Mako and NYCSalt

It should come as no surprise that it has been an amazing couple of days. We got to hear from Mako Fujimura, who is a Japanese painter and the founder of IAM who has been hugely instrumental in helping artists to engage the culture through their craft and this summer project.

After we got back Jenn Buell, one of the directors who lives in the city to work with transFORM (an arts ministry in NYC with Campus Crusade for Christ), introduced the theme of this year's show - re-humanization. Then we did a show-and-tell of each our art. That was really cool. I especially enjoyed getting to see the paintings Sarah R did - their are a ton of talented artists here but she just blew me away.

As wonderfully thrilling as it has been to start really digging into the art side of why we are here, the highlight of my past couple of days was actually this afternoon when a few of us went to the other end of Manhattan (literally - just for the record this takes a while) to see an art show put on by about 8 high school students involved in an after school program called nycsalt. This is an incredible program that is giving inner city youth an opportunity to spend their time and energy pursuing art instead of the myriad of other choices the city offers. I was incredibly impressed by the quality of work these students created, the dedication they have to the program, and the way they were able to articulate the technical aspects of their work. Even if none of them go into photography, it prepares them well for going into something. In fact, because of his involvement with nycsalt, Ruben, has been able to get a job at the mac store. It is just an awesome approach to intervention - a practical way of using art to rehumanize. It was also exciting because it gave me a chance to meet the woman who will be mentoring me this summer (part of the project involves interacting with a professional artist in your field who is also a believer and sort of learning how they work through that), Alicia Hansen. She seems to be the one who has spearheaded getting the equipment and teaches them every Tuesday. She has even taken them up to Syracuse University which really opened their eyes to the availability of higher education. It is just sooooooooo exciting.

Ways to Pray:

Pray that we be diligent in working on our art. It is easy to feel like we have lots of time that all of the sudden disappeared (nothing new about that).

Also pray that God lead our creative endeavors as we consider what we want to communicate about re-humanization and how best to that.

A lot of people on project (not just our track) have been experiencing unusual and unexpected health problems (including one of my roommates) - so please pray for our health.

Tomorrow we are buying art supplies and officially meeting our mentors over dinner. Pray that we make wise choices as we shop and that we connect with our mentors that we may grow together as children of God and artists.



Ruben explains his piece "No Dumping Allowed" at the nycsalt show.