Posts Tagged ‘live art’

Of late I’ve been painting at a few large conferences as the artist in residence. The idea is that art takes time and comes from experiences. So instead of having just an inspirational short art piece, why not have an artist in the mix making art out of everything that is going on. This is a better model for church leaders at least of how the visual arts can be a part of our corporate gatherings. Not just having inspirational 4 minute painting pieces (most art is not created that way), but giving at least an hour or so for the artist to create something.

Up above is a shot from Catalyst, the largest church leader conference in the U.S.

My friend Caitlin Beidler and I were the artists in residence at Catalyst this year. You can see our little art cubby in the stadium over to the left… the yellowishly lit area. We had a great time and got to make art to some really cool presenters: Scott Harrison, Seth Godin, Daniel Pink, Francis Chan, Christine Caine, Andy Stanley… just to name a few.

Here are a few pics of some of the paintings I made there. Remember, these paintings are 3ftx4ft acrylic on canvas and they were all made in less than an hour… in front of 12,000 people.

The other conference I was recently the artist in residence at was the National Youth Workers Convention in San Diego, put on by Youth Specialties.

Man I love the people at YS. The NYWC is a conference that seeks to celebrate the most under-appreciated workers in the church – the youth workers. This 4 day convention is chalked with training seminars, soul care, thought provoking subjects, and just a lot of laughter and good times. I have such a great time and I’m glad I got invited back for a 3rd year. They told me I was even family this year. (sniff sniff).

Above is me painting with Brenton Brown and band… who are great and there will be more about some future collaborations later. Below are some of the images I made throughout the conference.

There is so much more going on that I reveal in the next coming weeks…. projects with Derek Webb, prints for raising money for clean water pumps, etc…..

I’ll get to all that soon. I just wanted to give some photo updates since my last entry was August.

til next time

make more art!

scott

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My friends at WorldVision ACT:S asked me to create a series of videos about using creative activism with their Acts To End Malaria Campaign. It was an awesome project and I had fun making these shorts. Here they are for your enjoyment…..

ART ACTIVISM 101

HOW TO MAKE AN INTERACTIVE ART PIECE

HOW TO MAKE A T-SHIRT

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Yep. That’s me speaking to King Mswati III, King of Swaziland, Africa’s last remaining monarchy.

He came down and spoke to me after I had painted in front of him during Heart For Africa‘s Litsembe event. “Litsembe” (“hope” in Seswati) was an event that HFA conceived to be a sort of blessing event for Swaziland’s huge orphan population. Thousands of children came from various children’s homes and from the surrounding area. The event had multiple musical acts and performances… and once the king arrived, it became an very official affair.

I had been asked to paint at the event. The plan that morning is that I would paint on the stage across the field from the stands…. but right at the last minute I was told that I needed to grab all my stuff and I was to paint right in front of the grand stands where his majesty was seated. It was a very intense experience. Mostly cause you are not allowed to turn your back to the king… and as a painter you have your back constantly towards the viewer.  So I side painted amidst the wind and the mid-day sun. But when the event ended, the king on his way to his police escorted vehicle, came over to where I was painting, asked me about the meaning of the painting, and invited me to teach how to paint so fast to people in his country. I said I would be happy to do so. We’ll see when that happens.

One of the reasons Holly and I decided to go on this trip is that we wanted to do something were we could respond in a way to the growing number of orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. Especially in Swaziland, the number of new orphans is 4000 a month. This is due to the fact that Swaziland, which is the size of New Jersey, has 46% HIV infection rate in the country. The adult population is slowly diminishing  which is leaving thousands of orphans and hundreds of orphan headed households. The country itself predicts that if nothing stops this trend that by 2020 the country will mostly consist of children and the elderly. Crazy.

As a painter, the way that I can respond the best is to tell stories and make art. So that was our idea of how we could help contribute to this disturbing situation. You can read more about the idea on orphanartproject.com but basically the project is to create artwork with orphans, tell their stories, and create product that can be sold to help fund the work of indigenous organizations that are doing good work in Swaziland.

