Tag: art

Let Your Thoughts Take Shape

Jennifred Jones

Who says you can’t create something good? We’re all thinking constantly; crafting in our mind. How would it be if…

What if we let our thoughts begin to take shape? What if you decided you could make the project you’ve been dreaming about. What if you decided to allow yourself to pick up the brush or pen and draw something you’d been thinking…to put the colors you’ve seen in your mind on a canvas and hang it up…just for you? What if you decided to borrow a children’s foreign language book and begin to learn a new dialect? You’ve always thought of doing it. What if you looked for a music teacher to learn piano or singing or guitar as you’d dreamed of doing someday. What if you turned over 1 square foot of soil and planted a dozen daffodil bulbs to brighten your mornings next spring? What if you took your neighbor a small house plant to add a bit of life to their home?

What if you only swept off your front steps or porch? What if you washed the inside windows of your car? What if you organized your toolbox? It might inspire you to begin building the birdhouse your wife would love.

All these ‘what-ifs’ began with a thought. Good thoughts, many good thoughts go unimplemented – never carried out! How many good things never happened that could have if only we let them take shape.

Yes, we are shapers of thoughts. If it’s possible to do your good thought, get started. Then begin and finish another thought and keep them flowing.

Your good thought could be a turning point in someone’s life…maybe yours.

Now back to what I was thinking about…

Art

Jennifred Jones

We all have art in us. We are all craftsmen, artsmen, artists, if you will, of one or many things.

We all have a desire, a bent to make or do something. There is something that peaks our interest…working with numbers, working with fabric, wood, metal, designing roads and cities, buildings, designing computers and software; working on cars, assembling items, organization of anything. I believe it is an art to know how to clean and decorate a home!

There are a myriad of types of art besides drawing, painting, or sculpting.

Our art…your art, is needful.

I grew up thinking ‘art’ was only for a chosen few that were crafty, and really crafty didn’t ‘qualify’ as art back then. Art was Rembrandt and Michelangelo and Picasso and Renoir.

Art was something beautiful that others could make but you could not. It was made by people you did not know and never would.

Artists were poor, yet driven, and in their time were thought a bit odd and eccentric, but later on their work was magnified and they were seen in a different light.

The challenge is to discover what our art is and to get in the groove and play it.

Our art will be something we are good at, or would like to become good at, it is something we look forward to doing and gives us pleasure as we work on it –awaiting the finished result.

If it is a drudgery to do or even think about doing, it probably isn’t your art, it is someone else’s.

Never fear, you have your own good skills to develop and share with others. Yours will be different but it will be yours, uniquely yours.

Erwin McManus said, “Don’t be the best imitation of someone else’s talent.”

Wouldn’t the world be uninteresting if everyone’s art looked the same?

What makes genuine art so very costly is that it is irreproducible. It did not come off an assembly line; it is different every time.

What is your art?

Draw Out the Talent in Our Youth

Jennifred Jones

This spring an old bridge was graffitized by some local students. Some people were up in arms over the situation, but I chose to see it from a different angle. Below is my letter to the editor posted in the Carroll County Comet July 2014:

Xenia Bridge: Vandalism versus Artwork

Let’s take a different perspective on the Xenia Bridge ‘vandalism’ episode. Why do we sometimes allow ourselves to get all up in arms over things like this?
No lives were hurt or lost, no trees were cut down, no fields were burned, no homes were broken into, no animals were stolen, and no one was stabbed, killed or robbed. All it was, was paint-artwork-on an old bridge that was probably rusty not that long ago. Who or what are we trying to protect; our kids and their future, an old bridge which has no life in it, or are we worried about what others might think if we don’t correct those kids? Was it truly malicious intent by the students, or are they like some the rest of us…looking for a way to make their mark on the world, to be noticed, to use their creative minds. Our kids are our best investment. They are tremendously talented. Some of these students are Class A art students and their work would make any parent proud!
Let’s choose some of our older buildings and walls around town and give our students a project—design and paint something unique and colorful on it that represents where they live and let them put their spin on it. Let them paint the town bright and colorful. Put their creative minds toward a good purpose and who knows, maybe our little towns will become a tourist attraction! “This town, this bridge, this wall was designed and painted by our kids, and that one was done by mine!”
by Jennifred Jones