This merger isn’t because I’m not still crafting or anything like that, it is because I have four active personal blogs and two active work related blogs and am having a difficult time maintaining them all with any regularity at the busiest time of my year.

Please also visit one of my other sites:

The Mental Scrapbook

The Shepherdess Writes

Sometime back, I assisted with a retreat focused on different kinds of prayer. My portion was to cover art, craft and spirituality; the idea that there is prayer in the act of creating something. . I crammed a whole lot of craftyness into a brief period of time for the retreatants but they seemed to love it! Some of the ladies from my congregation were at this retreat and when we returned home, they wanted to do this again. I tried several different titles, one of which was just Art, Craft, Spirituality. But frankly that’s pretty awkward to say! One of the members came up with the idea Crafty Pastor and it has stuck.

So each week during the summer months we have Crafty Pastor night at the church. We ask that people bring about $5 to cover the cost of supplies and I bring all of the crafty stuff I have from home, including papers, paints, pens, brushes, scissors of different kinds, stickers, ribbons, beading and jewelery making supplies, clay, ornaments and decorations of all kinds shapes and sizes.  We’ve done such things as creating a set of prayer beads with polymer clay and other items, prayer boxes intended to be given away to either people you know or total strangers, collages based on scripture or hymns or words that have particular significance to your faith life, painting wooden or ceramic crosses, and other such things.

Last year I convinced a member of the congregation who is a retired art professor from the local college to teach two classes. The first–calligraphy–was perhaps the most popular of all. It wasn’t just how to write pretty letters, though, it was also about the art of writing and the artfulness of words. The second–watercolor–was a very basic introduction to watercolors. We used an image of an icon of St Michael transferred to watercolor paper. While certainly not a class in iconography, it was still a really great experience to paint this image in watercolor.

This year our summer Project Connect intern taught about labyrinths and we made personal labyrinths out of fabric, paint and assorted other things. I’m hoping to continue with this project next year, but continue to add different things as I come up with the ideas and as I run into people who have gifts for this sort of thing!

These are some images from different Crafty Pastors. It may take a moment to load, but they are lovely.

 Adults forget to play and since there is a time to play and a time to not play, I think we sometimes end up ‘playing’ when it might be best if we didn’t. So taking intentional time to play, be creative, remove some of the typical qualifications for “perfect” from our lives for just a bit within this context can be a really great thing. For the Christian, the creative act is an offering to God just as the excercise of any of the gifts given to us by God are an offering. Musicians and vocalists who create music in our worship are doing so both as a frame and guide for the gathered assembly to worship and as an offering of the gifts given them by God. They are not somehow outside of worship (or shouldn’t be anyway) providing a performance or liturgical frame for the rest of us. Most church musicians will say that participating in music is a part of how they worship God. This is similar to what I’m aiming to give here. It is not really feasible (or appropriate) to put Crafty Pastor activities into a Sunday Worship setting, but we worship, communicate and relate with God outside of Sunday worship, too. Crafty Pastor seeks to be intentional time, space and supplies for that offering… that spiritual discipline… that time in prayer with God. Ultimately, it is also my hope that those who participate in Crafty Pastor will begin to see the ways in which God is present, active and engaging them in their lives and have that ability to see this grow until it fills every thing they do.

The assignment was to select a word, phrase, concept, part of a hymn or piece of scripture that you are drawn to and create a collage piece of that selection. The goal was to focus the mind, heart and spirit into a creation that expressed your selection. Collage is freeing because you are not obligated to be a superior painter or sculptor, nor do you have to have fine drawing or photography skills. You get to ‘borrow’ those from others and incorporate them into a unique composition.

yearofkindness

Really interesting! I believe she’s come to the end of the 100 days, but it’s still worth looking at and getting inspiration.

I am still making my prayer boxes, post-its and other such things but have chosen not to blog about them for a while for a whole plethora of reasons, mostly related to not wanting people to hunt for them but for whoever comes along to happen upon them. I may, however, do a  little round up of some thing just to show them.

Today is Crafty Pastor and we’re working on prayer boxes. It’s sometimes hard to get the concept across and I’m hoping I’ll have a little better luck this year.

Since it is the day for Steampunkyness and since I have two steampunk books to reveiw….and since I often have steampunk stuff on this blog, I though it was an opportune moment to post the reviews.

