"Reaching Out to a Fallen World"
18" x 24"
Soft Pastel on Pastel Board
A grieving Jesus, reached out to His children in the midst of a fallen world headed to the Lake of Fire.
"Never Give Up"
24" x 24"
Soft Pastel on Textured Matte Board
I am extremely excited to have a new direction in my life and in my art to glorify our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Christian art is something very new to me. It’s an honor to have a purpose in my life and be able to use my God-given talent for HIm. After I felt and experienced the Lord’s love and grace this summer on June 21, 2015, then two days later was baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire, as written in the Bible, and then given the gift of speaking in tongues on the third day as it was prophesized to me, He has changed my life completely. I’ve been searching for so long for evidence that He is real and I can attest that He definitely is and everything in the Bible is real. I’ve always wanted to do narrative-based work and even editorial pieces. Now, I would like to focus on narrative Bible-based work as well as capturing personal experiences with Him and prophetic art. I am also interested in doing gallery work.
Lately, I’ve been going back to traditional art. I’ve been doing digital art for a while now and I enjoy it’s versatility and minimized costs, but there’s something special about traditional work and the loose and expressive language I am able to achieve in traditional is an aspect of my art that I lose when I start to render in digital. I love using charcoal, graphite, oil and acrylic painting, but now I’ve also been experimenting with soft pastels and adding that medium into my skillset. I enjoy the vibrancy of color that I can achieve with this medium, while applying the color as if they were oil paint, or smearing for different textures and edges, while controlling the movement and adding detail like charcoal and graphite. Soft pastels are so versatile!
This particular piece, “Never Give Up” is a very special moment for me. It is one of the many highlights from my journey with Christ, so far. This is when I fell more in love and faithful with Jesus and have never cried so much out of happiness to experience and realize first hand how precious we are as His children and how much He loves us all.
The Holy Spirit led my team to Laurel Park in Nokomis where my church-home is located for Outreach. There were six of us that day. When my leader asked who in the park the Holy Spirit was leading us to, the Holy Spirit told me that we should pray for this man sitting alone by the benches under a pavilion. I knew before we had approached him that there was sadness and sorrow in his heart. We got out of the vehicle, carry a bag of groceries and introduced ourselves. What I love about my church is that we tell these people that we are not there for membership or money – just to bless and pray for them. This gentleman took the food and when we had asked him for prayer, he told us that he had a growth in his chest. Unfortunately, he was a heavy smoker, so we assumed it was probably cancer. My group laid our hands on him. I was behind, my sister Shatera was in front, and everybody else around him. We began to pray. During this time, Jesus spoke through my sister Shatera. He told her, “Tell this man that I know how tired he is, physically and emotionally, but tell him, do not ever give up on his life!” And when those words came out her mouth, the man started to weep. You know it’s from Christ when the person is touched by what is said because it is accurate and pierces the heart. I wanted to capture this moment in my art piece. What I couldn’t believe then was what he revealed to us. He revealed that he was tired of living and was going to commit suicide. That revelation touched our hearts because I know we’ve all been there and have felt hopelessness before. I can attest to that myself. I think we were all holding back the tears. We gave him a bible to read and when we left, he began reading it. A few weeks later, we came back to see him. He was a changed man. He was full of life and only the Lord can do that. He’s even visited my church a couple of times, which is very rare for those we meet during Outreach.
I wanted this piece to be monochromatic blue for the mood, but I decided to add hints of purple and orange. The blue flames on Jesus symbolize the Holy Spirit and fire. The blue is holy fire and I wanted to represent that with this specific color because blue is the hottest part of the flame. The purple represents the oppressive spirits of depression on the gentleman. Finally, the orange is to represent “life” as prayer is happening and Jesus is ministering to the man through Shatera.
Matthew 18: 20 – 20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
