Leanne Shawler, Artist

So Jon Acuff asked his readers: "What do you want to finish in 2012?" Here's my answer: Here are my goals for 2012. Create communication strategies for each ministry in my church (it's in the strategic plan, so I gotta) Develop this blog to be a base for my vocation of telling my story of believing how unworthy I thought I was of God, and providing a listening base for those who are in that situation. (Um, measurable goal would be: posting twice a week on/around the topic and learning (really knowing) the stories of two other people.)  2b. Find a coherent way of saying that. Paint another large painting (3'x4', I think) Learn how to take better photos of my art. So by December 2012 I will be taking good photos of artwork and wee objects. See if I can get my twice a week of 10 minutes silence to 5 times. (which I forgot to add to my comment on Jon's blog) Lose 15 lbs. I've been maintaining my current weight for long enough. It's time to...

For the longest time, I couldn't see the point in confession. Before I truly believed that I am beloved by God, saying the confession during the church service either seemed hypocritical (did I mean the words I mouthed?) or induced  fresh waves of guilt and shame despite the absolution given by the priest. Confession said on Sundays when I was a teen. Perhaps it just takes me a bit longer, but last year as I put together a Rule of Life (part of becoming an associate of the Order of the Holy Cross), I was again confronted with this prevailing belief that confession was some antiquated words that held no real meaning now. I consulted Mary, a friend of mine, about this dilemma. It seems that, generally speaking, Episcopalians didn't much care for confession -- baggage most like from being Protestant and separated from the Catholic church 500 some years ago. Mary shared with me a prayer that both thanked God for the day's blessings and asked me to recognize when I h...

The plan was to redesign this blog and reboot it with its new focus. Funny thing is, the pieces started fitting together differently. I woke up in the wee hours of the morning in the week before Christmas with an a-ha. What I was planning wasn't exactly what God was planning. I knew that there was something more, something different, but I couldn't quite figure it out. Honestly, I still don't have it figured out. But I have another part of it... which requires consultation with the usual suspects and some more working out. So in the meantime, I did promise I'd be back this week, so here is a painting I finished recently. It's the last assigned painting assignment from the La Sirena class from  Suzi Blu that I took last year. She extended the critique time to May of this year, and I swore that I would finish this class before the year's end. However, it didn't quite come out as I planned. It was supposed to be head-to-toe figures with a good-sized ...

Hi all, So you might not have noticed, but I haven't posted the usual Wednesday's Where's God? and I won't be this week either. There's a bunch of reasons, mainly: I got a seriously bad cold. I managed to post one spread while I was sick, but the wretched thing hung on for a good two weeks. I'm better now (aside from the lingering post-nasal drip and slight cough) I'm re-evaluating why I have this blog. My day job as my church's communications director means I'm doing a lot of communications, including a blog where church members are learning to share their stories about how God is impacting them. It's truly become my ministry, my vocation. My blog here started out as a way to keep in touch with fellow Bellas and as an easy way for my Mum to see what I'm up to. Now, now, there might be a new purpose. I'm still trying to figure out if it's the right one and honoring the process instead of doing my usual "leap off a cliff...

While I am snuffling up a storm with a big head-cold (which is why I managed to set the date to 1/1/11 instead of 11/1/11) ... here's my "Where's God" for the week. I  hope you can join in. Where was God in your week? Comment below with your own list, link to your blog post about it, perhaps a photograph you took that illustrates it (a picture is worth a thousand words), or art illustrating your gratitude! (If I get enough folks participating, I'll start using a link party tool.) A couple of rules: 1. If you are linking, link to the specific post, not the main page of your blog. 2. Please, no links to online shops -- stay on topic! Feel free to post the blog button! <center><a href="http://provokingbeauty.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8lF-13I48XJBtsgw5UuI9GcoD2z2MxT4Zkq9...

Sarah, A new blogger that I've just started following ( Whispers on the Journey ) commented on an old post: "I love this idea to review each week like this! I would say God was in... 1) my chance to connect with like-minded people at a conference. 2)A sense of rest and centeredness coming out of some vacation time. 3) The church service I randomly caught tonight with words I needed to hear 4) God's drawing out of me, faithfully teaching" Glad you like the idea! Although it doesn't seem to be original to me. Here's my list for this week. The usual Faber Pitt Pens .... and I got to play with some bronze ink, which looks more like old gold .... and so I used a pen nib to do lines and waves. The waves kind of remind me of the sound waves reproduced in the the St. John's Bible. Which is really worth a post all on it's own. Even if I did only see facsimiles and not the real deal (which is in Minnesota, I think.) There are changes afoot in th...

