answer in a reply comment, or on Realm Arts Group in the comment section> : does Art speak beyond languages only to artists, or even to non-artists? Can those who don’t understand art (ie non-artists) still profit from Art?

In our last Art Topic we broached the question of the relationship between Art and Worship, and whether art alone led to worship, or if worship could lead to art, and just what if anything could be meant by “art-ing” (or, “art-ifying”).

We are told to submit our bodies as living sacrifices, which is our holy and pleasing form of worship. No where are we told in scripture to “make art,” and scripture only seems to discuss artisans and craftsman  in the fashioning of the ark of the covenant or the temple (but not as in any other role within temple worship). This assumes artisans and craftsmen had places within the community, and that such places were assumed natural.

But here is a question: the artisans and craftsmen were given a mandate in the fashioning and building of the temple, yet the new temple is the Body of Christ, what is the mandate for artists today in fashioning and building the new Temple?

What art leads one to worship God? What subject matter? In what manner do we, through “art-ing” make art in a way which is holy and pleasing “art-ing”?  What does “art-ing” in general look like — does it go beyond making a piece of art in a certain way, and found manifestation even in how live our lives and perform our tasks? If so, a Christian aesthetic comes into play, right, an aesthetic which is applied not to a piece of art but to how an artist lives their lives and performs their tasks? What “materials” are used in “art-ing” in life? Faith? Fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, not keeping records of wrongs or coveting but trusting and believing)?