Camilla Starts Blogging

Camilla Symons has started blogging about her year as a Relay Worker with UCCF and her art including this piece of silverpoint drawing. For more check out http://camillasymons.blogspot.com

Mud, Art and Grace at Forum 08

Many centuries ago – no, but really, man made art out of mud; sourcing pigment and colour from the earth itself. Last week at UCCF Forum the mud made art out of man.

As the rain poured down and the floods came up 50 female campers were displaced from their tents turning the art gallery into the largest open plan dormitory this side of Amsterdam. Better still, a great piece of collective performance art.

It’s a shame. Not just for our poor campers but for the art gallery which was the strongest I think we’ve done so far. Best laid plans of mice, men and so on. On the up side, this year’s Forum was by far the best yet on size, teaching and, well, monument. Thanks so much Lois, Lou, Marsha and Steph.

Every year, Forum feels more and more like a festival with more art and music and after hours and, well, fun. Now I seemto be having a few problems with images on my Mac so until I work it out... Dave Bish has a few clips on his blog of Linda’s great wellie performance and Cully and I doing something silly on stage. Follow teh link to the right.

Painting In Progress

Anna and I are away over the month of August but you might like to see how the current painting is progressing. Here are two snaps. The first taken two weeks and and the second from the studio yesterday. We're back again in September and look forward to ressuming normal service then. Bye til then.

Spot the difference.

Painting Through Turmoil

Here's something interesting...

Oscar Wilde used to say that great art comes through great times of celebration or turmoil. This clip appeared on the bbc news website this morning (I think you need to click on the "?"above - anyone know how to get bbc clips up on to blogger?) An Iraqi artist who found solice in her art as the bombs exploded around her. I find it very interesting how God devises art to help us make sense of the difficulties around us and bring some kind of order from the chaos. I guess in part she escpaes through her art but she also models what Calvin Seerveld called rainbows in a fallen world.

The Capricious Guest

The composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky called inspiration The Capricious Guest. Wait for him to arrive and you may be waiting for a long while.

I've been doing a little writing recently and finding the hardest part is getting going. Inspiration doesn't fall from the sky. The apple of isn't hovering above my head ready to plummet any time soon. The word inspire means "breathes in". Sometimes the creative process feels just like that. Breathing. Sometimes we just need to show up at the desk (or the studio) and work, process, hoping that good comes from just keep going.

In the bible the word inspire appears in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is inspired by God..." The Greek word here is theoneusi which translates "breathed-out". The bible writers were inspired in a very different way than we are. The words of the bible were breathed out by God rather than breathed in by men.

Since all creativity originates in the character of God, ultimately all inspiration, in all its forms, comes from him too.

Follow a Painting in Progress

Here's a thought...

Blogs chronicle something of the creative mind in process, right? Ideas are aired in an unresolved manner to stimulate a little discussion online? I thought I'd try that visually.

I know artists aren't supposed to show their work until it's finished but I've always been interested in artists' creative process (their sketchbooks, painting methods and ideas etc) as well as the final result.

Last year, our UCCF team enjoyed a few days away together in the south of France. We visited the studio where Paul Cezanne painted some of his salient works. Incredible. What an extraordinary experience to handle his palette, view his sketchbooks, brushes and abandoned canvases albeit at a somewhat forced sanitised distance for tourists.

Not that I would compare myself to Cezanne but I thought it might be interesting to record my next painting online as it evolves. So… here we go – my latest painting from conception to (hopefully!) completion.



The working title is ‘East of Pingvellar’. The idea for this painting came from the drive away from the Alping church towards the horizon with no sense of imminent destination. A journey. The haunting, almost cinematic light. The pull of the horizon. Just a drive towards the fading evening sun of Iceland, east of Pingvellar.

New Works on Show

bleep... bleep... bleep... News Flash!

For anyone around in London at the end of the month I'll be exhibiting new work at the Mile End Arts Pavillion 31st July-2nd August as part of the Mile End Art Exhibition (clever title, huh?). I'll be exhibiting with a group of emerging and contemporary artists from London's East end and giving an artists talk on the Saturday night. Please do come along if you're in the area. Here's the info...




One of the works on show will be 'Requiem (Green Mist)', a lament for the former dockland workers of Glasgow. The painting shows park benches surrounded by the encrouching mist, empty and isolated. To me they were something of a forgotten memorial to the workers lunchtime gatherings and the mist seemed to emphasise the melancholy of the rememberence.


Also showing are Mary Gayton, Semmmab Guhl and Charles Reid. Charles moved to London from the States last year with his wife, Kim and now works as artist in residence at the London City Mission. He's making some really intersting work about word, words and 'the Word': weird fusions of science fisction creatures, comic book landscapes and deconstruction theory. Something like these...