The Maker's Space

Inspiration is all around us as I discovered during a recent trip to Philadelphia.  Read below, how an artist, working through depression, revitalized a neighborhood with his art form of mosaic...broken pieces becoming something new and beautiful! For more information visit www.phillymagicgardens.org About Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens Who We Are Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens (PMG) is a nonprofit art museum and gallery space located in Isaiah Zagar’s visionary art environment at 1020 South Street. Spanning half a block, the museum includes an immersive outdoor art installation and indoor galleries. Zagar created the space using nontraditional materials such as folk art statues, found objects, bicycle wheels, colorful glass bottles, hand-made tiles, and thousands of glittering mirrors. The site is enveloped in visual anecdotes and personal narratives that refer to Zagar’s life, family, and community, as well as references from the wider world such as influentia...

"I'll put it as urgently as I can:  You must get along with each other.  You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life in common." 1Cor. 1:10MSG "The GOAL is for all of them to become one heart and mind--Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, so they might be one heart and mind with us.  Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.....Then they'll mature in this oneness, and give the godless world evidence that you've sent me and loved them in the same way you've loved me."  John 17:21,23 MSG In all of this hate, shouting and not listening to one another, have we lost sight of the goal? Isn't our individual goals to grow and mature to be more like Christ, more love, more compassion, more peace?  And then, isn't our common goal of loving one another, the way to show the world who God is and how much He loves each of us in all the world? This was the premise for the exercise of charcoal drawing.  ...

This community art group exists to help others slow down and hear who they were designed to be.  Your dreams, visions, personality, likes and dislikes are no accident, but were designed by the Creator for His Master plan.  Art is one way that we can give God room to speak to us.   Slowing down, day-dreaming and daring to dream is giving God room to speak. It is an effort to seek after truth about ourselves and about others, in order to understand ourselves and understand each other better.  Truth can't come from ourselves or others as the source, but must come from an absolute source, not based on an opinion.  God's opinion of us is the only source of truth, because He is truth. "People do not drift toward Holiness.  Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith and delight in the Lord.  We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance;  we drift toward disobedience and call i...

Go take a walk, reduce your stress and blood pressure, and clear you mind.  One place you can get away is the botanical gardens near you.  The Morton Arboretum has established a restored Illinois prairie that comes alive in August!  Many native plants a now blooming just as in times of the first pioneers. www.mortonarb.org While you are there, don't miss the huge metal origami sculptures amongst the trees. Dozens of awe-inspiring large-scale metal sculptures based on the traditional Japanese art of paper folding will engage you on paths through the Arboretum’s spectacular landscape. Created by Santa Fe-based artists Kevin and Jennifer Box, the exhibition will feature installations, gallery works, and the Boxes' own compositions, as well as collaborative works with some of the world’s top origami artists. Each of the sculptures in the Origami in the Garden collection started with a single piece of folded paper created by some of the world’s m...