Kite Flyer Art

"With everything in me, I believe that art is entirely relational. My greatest desire is to depict humanity in a way that would make us reconsider how we interact with everyday life. We spend every moment of our lives entangled in a world around us.  Art should serve the purpose of causing us to pause, view something abstracted from the “every-day,” and then return us to those entangled lives to evaluate what we’ve just seen in relation to the world."  --Christina Steele
 

I am honored to have my sister-in-law, Christina Steele, as the first feature artist for the Hearts in the Arts page.  Her work truly moves the spirit and echoes through the soul.   I asked her when she first started getting interested in art and she could not think of a time that creating has not been woven through her very being. She might just wither away if she wasn't allowed to create anymore, surely from lack of artistic oxygen.  She recalls, "My mom couldn't throw anything away.  I used to pull the Pringles cans out of the trash and then justify their residence in my art box, to be repurposed in the future as part of a project.  It drove her absolutely crazy!" 

Christina was born in 1985 and grew up in Colorado.  Her art became more disciplined and intentional around the age of twelve.  She encountered and struggled through several difficult life-changing events, which led to numerous religious ventures, but none so dramatically altering as the grace of the Gospel.  Her art no longer depicted her ache, but now rejoices in the exchange for freedom.  Her freedom is her flight.  Her flight is symbolized in Kite Flyer Art. 

"Kite Flyer Art was birthed out of an early childhood desire to fly. I was never more right with the world than when I dreamt of flying or felt a strong gust of wind rip under the thin plastic wings of my kite to send it soaring."  Christina's pieces are significantly symbolic and she tends to focus on depth and context.  She describes herself as a sort of creative chameleon and absorbs her surroundings and environment, in turn, her work often features a quote, passage, or excerpt from some other artist.  Every part of her testimony can be seen in her brush strokes and ink lines.  From her most recent canvas to her earliest sketchbooks, they all tell a sequential story. "I was driven to use art as a conduit to communicate a relationship I had with the Lord that had gone to the very depths of who I was and brought life. Brought flight."  

You can see Christina's graphite, ink, oil, and acrylic fine art on her Etsy page, Kite Flyer Art.  Stop by to take a peek at her latest endeavor in fiber arts, dying and painting up-cycled ballet pointe shoes.  Trust me, you'll want to see these beauties, both her mother and I agree that they are  much more elegant than Pringles cans!

Dictionaries and Desert Roses






Do you ever get a tiny hint of something that transports you back to a wonderful memory? A sort of super saturated déjà vu, a sort of running cannon ball into the deep pool of your five senses?  I LOVE those!  There has been just a few  times over the  years  that I have enjoyed these moments. One such moment occurred a  couple of years ago as I was walking up to my door on a clear night with a huge bright moon. A warm dry breeze blew up, bringing  with it a light floral sandy scent.  As soon as the aroma filled my nostrils, I was a kid again, on one of many family road trips across the U.S., riding in the back seat of my parents station wagon, windows down, my head resting on the door.   I stared at the bulging moon and brilliant stars, while my tangled hair whipped in the wind.  My breaths grew sleepy and rhythmic with the hum of the tires on the infinite stretch of highway that sliced the deserts of New Mexico, steeped with cactus blooms, and the settling of dust and dew.  It's hard to describe the tranquility I enjoyed marveling at the vast moving sky from the passenger's side of that '77 Buick road beast.  I wished on stars, talked to God, and dreamed up romantic fairy tales, all involving me of course and my middle school crush of the week.  I relished in the sight of the reflection of the moonlight in my mom's driving glasses and took comfort in watching my dad read road maps under the overhead light even though the pavement  wouldn't curve for miles.  My reminiscent moment was fleeting and I found myself inhaling and sniffing in every direction to get just one more memory inducing  whiff.  

There have been others too,  recently while roasting marshmallows in the fireplace with my kids, I had an ephemeral rapture back to the childhood bonfires we would have on the beach.  I laid belly down on my Little Mermaid towel, snug in a fuzzy sweatshirt, and stared into the flickering flame that reddened my cheeks.  I could taste the seashore in my cracked lips.  It tasted like building castles and searching for sand crabs and clinging to boogie boards.

I am now blessed with the beauty of the Midwest as my backyard, but still every now and then, God gives me a small taste of beauty from across the nation.  I haven't driven through the deserts or felt the sand between my toes in years, but I am thankful for the brief glimpse of natural beauty and creation, even if they only exist in my head. 

The natural tends to give us just a tiny peek, a delightful nibble of the supernatural.  Our gifts, our callings, our creative pouring, are compliments to His gifts.  They can praise and thank, or crave and ache, or testify and glorify, or influence and question, or even probe and dissect.  They are what our eyes see, our ears hear, our lips taste, and our hearts feel.  We all stop to smell the flowers in different ways and at different times, but the beauty of the flower remains the same.  We are naturally tied to creation, naturally intended to create, as our best mortal efforts to imitate the Creator.  I came across an insightful quote that was referenced in a book by Philip Yancey from a chapter titled God Loveth Adverbs. Lewis Smedes tells in his book, My God and I, about a Creator who,

liked elegant sentences and was offended by dangling modifiers.  Once you believe this, where can you stop?  If the Maker of the Universe admired words well put together, think of how he must love sound well put together, and if he loved sound thinking, how he must love a Bach concerto and if he loved a Bach concerto think of how he prized any human effort to bring a foretaste, be it ever so small, of his Kingdom of Justice and peace and happiness to the victimized people of the world.  In short, I met the Maker of the Universe who loved the world he made and was dedicated to its redemption.  I found the joy of the Lord, not at a prayer meeting, but in English Composition 101.

Whether it be writing, painting, singing, photographing, or any other form of creating, I would like to dedicate this page, "Hearts in the Arts", to all the gifted and talented individuals who are the only ones that can portray how they, themselves, stop to smell the flowers.