I am a dreamer and explorer. I have a dream of starting an art center. Now I have a one page website to start the ball rolling… http://BlueSkyArtCenter.org and there is a lot of movement to that end. That is the next thing I will be organizing to do.
I really want to be a creator of art and teach in a way that brings the benefits of the church to the world. It will probably will not be in a traditional school environment (or church environment for that matter). I think I would like to mainly start by working with teen and pre-teenage students exploring how to help them explore and communicate in ways that are culture changing. I would like to teach painting, film making, and have others come in and help with sculpture, creative writing, acting… all with the objective in helping them to express their lives in ways that would motivate them and to motivate others into ACTION. Too much of the church is teaching and listening… and teaching and listening. I want to be able to instruct and empower people into world changing action. Enough with learning… let’s MOVE & DO!!!
The first step seems like it may be to enter a local foster care facility called Casa Pacifica to start the art program with. http://www.casapacifica.org/home.html I will be meeting with them in the coming weeks to see what is possible there. I want to use this as a trial to see what happens when we promote creativity with a group like this. My wife is a grant writer for a non-profit org, so she has some good idea of how approach funders with this dream. First I must have something rolling for them to fund. I also have coonections to a para-church org that is socially connected with both gov orgs and other non-profits and churches. Their main deal is to make connections. They have offered for me to start under their umbrella and use their non-profit status to get some funding through while I work out what we are actually doing. That may be a good way to start. I have some pretty good ideas, but the proof of the pudding will be when we get some motion and have some art to show. I will be meeting with them next week and they are excited to talk to me about getting started with them.
So, I am also praying about and researching other opportunities to do this. I have been thinking of starting a non-profit org and get a facility to be able to house this dream. There would be a gallery, a painting studio, a lounge and a space for thinking. As you may know, there is TONS of public and private money available for working with at-risk youth, but you have to be pretty organized to approach the funders. I am thinking of directing some of it to run this after-school at-risk youth programs – perhaps in the Camarillo / Oxnard, California area. I have been working with teens for over 20 years and always within the context of the Church. I am now chomping-at-the-bit to take my faith outside of the “church” and activate the spiritual minds of students (young and old) into thinking about other lives around them and how they can provide positive, action-oriented lives. We are too self-centered, providing a comfortable life for ourself, and in it, we are loosing our communities. This painful trend has been happening for years.
All that to say that I have been dreaming for a few months about an art studio that would house a community teaching element that would be funded by grant money that would help develop community youth into being global citizens with a hopeful look to the future… students with an awareness of the spirit inside of them and allowing that spirit to be influenced by their creator.
This is a real idea that I can not shake. I even have a location that I want. It is an old boarded up fire station in the old town section of Camarillo. I know that it has been vacant for over three years, and I am sure that the county would love to have it cleaned up and used for community purpose. What better use than building a Community Creative Center?!?
So, there are lots of ways to promote but there is nothing like getting your feet dirty and walk and moving. What I mean, JUST START.
So, one thing leads to another but you have to take the first steps. I leave now with a re-post of this story that was written in 1951, W.H. Murray in his book The Scottish Himalaya Expedition:
When I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money — booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets”:
Indecision brings its own delays,
And days are lost lamenting o’er lost days.
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute;
What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it;
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, from Faust in 1835
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