Project 1-Amanda

So I love to let other people use my camera. To me my camera is probably the way I feel most connected with God. Therefore, I love to let others use it hopeing that it will somehow do something similar for the other users as well. I know that this may be silly, but if I experiance God in some great way, then I want to be able to share that with others. Sometimes I will take my students out and go shoot, other times I will let them do it on their own so that I don't influence what they see and what they take pictures of.

My camera was a gift to me from my husband for our wedding, so I feel that the best thing to do is to share it as well. Granted, I am rather attached to my camera and if anything happened I would be tremendously sad, but I really feel that if God has blessed me with different material things in life, I must share them and somehow let them be a ministry, otherwise I am holding on to them too tightly. That is my own personal conviction, I don't go around judging others, I just know for me that I have a tendency to love the material. So, instead, I know I must share the material!

And the truth is, out of the sharing of my material possessions have come some AMAZING pictures! So here are pictures from one of the first projects that I did with a student. And I must say, Bravo Amanda Gossack, Bravo!

Some Cheryl Thoughts...

I love artists, from carpenters, to writers, to photographers, to painters, to musicians. I LOVE ARTISTS. I am intrigued by them and captured by their work. Each person's creation shows me a glimpse of the person who created it. For example, I have numerous friends who are photographers, and if I were to give each one the same camera and put them in the same spot and told them they could only take ten pictures, each one of them would have different film. Each shot would be different because each eye looking through the lens is different. The photos created would represent each person who took them. The same is true with any other type of artistic expression. My husband's paintings have a style unique to him and even if he was painting the exact same scene as my friend Jami or my friend Naomi, the pictures would look different. That is why I love artists; their creation reveals a piece of them.

God does this with all he creates as well. God reveals part of who he is through each thing he creates. All of His work has His fingerprints on it. From the stars, to the animals, to the planets, to the flowers, to every single person. Absolutely everything made reveals its creator. Our art reveals who we are, from a photograph to wood work, to paintings, and we reveal who God is, from our personality, to our creativity, to our dreams.

We need to grasp the truth that we are part of the creation and we mimic God when we create. There are two key things that I think are a part of this truth. First, we are a part of the Artist's masterpiece, of God's creation. We need to take care of the masterpiece because every part of it points to the artist. We need to take care of this world and what is in it. When we disrespect the creation, we are ultimately disrespecting the creator. When we tear apart one another or when we contaminate this world, it is like we are taking a black sharpie to a Van Gogh or a Vettriano (one of my favorite artists) and drawing all over it ruining the creation of the creator. We need to take care of this world and the people in it because by doing so we are taking care of what God has made.

The second part is that we need to embrace artists and creators and learn from what they show us about creating. I think of all of the things that God shows us through artist; he shows us beauty, he shows us care, he shows us love, he shows us freedom. What a beautiful way to see God and see who he is. When I look at a painting or a photograph or a carving from an artist, I can't help but think about God as the Creator. I can't help but think about how God has allowed different people to see him in different ways, express him in different ways, and how much we can learn from each others differences. Each artist expresses him or herself and in turn expresses who God is in and through them.




Hope you enjoyed seeing some of my photographs and the way my eye sees things!

Creation: THE MESSY ROOM

If God allows me to have children, there are some very specific things that I want to teach them: such as...

1. That God loves them dearly
2. That creation should be taken care of since it reveals who God is
3. That they should follow their dreams no matter what that looks like and how crazy it may seem to others
4. That it is so much fun to play outside
5. That learning can be so amazingly fun

And there are so many more things that I want them to know. But one of the top things that I want my children to understand is how amazing it is to create and be creative. From things like tying a fishing fly to taking a photograph to coloring a page to singing a random made-up song, it is such an awesome thing to be creative and to create.

Aaron and I both have a great passion for this. And we both create in different ways. For example: Aaron loves to paint pictures, to tie flies, to sew, to build things...and all of his things he does with great detail and precision. I on the other hand love to paint, scrapbook, take pictures, create the right lighting for different rooms, and write, all of which I do usually pretty abstractly.

But both of us LOVE to create and be creative. For this reason alone we have what we call the MESSY ROOM down in our basement. In it we have a multicolored rug, painted cabnets, a painted desk, and a painted dresser, we have a wall that you can write on with chalk, we have an art easel, pens, paper, multiple colors of glue, markers, and so much more. One wall currently is just green, but I would love to have sombody paint a mural on it of the Garden of Eden (talk about ultimate creation). The pictures here are of the room and they are dated. Things have changed, the room is incomplete, (and it is messy...which is great) but I hope that truly the room will never be finished. I want it to always change, grow, hold different types of creation and beauty. I HOPE and PRAY that my children will be able to embrace their imagination and create. In fact, I would love to see everyone embrace their creative side. What a beautiful thing it would be to see students, children, adults, anyone who wants to come and use our messy room and CREATE!