So we spent time creating work with kids. Part of the most amazing and sobering aspects of this project is the realization that this was the first time to paint for most of these kids. And they ate it up. I mean imagine never having art class as you grew up… never even having crayons to use to make pictures. And to see the few kids who lighted up with the process… knowing that they would probably do this all the time if they could…. heartbreaking.

Anyway, I’m now in postproduction finishing off all the artwork and working on a short film about the whole endeavor. I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going.

One final fun fact about our trip is that I ended up getting hired as the Second Unit Cameraman on a documentary that a friend of ours is helping to produce. They are making a movie about Swaziland…. on all the things I mentioned before… and looking at what Swazi’s are doing to stop this deadly journey. It was an awesome experience. I got to work with my new favorite persons: Helmut Schleppi, Elkin Antoniou, and Janna Fassaert…. and the film should be coming out in the winter of this year. I’ll keep you posted on that as well.

Thanks for all your support.

scott

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In June, I was invited to go along with a group from the Grove Church in Chandler, AZ to join them on their Love Liberia Project. LLP was a multi-faceted trip ranging from leadership training to hosting free medical clinics. I came along to do live painting during the pastoral training events and the evening gatherings…. but in the midst of everything, I also became the filmer and random art maker.

This pic above and below is from the afternoon I decided to set up my easel in the shady town of Buchanan. I’ve only open-aired landscape painted twice before, so it was a fun challenge. Within 30 minutes of starting, I had a group of 50 people watching me. Apparently live painting doesn’t happen often in Buchanan.

I brought Ecclesia’s Canon 7D camera with me to do some filming during the trip. This was mostly to get some experience in filming overseas and to move forward in the ideas I have to combine the making of art and the unique stories of others. I ended up doing a lot of recording of the work of the Grove in Liberia and ended up telling their stories. Here’s some of the films I put together.

LEADERSHIP TRAINING

MOTOCYCLE TEAM ADVENTURE

DAY OFF – BEACH OF DEATH

THE FELLING OF THE EVIL TREE

THE BASKETBALL TEAM

THE MEDICAL TEAM

Holly and I leave for Swaziland next week to do work with orphans.

Keep you posted.

Mad love

Scott

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The Transpire Project is now ArtVoxLive

Why? Cause nobody knows what the Transpire Project is. Transpire is “to bring to light, to make known” which is what the process of making art is…. and Project… well, that was just whatever it turned out to be when I started doing live art years ago. It’s turned out to be a livelihood… and it needs a better name.

ArtVoxLive is the new name for what I do in live settings. “Art” – well, it’s art. “Vox” is latin for voice. I’ve often described the process of watching art being made as a kind of conversation.  As you are trying to figure out what the painting is going to be, you start asking questions, pondering images…. and this usually leads into some kind of conversation that makes the art personal. Vox also stands for the conversation I’m having with the Great Muse. “What do we need to see in this setting?” “How can I best depict what’s going on?” The images, in another way, are my visual conversations as well. And Live… well this is all done live in front of others.

There you go – ArtVoxLive.

So I hope you enjoy the new site.

I’ll be posting all my latest work and endeavors in live painting and all other projects that involve the arts here on this site. If you’d like to receive updates via email, please click the link below to get on that list

ArtVoxLive Email Updates

And if you’d like to contact me about painting or creating at an event you have coming up, my contact email is

artvoxlive@gmail.com

Here are some of the latest happenings:

Going’s Ons

“Free Fall” by Prolifik Films

My friends Dave Schwarz and Nick Jones of Prolifik Films asked myself and Sharon Irving to join them on a project to creatively interpret Genesis 3. We filmed this about a month ago and now you can view the fruit of our labors……

Free Fall from ProlifikFilms on Vimeo.

Orphan Art Project

Well… I think Holly and I have reached our fund raising goals! So now it’s just learning a lot about filming, traveling with art supplies, and so much more. I covet your prayers and any other ways you think you would like to be a part of all this. More to come……

Thanks to all of you who have been supportive of this journey I’ve been on for years. It’s great to see the fruits of diligence.

As always, make space for art.

scott

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