Creative 14

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Creating an Art Studio and Workshops to

Foster Creativity
There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is
sovereign over all, does not cry, “Mine!”
ABRAHAM KUYPER, “Sphere Sovereignty,” in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader
One of the best ways to nurture creativity in the church and your creative
community is to provide opportunities for hands-on art making. Open
studio time and arts workshops are excellent venues for this to happen.
And, as you’ll see, your church doesn’t need a permanent, dedicated art
studio to make these things work.
Most of the arts ministries featured in this chapter find that their
ministry activities change often. As they seek God for what he desires to do
in and through the ministry, every year looks a little different. Still, some
form of the activities in this section remains a part of what these ministries
do, because artists need to create. And there is joy when they can do it
together.
Art Studio Time

Copyright © 2015. InterVarsity Press. All rights reserved.
Most churches don’t have a dedicated art studio space, but that doesn’t need
to stop you from offering regular studio time. You can easily set up a
temporary studio in any available, well-lit space. The caveat would be that,
as I’ve mentioned before, your cleanup of the space is impeccable. In many
cases the arts ministry will need to earn trust with leadership and facilities
McElroy, J. Scott. Creative Church Handbook : Releasing the Power of the Arts in Your Congregation, InterVarsity Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=2054953.
Created from liberty on 2023-11-29 19:52:43.
management at this most basic level of cleanup before it can move on to
bigger and better things.
Infused Arts. Infused Arts at Living Word Community Church in York,
Pennsylvania, sets up and takes down their studio space every week. They
do this in a multipurpose area that also houses a coffee bar and an art
gallery. Director of arts deAnn Roe keeps all the studio supplies—
tablecloths, paintbrushes, paints, paper and other things they need—in a
big, heavy rolling cabinet. On studio night they’ll roll out the cabinet and
get the supplies ready. The facilities staff will set up the tables in the area of
the room with linoleum floors and put them away later. When the studio
time is over volunteers help clean everything up and put the room in order.
Figure 14.1. Artists experiment with watercolor during the

Infused Arts open studio. Photo: deAnn Roe.
The Infused studio takes place the first four Thursdays of every other
month. Each month has a different theme or topic. “We recently explored
the life of artist Jackson Pollack, then we invited people to experience
painting like Pollock,” deAnn Roe says. “I got these 30" by 30" canvases
for ten dollars, which workshop attendees paid for. Everyone donated old
house paint that was sitting in their basement. Of course we had plastic all
over the floor for protection. It was a lot of fun! We later hung those
canvases in the gallery.” 1 Infused workshops are often about learning a new
technique or studying an artist and creating work in that style. This is a
good time for people who haven’t come to the studio before to join in, try
something new and get a chance to play with art.
Every fifth Thursday of a month Infused will host an open studio where
anyone can do anything they want with any medium they want. They do
charge five dollars on open studio night, which includes the use of the art
supplies and an 11-by-14-inch canvas panel. deAnn provides creative
prompts for those who are interested, but most people come in having an
idea of what they want to create or what medium they want to try.
deAnn says, “I cannot tell you how many times people walk into the
studio and say something like, ‘I don’t know why I’m here. I’m not an
artist.’ My heart is to encourage them, to help them embrace their creativity,
no matter their current level, and then discover how God will speak to them
and through them while in the creating.”
Express Your Faith. Express Your Faith arts ministry has a similar
situation in that space is at such a premium in their church that they have to
share their studio space with many other ministries. The arts ministry does
have a desk in this room, as well as storage cabinets filled with art supplies,
a workbench, several tables, a sink and a potter’s wheel. They schedule
room use through the church computer system to keep things straight.
Express Your Faith hosts open studio in this space on the first and third
Thursdays of every month. Adults and high school students can come in
and bring their own supplies or use provided supplies for a freewill
offering. They also have a service component where sometimes they’ll
make things in the studio that will be taken to places like nursing homes or
given to missions partners in the United States and abroad.
Ex Creatis. Ex Creatis, the arts initiative at Saddleback Church,

