Women : Faith {about the series}

A bit of history
I started this blog as a way to quickly get some of my work up. While my hope is that it will be motivation to keep painting — to share my recent work with others — I wanted to start with this. Women : Faith. Although I have been drawing and painting — whether fashion drawings as a teen or commissioned artwork later on — for as long as I can remember, this was my first big series. I wanted to try something new — something different than the detailed pen & ink drawings and the little gouache or watercolor illustrations I was used to. I set out with an ambitious goal — to create 10 paintings in 2 months while I was pregnant and working full time. It was a miracle I got it done! This was a new thing — canvases and acrylics. I had only messed around with these a bit in college. What follows is my statement from the art show opening. Five from the series sold. In 2007, I completed two commissioned pieces, “Rise Up” and “I Will Stay,” both a continuation of the series for two women who found Biblical stories they related to and wanted to see them portrayed with life and color to hang in their own homes. This is only the beginning. Thoughts for a new series are floating around in my head. Scribbled on little pieces of paper — waiting for their strokes to fill empty canvases. Soon.

Women : Faith {about the series}
Up until April, 2005 I had been volunteering at New Horizons Ministries. The last two of my six years working with street youth were spent with a team of women doing outreach to young women involved in prostitution on Seattle’s streets.

It was a privilege to spend time with these women—talking into the late hours on Friday nights. Stories of pain and growth. Making it through. Overcoming. Their beauty, intelligence and wit. Learning from our relationships. As I saw their faith, and how the account of the woman bleeding for twelve years ("I Will Be Healed," Mark 5:25–34) impacted one young woman, I began to realize the power of these Biblical women’s stories for our lives today. I wanted to make them come alive. To give colors and textures to the words on the pages. I wanted to understand them in a new way — both for myself and for the women I knew.

I see these paintings as a culmination of my Friday nights on the streets. I am thankful that during the brief time I spent with these women I witnessed just a portion of what is still to come — reaching out to God and seeing the power of faith change situations.