My Story

 

Julie Capel
Living God’s Masterpiece

 

For as long as I can remember, I have passionately loved three things - God, people and art! I began my faith journey, as a young child – gung-ho that I loved Jesus. As I have matured, my faith in God has matured as well. I have begun to understand how people fit into the equation. It wasn’t enough to love God, but I was also privileged to be commanded to love others. The largest step of faith lately has been coming to the Gallery. It was an answer to my prayer to become a part of a church community much like our community. I didn’t fully realize that in order to fully become a part of a new community, I would need to leave the one I had been part of for 8.5 years. Leaving was tough, and I am not sure what He is doing by having me here – but I know He is doing something.

 

Once upon a time I wrote out how my artwork and spiritual life go hand and hand. The two types of artwork I showed at The Gallery were aluminum foil art and painting on canvas. Each are unique in how I understand God through them. Doing foil art is a very meticulous process, one that takes quite a bit of time. It is precisely in the process of slowing down enough to work this way that lends itself to becoming a meditative activity. Some people can sit alone in a chair and pray. Some people write devotionally. Some people do prayer walks. For me working on pieces, like the ones I shared, give me that time to just BE with God. To enjoy who He is. Sometimes they are prayer conversations, but most of the time it is just quality time with God.

 

The other type of artwork is painting on canvas. Showing these pieces is much more a vulnerable activity then showing you the aluminum foil works. These canvases represent either promises from God or wrestlings with God. They are emotional. Like the canvas with the Father holding his son on his shoulders – its called "And How You Carried Me". It is a promise that hangs above my bed reminding me of the time right after my Grandmother died. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through. Ex. 19:4 “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.” He reminds the Israelites and me, that there were other times that they made it through the hardest of hard times, not by their power but by the grace of God and the fact that He will just pick us up and plop us on his shoulders and walk us through this time.

 

Art is an intricate part of who I am and my relationship with God. It is how I enter into worship. It is how I spend intimate time with God. Visual art is how I understand Him. It makes sense to me that God because He created us. He deeply loves us – because on a small small scale its how I feel about the artwork that I spend hours creating.

 

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