Here's my page for this week. Yeah, I'm writing sideways on the page. Remember last week's page ? Yep, that's her skirt, I folded it around the page 'cause I thought it'd be kinda fun! While I plan to continue doing these pages, I'm considering abandoning this little link party idea. I think those who read my blog are far too few in number and I really have not gone out of my way to promote this puppy around the blogosphere. Instead, I'll keep doing the pages, but I'll link them to Ann Voskamp's weekly post where she asks her readers to share their gifts from God. Am not sure it's quite the same thing that I'm doing, but what the hey. (I really need to read her book) I'm also thinking about writing more about an item or two on  the list instead of just having occasionally cryptic items. Thoughts? And, for possibly the last time, or the last time for right now, who knows what changes will come down the wind... ...

I spent most of last week on retreat at a monastery (with to-die-for food!) and so this week's post reflects that. (The white clam sauce I made, the red clam sauce we had at Mt. Calvary was just as good!) It's a subpage, so it gets a bit crowded ... don't know if you can tell what the image is... Anyway, to spend almost an entire week focused on God instead of work, home, etc ... well, it was a real treat even if I don't include Luis' cooking! Where was God in your week? Comment below with your own list, link to your blog post about it, perhaps a photograph you took that illustrates it (a picture is worth a thousand words), or art illustrating your gratitude! (If I get enough folks participating, I'll start using a link party tool.) A couple of rules: 1. If you are linking, link to the specific post, not the main page of your blog. 2. Please, no links to online shops -- stay on topic! Feel fr...

That I completely forgot to show you. A piano player roll! There was a whole stack of them, but  I had limited space in my luggage and I picked this one for it's decorative front page.... Isn't it stunning?

You saw what I sent out in Monday's post (scroll down), here is what I received from Beth Laverty of Conversations from My House : and yes, she did know my favorite color is purple. and Teresa Shovary from Thymeless Treasures , sent me this: The doily has mermaids on it!

Here is this week's "Where's God?" Where was God in your week? Comment below with your own list, link to your blog post about it, perhaps a photograph you took that illustrates it (a picture is worth a thousand words), or art illustrating your gratitude! (If I get enough folks participating, I'll start using a link party tool.) A couple of rules: 1. If you are linking, link to the specific post, not the main page of your blog. 2. Please, no links to online shops -- stay on topic! Feel free to post the blog button! <center><a href="http://provokingbeauty.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8lF-13I48XJBtsgw5UuI9GcoD2z2MxT4Zkq9wVSb1Hst30PU-ej4R_kcTRI84pWO4Gex3KIg0YU-gZHLa4Oam98aiIhpeyki9PVovtF34NLSynxlcc6AF5Bs1A84tpZyJNFr98uZge9GJ/s320/wheresGodblogbutton.jpg"/></a></center>...

Well, boxes have been sent and received, so I thought I'd share the boxes I made. As I've been a negligent blogger lately, thought I'd show what I received in another post... The best part was that I shopped for these little boxes amongst my own supplies. Lace, buttons, ribbons, a vintage pocketwatch case, some funky paper clips and other things which I now forget and of course didn't take a picture of. I used pretty vintage wallpaper... Fancy Prima flowers, vintage/antique paper, vintage lace and some seam binding... They were fun and easy to make!

I'm looking forward to receiving my book! Here are the pages that I made:  As you can see, I used lots of identical images and put them together in different ways... I hope whoever gets my pages enjoys them!

 I started this post over a week ago. And then my last grandparent died and well, blogging has not been as big a priority as watching TV, sewing (you'll see the project soon, I hope), eating chocolate and, well grieving. I wanna send out a HUGE thank you to Claudia of Mockingbird Hill Cottage who was finally able to point me in the right direction for adding the "Wednesday's Where's God?" button and code to my blog. So here's last week's post followed by this week's. Last week: I've signed up for another online art class (with Suzi Blu again, called "A Lovely Dream" . Art journaling from September 1 until May next year. I just made the journal today.) So I shall be a bit of a journaling fiend. I also want to finish the big painting from her La Sirena class. I have faces sketched, just need to shade and get rolling on that one... So here is this week's Where's God? which covers the anniversary of 9/11. And here is thi...

