God's Handiwork

I painted a duck yesterday. I don't paint often. I draw, or more often, create on my iPad. But Asherel is entering the Junior Federal Duck Stamp Art contest, so in a show of solidarity, I sat with her and painted a duck. I did not want to stop. I have a lot of other obligations, and so I had to stop, but once I started painting my duck, I wanted to keep painting my duck.

In preparing Asherel for her duck painting session, I discussed the value of art. Art can and in fact, should, make the viewer see the world in a new way. If art doesn't do that, it really, in my opinion, isn't art. It might be craft, or decoration, but it isn't art. I am a bit of an art snob, loving art as I do, but it seems to me when you have the talent of a true artist (like, forgive me, Asherel does...) then you should take it to the next level...beyond pure excellence in technique and into the realm of discovery and even revelation.

I know. She is just painting a duck. Can a duck rise to the level of art? In the hand of a true artist, ANYTHING can be ART. For goodness sake, all you have to do is look around you and see CREATION. Now that is ART, and I love this season of celebrating the birth of the ARTIST of salvation, whose art reveals all one needs to know! What an incredible thought! You and I are God's handiwork, and like any piece of art, created to show the world something it might not otherwise see.

Ephesians 2:8-10 (NIV)
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith---and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--- [9] not by works, so that no one can boast. [10] For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.




-save a dog- hollowcreekfarm.org