currently has open studio, which they call Open Create, on Fridays and
Saturdays from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. They can accommodate the typical studio
arts, plus woodworking, graphic design, photography and more.
They also hold their weekly Arts Collective on Thursday nights. This
includes discussion, a group art project or workshop and two hours of Open
Create, ending at midnight. The collective is a rich time for artists to
personally connect with each other, ask questions and discuss integrating
their faith with their art. Basic tools are provided by the arts ministry, and
they cultivate a supportive atmosphere where artists can be in community
but work on their own projects.
Ex Creatis initially started with an open creative space and then shifted
to a weekly program in order to be more intentional about fostering creative
and spiritual growth. Altogether they have eighteen hours every week
during which artists can use the studio space. See their website at
ExCreatis.com.
VineArts. The VineArts studio is always humming with activity.
They’ve occupied a 40' by 40' space since 2009, filling it with everything an
art studio and arts ministry home base would need. In addition to weekly
arts affinity group meetings, workshops, book studies and more, they offer
weekly open studio time to anyone in the church and community who
would like to come. “We’ve seen numerous lives transformed through our
open studio,” Jessie Nilo says. “Many have found a church home after
coming through the art studio door.”
Figure 14.2. Artists enjoying the VineArts studio. Photo:

Sherri Coffield.
VineArts open studio operates the first Wednesday of the month from
3:00 to 8:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. They average
twenty-five to thirty guests at those times, many of whom are from outside
the church. They suggest a small donation for materials and supplies from
those who use the studio.
With this volume of people coming through, and the frequency of open
studio times, VineArts decided to put a volunteer studio host/monitor
system in place. Several people take turns hosting open studio once a
month. These “monitor ministers” help people feel comfortable in the
studio, answer questions and serve their needs.
Workshops and Classes

Visual Voice. Visual Voice arts ministry is known for their arts classes and
workshops. You may find one operating any night of the week. “Some of
the classes are specifically skill-based, like drawing or painting or
sculpture, etc.,” says director of arts Ann Williams.
Then we also have two classes that are designed to just get artists
together. One is a discovery class, a sort of “how does this art-and-
God-thing work”where we use Janice Elsheimer’s The Creative Call
book. The other class is called Creative Connections. It has five
major components: Bible study, arts history, arts skill building, a
professional practices component and a conceptual component,
where we’ll take an entire class period and go through Scripture and
conceptually come up with a piece of art and sketch it out. This
process helps people think through the journey of creating a piece of
artwork.
Classes are usually held on a weeknight, often on Wednesdays
because that’s when the youth clubs go on, enabling parents to

attend and have childcare covered. We also have a photography
group that meets every Monday. 2
(For more on the photography group, see “Affinity Groups” in chapter six.)
Express Your Faith. Express Your Faith arts ministry is quite busy most
weeks, hosting workshops and planning sessions. They have an art
workshop the second Saturday morning of each month that usually runs two
hours long and is based on themes. There are three different activities, all
with a biblical meaning.
A volunteer leadership team plans “Rekindle Your Creative Spirit”
events, which serve to create arts community and bring more awareness to
volunteer opportunities in the arts ministry. Featured artists will share about
their process and how their faith influences their art. Then everyone will go
to the art studio and spend time working with whatever art form was talked
about. They’ll have refreshments and sign-up opportunities. The following
Monday will be a full evening of “how-to” with that art form, whether it’s
pottery, collage, painting, sculpture or whatever. Then the artists who
presented and instructed will have the opportunity to display their own
artwork in the church gallery.
VineArts. Jessie Nilo, VineArts director, says, “Over the past several
years, long before we had a studio, we hosted low-cost art workshops in the
gym or the lobby or chapel, wherever we could. We hosted workshops on
drawing and communication, Chinese brush painting, copyright basics,
acrylics, clay, plein air, photography, Adobe Photoshop, printmaking, and
many more.”
Figure 14.3. A painting workshop led by Dean Estes at
VineArts Boise. Photo: Jessie Nilo.
VineArts provides their workshops at a low cost but asks attendees to

pay beforehand so that they can cover supplies and the instructor’s
honorarium.
Many of the topics covered in this book could be turned into workshops.
You might page back through the chapters and see if anything seems to
stand out as a workshop idea you’d like to try. For more workshop ideas,
see the resources and extras for this chapter.
Through hands-on studio time, workshops and classes on the arts, artists
in your church can contribute and develop their talents, the level of
creativity in the church can be raised, and individuals and ministries in the
church will benefit from the sharing of creative gifts. And people who
would never have entered a church will be drawn in by the power of arts.
See the online resources and extras for this chapter at
JScottMcElroy.com/CCHandbookextras.

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······ 14 ······

Creating an Art Studio and Workshops to

Art Studio Time

Figure 14.1. Artists experiment with watercolor during the

Ex Creatis. Ex Creatis, the arts initiative at Saddleback Church,

Figure 14.2. Artists enjoying the VineArts studio. Photo:

Workshops and Classes

because that’s when the youth clubs go on, enabling parents to

VineArts provides their workshops at a low cost but asks attendees to

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