First, there is the Steampunk Bible, Jeff Vandermeer and S. J. Chambers.

Dieselpunk is ”a heresy in which diesel fuel and nuclear power replace steam power in alternate histories that often have a political component” (pg 54).

“Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories”

This is a collection of short stories that spans the gamut of steampunk lit. It definitely pushes some boundaries and some would not fall neatly or squarely into a particular category (or sub-subgenre   ).  There are witches, child murderers and orphans, visions and fanatics, ghosts and frankenstine creations. There’s a sort of cop noir story from Ysabeau Wilce that had a pretty vivid and curious twist half way through and left me wondering what would happen in the ‘next episode’. An allegorical graphic novela by Shawn Cheng about the seven deadly sins is in there, one of two graphic stories, and I quite enjoyed it. But I have to say that the Libba Bray story is worth twice the price of admission! It was an adventure and delight!

The stole was made from a pattern I created a couple of years ago. A friend of mine who is a pastor in Texas asked if I could make him a camouflage stole. He had been invited to bless the hunt and this was not some sort of formal horse-and-dog kind of hunt involving small furry animals. This was deer season. So, I designed the pattern and made a really awesome…that is, awesome if you like camo…stole. Even had safety orange crosses on the bottom.

Now, I am no fan of ‘novelty’ liturgical wear and this is certainly NOT something my friend would ever wear in a regular Sunday worship. However, for one special outdoor blessing service a year, it would be just fine.

At any rate, that was the generation of the pattern. It’s actually quite simple. It is two long rectangles joined at one end in a mitered right angle. This works particularly well with a wide stole or one for a tall person. When I re-sized it for myself for an Advent blue stole, I narrowed it and lessened the angle a bit so it would hang properly. However, since my bishop is well over six feet tall, the original pattern worked just fine.

It was constructed out of 100% cotton twill with a medium weight fusible interfacing. Also, white embroidery thread for stitching down the edges for a little nice non-floursh-y finish.

The paint is actually a fabric paint designed for screen printing. I did not choose it but it was an excellent pick! The colors are greens and golds so that the stole is suitable for wearing during the greatest portion of the year.

It worked marvelously! Throughout the days of assembly, people came and put their thumbprints all over it! I also got some great pictures of people’s hands while they did it, too.

Someone marked the ends and point of the stole with little gold crosses. I didn’t see who did it but I think it really added a little special touch to it.

It came out far more beautifully that I could have thought it would! I am so glad I was invited to help with this project!

this photo courtesy of the NC Synod, ELCA

The working router plane is pretty darned awesome, too!

So, shower curtain. I made the curtain itself, but the hooks are just awesome!  Love Them!  They came from Lowes. They’ve got the double curtain hooks so the liner and curtain are hung separate.

I replaced the silver curtain rod with a copper one. Well, it’s not really copper, but it’s sort of a copper ish bronze ish looking rod. Regardless, it’s cool. And these really great hooks slide well on it.

The curtain itself is fabric with an antique map print on it. The lower foot or so, which is not visible in the pictures, is a solid brown. I’m pleased.

He makes clocks. But they are not ordinary clocks. They are amazing pieces of moving art!

The background of this blog is an image of one of his clocks–I’ve got it up temporarily because I think his work is so great and I’d like to draw attention to it for a little while but I won’t have it there forever, so the full image is below. I just ordered a set of the small prints of his work and can’t wait to get them.

However, as of about a week or so ago, I’ve had laryngitis and my voice has been somewhere between weak, froggy and raspy.  It was a chest cold that has now gone but I cannot seem to regain my voice.  It is very frustrating, especially going into the climax of the High Holy Season. Lots of preaching, talking and singing to do and I’m beginning to get really worried. The only solution is….. to be quiet.

And boy is that hard!

I mean, really hard!

However, there is something about being quiet that may get me over the creativity desert in which I have dwelt as of late. Spring is here and Summer is coming so time is freer and that will help to.

Also, I have another costume opportunity! This time, it is the congregational formal and the theme is the Old West.  I’m modifying the previous Steampunk Pirate outfit into something western.  Since there isn’t a lot of time, I’m not going to go too ‘steampunk’ on this one but I sure could if it wasn’t this weekend! More on that to come