Church of the Highlands Dream Center

Here is a copy of Pastor Chris' Blog regarding our new DREAM CENTER.
Photos of Peggy show her final touches during a recent meeting as well as the final rendering. We are so proud of our "award winning" artist who also just recently was selected to be in a national Pastel publication!
We love you Peggy!

Dream Center and Passion Offering
December 12th, 2008 by Chris Hodges
I’ve been doing ministry a long time - almost 25 years. And I have never seen anything energize people like this Dream Center project. And everywhere I go, people want to know details:

What is it?

What will we do there?

How can I get involved?

Here’s the story…

A few months ago Church of the Highlands was able to purchase two buildings on the same piece of property in the Woodlawn area of Birmingham - a 17,000 sq. ft. clinic currently being used by the Jefferson County Health Department (which they are vacating this month) and an old abandoned fire station (seen below).



Both buildings are currently undergoing some renovations and will open in the early part of Spring 2009.

The medical clinic will be used by Christ Health Center to provide Christ-centered medical care to the area. The fire station will become The Birmingham Dream Center.

The Dream Center will house the offices of the Church of the Highlands Outreach staff and become the staging ground for all of our outreach efforts to the city.

Our dream is to bring light to the darkness and hope to the hopeless. With our facilities located in the heart of Birmingham, we will have a hand-on approach towards serving the poor and disenfranchised who live in the area. Whether we are delivering groceries to families in need or mentoring kids after school, our driving force is to remind people that God loves them right where they’re at. As we reach out to those living in addiction, prostitution and other desperate situations, we will see the power of God move on their hearts and in their lives.

This Sunday we will receive a special “Passion Offering” over and above our regular tithes and offerings.

Everything we give will go to:

• Providing a facility for the teenagers and college students in our city

• Completing the Dream Center renovations

• Giving to other ministries that we partner with in the Birmingham area

• Planting 50 new churches in 2009 with the ARC.

• Special missions efforts in the darkest places on earth.

We’re encouraging everyone to pray and ask God what He would have you to do. Then plan - get together with your family or your own budget and decide what you will do. And finally participate - everyone do something and together let’s make a difference.

THANK YOU HIGHLAND ARTISTS

As we finished up the book CREATIVE CALL,
we also wrapped up a semester of newly developed friendships...
Throughout this fall we began weaving a support network to help us all in our endeavors in stepping out as a creative vessel for God.
We will not be together for a month or so, but
Here is a link to a great source to keep us all on track
SYLVIA GUNTER
(CLICK ON HER NAME TO GO THERE)

As we step farther into who we really are, we also set ourselves up for
opinions....attitudes about who we are becoming.

Just know that GOD knows it all, he plans it all for us and has brought us all together for a GREATER purpose.

We have so many great strides we have made...starting with simply
proclaiming "I am ARTIST"...
all with tiny baby steps along the way....
with hands held,
with vision shared,
with love extended...acceptance
of us each as we were uniquely made.

I thank God that he has brought each of the people in this group
into my life...

actors, writers, painters, cheerleaders, encouragers...

the positive spirit that lives within this group is something that
cannot ever be explained...

it just IS....and I thank God for it.

Blessings during this season that IS ABOUT HIM...

Let us not forget that our visual creations can do more than look pretty,
they can speak words, they can give meaning, they can feed compassion...

they can speak about who we are, as God's children.

My prayer for you this holiday season is that you will find a moment or two
to create....to unleash the gift inside you.

Blessings Highland Artists! And thank you for being just who you are!

See you in the Spring!

Allison

Melanie Morris

From the TGV

Provence, France

Acrylic on Canvas – 12 x 24



Melanie Morris is an award-winning painter whose work has been shown in galleries across the South and featured in numerous juried shows. You are invited to see Melanie’s newest paintings.



Fine Art in Brentwood Show

Friday, December 5

5:30PM to 8:30PM



Saturday, December 6

10AM to 6PM



Sunday, December 7

12PM to 4PM



Brentwood Academy

219 Granny White Pike

Brentwood, TN

www.melaniemorrisart.com

FINLEY LINK- ARTIST from Birmingham

Hello fellow artists!

I received a link to a friend's husbands website, and while I have known they were at Highlands for some reason it escaped my knowledge that he was an ARTIST.

So for some more inspiration, enjoy these works done in oil that take you to a different place and time....

I have requested that he come speak with us next semester about the "how to's" when you get to this level,
he has prints and travels around the country selling his incredible paintings.

BLESSINGS!
Allison
www.donnyfinley.com

STILL LIFE

At our most recent paint gathering...
we decided to do some still life painting...or not...

since we visited more than painted....(well, some of us, that is)
I have attached some inspirational arrangements for you to tackle during the holidays!

Palette Knife Painting with Melanie Morris

This week we got together at my house to watch our leader lead us in
PAINTING WITH A PALETTE KNIFE.

She turned me on to this one year ago and I have never looked back!
I LOVE the palette knife. As a fast painter...and one with little patience
for oil, it has given me the freedom to layer and layer in fast strokes...
throwing control to the breeze...

It is the "happy accidents" that propel the work to something deeper than
what we were intending...

take a look at some of these from the class!
The notes will follow in another blog...
A picture says a thousand words....

Encaustic Painting (with WAX)

Our latest Highland Artist session included Encaustic Painting: a messy rendition of WAXING...
on canvases, that is.

OFFICIALLY:
Encaustic painting
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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A 6th-century encaustic icon from Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai.For encaustic tiles see Encaustic tile
Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax to which colored pigments are added. The liquid/paste is then applied to a surface — usually prepared wood, though canvas and other materials are often used.

The simplest encaustic mixture can be made from adding pigments to beeswax, but there are several other recipes that can be used — some containing other types of waxes, damar resin, linseed oil, or other ingredients. Pure, powdered pigments can be purchased and used, though some mixtures use oil paints or other forms of pigment.

Metal tools and special brushes can be used to shape the paint before it cools, or heated metal tools can be used to manipulate the wax once it has cooled onto the surface. Today, tools such as heat lamps, heat guns, and other methods of applying heat allow artists to extend the amount of time they have to work with the material. Because wax is used as the pigment binder, encaustics can be sculpted as well as painted. Other materials can be encased or collaged into the surface, or layered, using the encaustic medium to adhere it to the surface.


We took melted colored wax and squirted it onto the canvas (some were already painted, some of the artists painted them AFTER the wax) and blowdried the wax, making it flow across the work before drying.

I had a ball with it, adding wax to my "WATER SERIES" paintings, giving them texture and sheen. It is definitely something I will try again.

Joan Ware and Kristen Drew had us flowing in wax from one end of the kitchen to the other, mixing up the wax, organizing it on a warming tray and keeping us flowing with medicine syringes (a great way to control where the wax goes on the canvas).

See the photos to see just how much fun we had!

Allison