heartnews from amanda thompsonteaching art to children of missionaries

june 18

Other art teachers, starving and established artists, creatively-minded pastors, and others - I can't wait to meet these types of believers at the Christians in Visual Arts conference today. Even if I have to drink out of styrofoam cups and wear a name badge.

I spent yesterday alone in downtown Minneapolis, trying to find galleries to investigate. I didn't find a single one amoung the towering brick and glass skyscrapers or between the street level theme restaraunts. 

Finally I took a bus across the Mississippi to the so-named arts quarter that I just happened to see labeled on a tourist map. Only one gallery had an open door. I had an amazing conversation with the one of a kind rolly-polly over middle aged artist/gallery owner there, which I'll have to share more about later.

I love how God's timing and direction work. 

 june 10

after a morning of failing miserably at two much needed-to-do things (web site ftp uploading and finding my cell phone) I headed off to saturate my eyes with the latest in contemporary art around the world.

 

"it doesn't make sense to me," my swiss friends say of the art. yet this is the world that I am sending my students out into. how can they as believers intelligently, innocently and effectively make a difference in it? I stopped myself short from repeating the BFA misison statement.

 

despite all my failures at living normal life, i walked away from the rooms of exhibits confident that God made me in a way that is willing and able to interact with this 'doesn't make logical sense' kind of art. thank you Lord.

 

june 7

 graduation day hopefullness still lingers in my mind and heart. I am excited already to work with the new kids next year, to try and sow hope in them too. Lord, please direct me and help me in knowing how to do that. 

 

at my Basel fellowship we are concentrating this weekend on practical ways of reaching out in love to the city. Collecting food, cleaning the Rhine's sides, meeting with forgotten people. I missed the first few meetings for a lot of weird Manda-ish reasons. I'm still in a strange place; when I get weirded out my language skills get even worse. Yet I am learning so much from these dedicated beleivers here, about dependibilty, about serving others, about forgiveness. It comes in the way that my friends don't hold grudges when I fail at something I promised them.

june 2

 Madame Iris drops her silk crepe gown in folds among the dirt at her feet. Next to take the spotlight are the roses and sticky sweet peonies. It is still strange to be in a place that grows things so early and so full. I run into the forest to get away from the domescity but find that even their things are trimmed to a managable size, and it actually makes my run up the hills more pleasant.

 

Graduation is in three days. The seniors are never seen walking alone. They seem to always want to be talking to someone. The graduation ceremony is something I really enjoy; it is full of such hope. It's the lifted sway of the song all the seniors sing together; and the parents that are usually so far away finally so near and hoping with every bit of their hearts; and the hugs at the end of the ceremonie. I think in German ceremonie starts with a Z, and I think during grad that it is a fitting letter. Because it is still the end of many things.

 

I graded all the tests and final projects and was not surprised at any grades. There will students unhappy, but I am confident it reflects their effort.

 

aft

 

may 26

  and now I remember the other thing that made me smirk: a middle school student had used two plastic grocery bags as socks, because she borrowed a boy's shoes, and didn't want to have her feet touch the sweaty boy shoes. 

 

but she needed shoes.

 

may 25

 Things that made me smile today: 

the ends of two plastic knives that served a korean student as a pair of chopsticks for her salad and pasta hot lunch. 

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the kandern pool, splashing with sunburnt mostly chubby or adolescent bodies.

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the realisation that joy in Christ centers on identifying with His times of rejection. for the first time in my life I rejoiced over a certain snubbing incident. it was interesting; the offenders had little joy the next day, as far as i could see. i am still trying to wrap my head and heart around the concept, but am doing it with joy.

may 20

 the whirlwind that is the end of the year here is semi-normal to me now. Seniors are being almost downright sappy towards one another. Two students of mine who were quippy to each other all semester are being Nice and Pleasant. Staff who served for just one year have a dazed look, as if they had only just last week unpacked their bags. I'm glad that God is in control of all these comings and goings. My comings and goings are nearly legend. I'm the girl who's away; the one who moves a lot; the Alaskan who likes her tent. Everyone here follows some tragectory. Mine is a little more noticeable, not more remarkable other than that. Pray that I will know how to serve next year. I'm not seeing a clear line of what to do, for a number of reasons. I'm looking at a muddy picture. A bunch of little things I could do but no point of focus, no center of interest, as we say in design.

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april 28

Kids today in track ran like rain-burdened clouds. Movement took concerted effort. They didn't feel fast. I made a girl cry, for the first time in my coaching career. 

W

I think of how at first it is hard to run when you are burdened down by something. That something for me I have been trying so hard to lift back up to the Lord. It's work even to do that. Sleepless blue and city orange light nights. And yet even now the joy rains down on me. I'm so confident that with our prayers, with the saturation in God's Word that I hope my heart has, that His answers will fill my heart with supernatural joy. It might look strange and plastered on to others with hard hearts. But really. I see such a hopeful answer. I will leave it at a vauge that. I would draw and post a picture if I so could.

 

april 23

I am cutting short my daily intake of German vocabulary to bring you this news: Van Gogh, the Reformation, Cezanne all connect. Paul Klee and Picasso too. My head is dizzy with these revelations. It's like finding out all your favorite musicians were friends with each other, or something like that.

