Linking All Creation

I laid out a kleenex in front of the art student. She looked dubious.
"See all the shadows and highlights? See the lines the folds create? Drawing tissues is much harder than you might think."
And perhaps more boring....She didn't say that, but I suspect she was thinking that. She is one of my new students and so far this new semester, I have taught only necessary but unexciting techniques like grids and pencil grips for varying types of shading. And now this, drawing a tissue. She was likely wondering why her mom heard this was a fun class, a fun art teacher.

I remember in art school, the same teacher who made us spend weeks drawing a broccoli floret also had us draw a crinkled piece of saran wrap. It is amazing what you can learn by trying to draw saran wrap. One of the biggest lessons is that there is beauty lurking in everything. You sometimes have to practice finding it, but it is there. It is one of my favorite reasons for living- finding treasures that most people don't notice. Hearing the message that often goes unheard. Linking all creation back to the Creator.

"Technically, God didn't make saran wrap," my little angel on my shoulder reminded me," I'm not so sure you can make glowing messages about the Creator from a wad of tissue either."
I brushed the aggravating voice aside, "You don't know your Bible then...the Creator spreads out the earth with ALL that springs from it."

Isaiah 42: 5-8
This is what God the Lord says—
the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out,
who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it,
who gives breath to its people,
and life to those who walk on it: "I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind,
to free captives from prison
and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. "I am the Lord; that is my name!
I will not yield my glory to another
or my praise to idols.


-Everything is possible with God