Art Festival 2025

Close supervision of the art work is expected. The design phase is particularly important, and works will only receive their highest rating if a proposal is agreed upon before starting production.

The consistory has authorized midweek use of the Children’s Church room for this activity. Our plan is to personally contact as many families as possible, to introduce the program and arrange times for group art sessions. Artists may work when and where they choose, but group sessions provide the supervision we value.

Seriously: One thing sets this activity apart from others. While there are times that we encourage or allow or tolerate playfulness in Children’s Church, this art program is serious. When working in the church, doing art, children must be focussed and diligent, respectfully following instructions — one of the traditional values of our tribes. Parents/guardians should discuss this with their child and agree to it.

Expect to receive announcements of training opportunities: workshops to learn and experiment. For example, story books are a high priority for the Festival. We will provide one or more opportunities to practice the art of good story design.

For art to have its highest value, artists must collect and include their art provenance with each sale.

Provenance documents the history of the artwork. It tells the creation story: who, what, when, where, why. If interesting to buyers, the value of the art increases.

One part of the provenance is a requirement of the Festival. The artist must document how the work relates to the Festival’s theme. What verse, Bible lesson, story, catechism question, or creed was the inspiration for the art? What invisible thing is made visible? And preschoolers, don’t worry: we adults can discuss this with you and record your words.

Art that honors the language, history, or clan structure of the artist’s tribe will be highly rated. The provenance should spell out the connection between the art and the tribe.

For all those who enter a work in the Festival, we will provide you with our contribution to your work’s provenance: a certificate of authenticity.

• Examples of completed works [under construction]
• Templates for designs [under construction]
• Equipment, materials, supplies [under construction]
• cameras and lenses
• photographic printer and paper
• pony/crow beads, cord and yarn
• air-dry clay
• paints and brushes

We are open to any form of visual art — plus one extra category.

Story-telling is so important to tribal culture that the Festival will help young artists/authors self-publish their short stories even if they have no illustrations. Submissions of illustrated short stories and picture books are strongly encouraged and will be highly rated.

Here is a rundown of categories we look forward to receiving:

• drawing (pencil, pen, crayon, chalk, charcoal... and any combination):
• painting
• miniature sculpture
• books:
• short story
• picture book
• short graphic novel
• photography:
• macro / close-up
• landscape: natural and urban
• portrait
• videography
• stop-motion video
• puppetry
• pony/crow beadwork
• star quilt design
• sewing
• multimedia

• Children's Church art exercises

  Fifty-two weeks a year, young people attending Children's Church are asked to make a drawing. Those drawings always relate to the lesson, and faith. Artists looking for an idea are encouraged to review the archived Children's Church exercises. Any submission that completes one of those exercises is pre-approved.

  Parents of preschool children are strongly encouraged to submit artwork under this category. Your kids have amazing imaginations, with insights into God and his angels. Let the rest of the world benefit.

  Blank sheets of paper and the child's preferred tools — crayons, pencils, or markers — are the only supplies needed. Parents should document the particular Children's Church exercise followed, when the drawing was made, and the child's explanation of the objects in the drawing.

• 10 Commandments Posters

  God's 10 Commandments are eternal. But not the posters on the Children's Church classroom wall. We are therefore recruiting (begging) young artists to contribute their illustrations to replace those that are old and faded.

  Here is the text for the "reminder version" of the commandments found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5:

  1. Love God above all
  2. Worship God, not things
  3. Use God's name carefully
  4. Have a day of rest and worship
  5. Honor your father and mother
  6. Do not murder
  7. Do not commit adultery
  8. Do not steal
  9. Do not lie
  10. Do not covet

  Ask for a "10 Commandments instruction packet" for more advice and directions.

• Miniature sculptures: "Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field"(Genesis 2:19)

God's creative impulse survives in us — we who were formed in His image. Air-dry clay is a great medium for exercising our God-given creativity. And who knows what all the animals in the Garden of Eden looked like? It's fun to imagine, and experiment, and judge. Like God did.

How about "leviathan"? "Behemoth"? "Dragons"? Four-headed creatures? Heads with four faces? Flying creatures with six wings? By faith, through the Bible, we know God populated his world with fantastic creatures. Let's do the same in our world, as a reminder.

The Children's Church lesson on Creation will include time for this exercise in sculpture. It's one of the highlights of the year. Expect midweek sessions as well this summer and fall, to meet youth interests and schedules. Clay provided.

• Calvary pony-bead banner: Jesus made a public spectacle of Satanic powers and authorities, triumphing over them by the cross."(Colossians 2:15)

Sadly, young children in Children's Church have recounted their sense of, and fear of, dark spiritual powers.

But none of them need fear what they sense. On the cross of Calvary, Jesus won his battle against those dark powers. God the Father proved it on Easter morning: Jesus is risen! Alive! Now ascended to the Father, ruling over the world in glory.

The empty cross is our comfort. To commemorate it, and have a first experience in beadwork, the Festival is providing materials for designing and making a Calvary banner —a rectangle of colored beads representing the cross and the landscape surrounding it. The banner is suitable for hanging at home. Use it as a reminder: Jesus has triumphed!

Designing the layout. Selecting the colors. Counting and stringing the beads. Tying the knots. These skills, once matured, can be applied to the intricate, fine beadwork required for traditional ceremonial clothing. Let's mature those skills. Ask for special midweek time to work through design and receive materials.

• Star-quilt design: "I, Jesus, am the Bright Morning Star."(Revelation 22:16)

  One blessing of modern tribal culture is the artistry of their star-quilts. To have one is to cherish it.

  We are promoting that avenue of art: all of our children are strongly encouraged to design a Christ-centered star-quilt. A basic pattern is supplied — a simple star-quilt with the center reserved and extended to represent Christ's cross. The artist simply needs to design the color scheme for the diamonds and the background, then color in the pattern.

  Artists are encouraged to include colors that represent each clan in their tribe, as reminders. Submissions that include the correspondence between color and clan will be highly rated.

• White-crystal macrophotography. “To each person who is winning the battle, I will give a white stone with a secret name written on it, known only to the person receiving it.” (Revelation 2:17)

  This verse from the book of Revelation is one of the themes of our Youth Program.

  Pictures from a good camera and macrolens remind us that all around are things that "we do not see" because they are too small. Maybe that is how our "secret name" will be kept secret in heaven.

  Any artist interested in close-up photography should contact us and schedule a midweek session with our camera and a dozen or so white crystals.

[Under construction. Here we plan to post images of submitted work as they come in.]

There will be more than one way for our artists to make money from their art.

After the Festival, the artist is free to take the work home and sell it themselves. Or, with the approval of parent/guardian, finished art can be offered for sale on the Festival’s website, with all proceeds going back to the artist.

We are planning an online silent auction to be concluded at the Festival, with results announced during the awards ceremony. Artists should set a lowest acceptable bid if using the online auction.

Some works lend themselves to making reproductions. We will discuss with artists a long-term plan for advertising and selling reproductions of their work online.

Those selling copies of their picture book or story book must decide whether to print the books themselves or use an online service for printing and mailing and handling the money. In the latter case, the artist/author must set a sale price with the printing service. From that price, the service takes their costs of printing and mailing. The artist/author will receive what is left over.