Martha Kelly Art

I've spent most of the week working on illustrations for a short story for Memphis Parent. It's my first commission for them, and I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to post them before they go into print. I was excited to be asked and very happy to be illustrating again. It's fun to work with a text and see which scenes really beckon to me.

So instead of posting those, I'll post this super cool video. Frank Kelly, the director of youth ministry at Idlewild, took photos of the hanging of "The Garden". He set up the camera to shoot at one minute intervals and then strung together a 30 second video from his stills. I'm so grateful to him for using his gifts to document what was, for me, quite an occasion. And I'm posting it here because it really is nifty to watch.

It's amazing how Advent creeps up on me each year, and it's especially exacerbated this time with my show just the week before. It's my favorite church season (gorgeous hymns, apocalyptic theology, the emphasis on Isaiah), and I try to do something special each year besides my normal line drawings. This year I'm doing a series of block prints paired with some vintage letterpress type. Above (echoing "Prepare the way of the LORD") is week one. I've carved but haven't printed "Repent" for week two. Week three will be my "Peace" image that I've already got note-cards of, and I'm still designing "Comfort" for week four. Nothing like being on top of things.

Anyway, I got this one done Monday to scan in Tuesday and get to my subscribing churches. Tomorrow I'll print "Repent". I've got John the Baptist whispering in my ear this week.