 The kids are only giving my wide-eyes in exchange for my exurberance.

My drawing and painting project is not the greatest. But I think it is ingraining in their head the idea that to paint a landscape, it works nicely to do so in distinct value planes.

I will try to explain my joy about the aforementioned discovery sooner than later.

april 11

My neighbor writes books. Her daughter is studying book illustration. We talked about pursuing a life that makes art and creative writing while her husband gardened in the back yard. He yanked ivy out of unwanted places, rotated the compost, checked up on thirsty seedlings that seemed to be yawning from the flower boxes.

"I really struggle sometimes with defending the amount of time I take to write," she confessed. "Sometimes my friend comes at ten in the morning and I'm still in my bathrobe, writing at the computer. I must look so lazy to her."

My heart fell open to hear this. Only just last week had I painted in my pajamas for the very first time (I tend to be a slow bloomer in just about everything.) Here was a kindred spirit! She writes books for homeschooling publishers. She writes. She forgoes things that other women do, so she can write.

I am swamped with things right now. But all I want to do is make things. New things. Things that show there is joy in the world, because of our Father's love. Somehow I want to catch like a rare butterfly just a few of the amazing colors He has strewn across the hillsides this spring. I don't know why I do so many other things besides art, when really, that is what I am most compelled to do.

end of march

Serving the other

I’m so thankful for the weekly teaching at the swiss fellowship. Of course my whole week at the academy is focused on serving the missionary families and my fellow workers there. Yet when I’m not teaching there am I still willing to serve those around me? We are right across the parking lots from two senior citizen homes that I have never been in my entire time here. Lord forgive me. I haven’t entered into a single conversation with a panhandler in Basel. Lord forgive me. There’s a BFA graduate from last year named Missy. She’s this swirl of Scottish, American and German cultures. She works with homeless people now in Scotland, her sweet parents were saying. Of course we are all different parts of the body of Christ, right. I am confident I am the part that makes beautiful things. Pray that I’ll follow thru with my lesson plan scheduled for May. I and the students will offer mini-art workshops to the senior home residents.  I’m scared I won’t follow thru but okay, here we go.

 

Practical matters

I feel  so blessed to have pretty much everything I need to work on creative projects here. The practical hole is the picture is me driving. My goal is to be able to take the german liscening class by May 1. Plans are underway for a art exhibit, at which my Swiss friends can help contribute to this goal. I think they will be relieved not to have to shuttle the bus-missing missionary across the border anymore.

 

High society smirks

Even though the art history component of the art appreciation, I have a sneaking suspicion, is the part of my course the students dislike the upmost, I revel in it. The smirks of the Renaissance ladies; the docile stare of the rejected bride of Henry XIII; the glowing soft cheek of a Leonardo da Vinci Mary: when I select which art to talk with the students about, I feel like we are weaving the legacy of humans’ artistry into our plain vanilla lives. More spiritual questions come up in this class then in my other art-making ones. Pray that I’ll be diligant in studying God’s word and the legacy of saints gone before to be able to answer questions that students have asked so far. “Why study western art?” “Why do you like art?” “Why is art worth spending time on?”

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Some kids are bursting with energy, almost as if they too would burst into a neon-yellow pussy willow if they could. Krista came literally skipping into art appreciation on Friday, the last day before break.

 Her beginning brushstrokes jumped all over the perspective watercolor we had been working on. “I’m excited to go home, spend time with my family.” Not creatively spoken but to the point. 

 It will be a little bit longer though before I can come home and do that. One of the new interns asked if I felt like a missionary. Yes, I do. I feel always in-between worlds. Sometimes its easy; now I sleep easily in new places. Others times its hard – especially to go from the well-mannered brotherhood I find in Basel to the klunky-don’t-even-say-Good-morning culture of some BFA staff that is oh-so-American. When I feel like despairing from the see-saw tug, I remember the pilgrim devotion by Brian Post, the middle school history teacher. He reminded us that we are called to be pilgrims. So yes, here is where my nomadic wanderings after our Lord have been taking me lately.

march 29

My crawl thru the uncompromising commands of the love chapters in Romans and 1 Peter reminds me of learning German. It is better to be hurt for doing good then to hurt because of doing something evil. There is no reason for doing wrong to another, and there is even more reason for doing good to one who does wrong. Like grammar rules that I must be reminded of again and again, so is it with the commands I can't get around in Romans 12-15 and 1 Peter. 

The poor Swiss who have to hear me say "Ich habe gefahren" instead of "Ich bin gefahren" correct me again and again. Like saying "I am driven" instead of "I have driven". But anyways. Lord let me practice the vocabulary of your love more so then I am memorizing German words.

march 28

Audis seemed like they were going to jump over the little red import I was urging forward. The hills of the Swiss countryside were cute bumps of green. Tunnels pierced the not-so-cute hills in what seemed to me more an occassion for Swiss engineers to show off versus being really all that cost effective. 

I am driving in Europe.

It took me nearly an hour with the green trams and buses of Basel to meet my friends at the airport. Once in their car it took me maybe 15 minutes to get back. Right, this is why people invented cars. It saves time. It carries things.