I wrote epically in my journal about Sunday (9/11). Mainly about forgiveness. I've decided not to share it, mainly because it goes on for pages. However, what my church's rector (aka pastor) said on Sunday about the hard work that is forgiveness is well worth sharing here (scroll down to the September 11 listing). It also appears I forgot to hit the Publish button last week. Oops. So here's last week's Wednesday's Where's God: Karla from Back at Ya Babe wrote in last week's post that: "God has been in our circumstances this week." Here's my page for week 13... And here's this Wednesday's Where's God: The envelope holds a copy of the vows that we renewed on the 4th. (Not quite our anniversary, but we wanted to do it before our community of faith). Where was God in your week? Comment below with your own list, link to your blog post about it, perhaps a photograph you took that illustrates it (a picture ...

I wrote this by candlelight ... and then transcribed it this morning.... The "Great Blackout" [for those who missed it, the entire San Diego County, bits of Orange County, bits of Arizona and Mexico had no power for up to 12 hours last night] made me aware how ill-prepared we are for an emergency, but oddly I wasn't freaking out over it. We had a few days worth of food (probably a week once we started in on the cereal) and we still had running water -- but our emergency, hand-cranked radio up and died within minutes of turning it on. Thankfully, the hubby scrounged up some batteries. We have a BBQ with propane, thank goodness. So dinner was clam chowder by candlelight. (Wish I'd taken a picture, but oh well!) It was really odd that I wasn't freaking out. It probably helped that I was able to call Mum on a land line and let her know I'm okay. While waiting for traffic to ease at church (where I work--the outage started at 3:40pm), I handed out melting...

Here are some items I picked up recently(ish): two circa 1880's photographs, a white crocheted tablecloth, doilies, lace, and some super-fine tatting (and some anglaise lace)... Here are some closeups... The anglaise will probably end up around the hem of a skirt, or turning a top into a tunic... Mum says I can't cut up the crochet tablecloth even though it looks fairly new, has a hole and only cost me $12.... This tatting(?) is amazing ... it is completely whole in the round ... (can't find a seam) and possibly edged a skirt once? It has a lot of aging and not a few holes in it -- and I suspect possibly too fragile to actually stitch on to my clothes --- especially as I'm a bit of klutz and constantly catch myself on things (usually door knobs and flanges).  But I'll either come up with something, or this could be the third piece in my vintage trio (along with an apricot chemise and my christening gown).

There's a lot of bird life in Mum's backyard (back in Australia),  mainly because of the gum trees (aka eucalyptus) on her property.  This is just one of them. It's a tawny frogmouth owl. Yes, and it's eyes were open during the day. It moved from one tree to another and took us a couple of days to find it in the new tree. Isn't it cute? (Ok, the staring right at the camera in a "you're disturbing my sleep" annoyed kind of way, isn't quite so cute... but it's not a very big owl.) Their feathers and coloring make it very hard to spot.  Don't believe me? Check out this video I shot of it. Took me ages to find it via the viewfinder. (And the answer is, it's in the bottom left corner ... at least until I managed to find it). It's moved on from this tree too and Mum hasn't found the new location yet. Maybe it got tired of getting looked at and having its photo taken.  When I was visiting Pop in  hospital, the old man in t...

Here's the past week's discerning the presence of God... Where was God in your week? Comment below with your own list, link to your blog post about it, perhaps a photograph you took that illustrates it (a picture is worth a thousand words), or art illustrating your gratitude! (If I get enough folks participating, I'll start using a link party tool.) A couple of rules: 1. If you are linking, link to the specific post, not the main page of your blog. 2. Please, no links to online shops -- stay on topic! Feel free to post the blog button! (Incidentally, I can't figure out how you can create the "copy and paste" html code to link back. If anyone knows how, please let me know!) I will share my favorites next Wednesday, in the meantime, check back to see who has posted and enjoy discovering God in each other's lives!

I've long admired this swap but the timing just hasn't been right ... until now. (It's okay, my pages for the Green Paper Swap are almost done.) Signups are supposed to close today ... Oh and if anyone knows where on earth in Southern California I can find these blessed larger matchboxes, I'd greatly appreciate it....

Here it is! It's got several layers going on for a change -- I glued down my public transit tickets that I used to see my grandfather (and the airline boarding pass), along with what was already there, dry brushed some gesso on it, so that it merged together a bit better, added pretty tape and a bird rub on from my stash. I should do more pages like this, I think. The tawny frogmouth owl was really awesome. I need to get the pictures uploaded though... Where was God in your week? Comment below with your own list, link to your blog post about it, perhaps a photograph you took that illustrates it (a picture is worth a thousand words), or art illustrating your gratitude! (If I get enough folks participating, I'll start using a link party tool.) A couple of rules: 1. If you are linking, link to the specific post, not the main page of your blog. 2. Please, no links to online shops -- stay on topic! Feel free to post the blog bu...

I'm in. Are you?