A Way For Artists to Encourage and Reach Out to Multicultural (or other) Children & Their Families
Idea / Sample Intro Letter / Preparing for Your First Lesson
Some of you with artistic gifts are interested in using these gifts and other gifts you have to reach out to those around you, whether that is to families of various cultural backgrounds or others who are artistically gifted. Or perhaps you have artistically-gifted people in your congregations that need some encouragement.
One possible opportunity to consider, to either:
+ encourage local multicultural (or other) children/teens (especially budding
artists), etc. in your congregation,
or
+ to encourage and reach out to local multicultural children (or others) in
your neighbourhoods, might be to prayerfully consider using your artistic
gifts (or encouraging artistically-gifted people in your congregation to use
their artistic gifts) to begin to develop relationships with local multicultural
children with the hope of being able to encourage them - in their gifts, as
people, and hopefully also with the love of God as you/they have opportunities
to share His life and Gospel with them through developing relationships.
One way this could be done might be to put together a few simple lessons to help you teach your particular artistic skill, which you could pass on to them in your home or in one or more of your potential 'students' homes in an informal, relational time.
With the summer now upon us, this is something that could also be done in your back yard with a handful of children, or in local parks, etc. You would likely also wish to share some refreshments with them. What a great way to draw interested parties in....perhaps bring a few extra art supplies so others can join in if they see what's going on and their interest is piqued!
It could also be a good time for their parents to come and visit/experiencing Christian love or learn the art as well, and you could have other families and other Christian adults or children around to also pray, interact, and develop relationships with these children and families/friends, which could potentially develop further into ways to minister to not only each child that is taking art lessons, but to and through their families.
Once the initial FREE lessons would be over, you could pray about whether to follow up with them with further art lessons if they're interested, and if so, you could continue to do it as a free service of love if that is what God puts on your heart, or perhaps begin to charge them an appropriate fee for future lessons.
What a wonderful opportunity to not only impart your artistic skills and help to encourage and develop those that come as God's artists for His own purposes, but what a way to potentially become a mentor to them spiritually and in other aspects of their lives, as well, much as is exemplified in artists who mentor younger artists in other cultures such as in India, where far more than the artistic skills are being imparted and learned. It is more of a holistic style of training.
If you or your students begin to develop art works that could potentially be marketable, I would be happy to consider assisting in marketing those options with you/them in the future as able, as I am connected to various avenues in which that could be done, locally and internationally.
Personally, I am hoping to begin my first 'art lessons' in about a week with some children of some dear friends who, for some time, have been expressing interest in learning one of my art forms. I have put together some lessons to help get us started and we'll take it from there. I am including, in the intro, some initial thoughts which could perhaps be re-worked for your particular group (see sample below - you would need to make it age-appropriate as well). This has been on my heart for a long time so I am very excited about it and look forward to seeing what God has in mind with this!
SAMPLE Intro Letter:
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Dear _____;
Well, now that school is almost over, I thought I would send you a quick email to help us plan a time to get together for our 'Plasticine for God's Glory' modelling clay class where we all have fun and see what God helps us to come up with!
All of you are artistically gifted and it is so encouraging that God created all of you/us with those gifts because He wanted you/us to have those gifts!
God is an Artist and He has blessed mankind greatly with His art, and He wants to work in and through the artistic gifts He's given you to help you to express to Him your love for Him in the things He enables you to create - whether that's through this art form or other art forms you enjoy, and to help you to express Him and His glory and beauty to others through the things He enables you to create. That may be through nature scenes or through all kinds of other things. It's a blessing to know that God can even use plasticine to bless others!! (Like the Bible says, God loves to use the 'foolish things'. : ).
A good thing to ask when you create art is: would Jesus be honored in what I'm portraying or trying to communicate? Do I think He would like it? Would it bless or encourage someone else? Is what I'm creating communicating truth? Is it something of beauty?
Anyway, I thought I would try to find out from you guys what a good date/time might be for you to come over so we can work on this here...if it's a nice day, maybe we can do it outside...if not, then maybe we can do it inside...maybe you kids can sit on a blanket on the floor while us less mobile folks can sit on the couches, etc.?
How does July _ or July _ sound? Maybe about 10:30 - 12:00 a.m.?
Not long after that we could have a follow-up time and maybe you could bring some of your new plasticine art works so I could take pictures of them and I could email them to you so you could show your friends or make them into cards to give your friends, etc.
A couple things before you come:
+ I would encourage you to pray about a couple of ideas of what to make....ask
Jesus what He would like for you to make? and to give you ideas of what to
include... I have found out that He has lots of great ideas! and I think He
really likes to be part of the whole process! He can also give you ideas of
what colors to use or how to do different things...
+ etc.
It usually takes me about an hour to make a fairly basic figurine...the more complicated it gets and the more pieces it has, the longer it takes...I think the longest one that I've done so far has taken almost 4 hours.
Remember that what you make does not have to be done according to scale - and you are, of course, allowed 'artistic license' - such as when I tend to make my people larger than a house or car or airplane beside them...
I'm looking forward to this time together creating things with you and to seeing what we come up with! :) Maybe we can teach each other some tricks and who knows what will develop???
Anyway, I'm sure it will be fun!!! :)
Looking forward to hearing from you about this :)
The Plasticine Lady :)
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PREPARING FOR YOUR FIRST LESSON
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
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+
THINKING ABOUT WHAT TO MAKE:
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+ when you plan what to make, think about spacing, colors, sizes, etc.
+ What do you want to have as the focus of your figurine? Do you want it to
be one or more objects and if more than one object what is your focus? Is
it to be a theme or an object?
+ Think through which pieces should be set where on the CD
+ Are you trying to make something funny? Serious? Happy? Sad? Are you trying
to make a statement about social injustice, etc.? Are you trying to communicate
emotions like love? Care?, etc.?
+ Do you want the figurine to be a part of a whole series of figurines to
create a whole story? Or do you want it to say everything you want it to say
as one figurine?
+ Who are you making it for?
+ Why are you making this particular figurine? If its for a particular person,
what special things could I add to it which I know would make it especially
meaningful for them?
+ Don't be afraid to experiment
+ etc.
GETTING READY TO CREATE:
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CLEAN UP:
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FUTURE CARE OF YOUR FIGURINES:
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WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH YOUR FIGURINES?
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Great Commission Worship & Arts Center