Art Camp

I’ve been updating my blog with a few random posts about life and art and I couldn’t leave out art camp. What a fun three weeks we had last summer. I taught elementary art and after school art lessons and had many requests for summer art camps, but never thought I could pull it off. Last year however, I really needed a fun project and with the help of another art teacher friend, Ashley Matthews, and my sweet teen helper Kate, we put together three sessions with a total of 60 kids. It was so much fun. Hot and fun.

Infertility

Aug 8, 2020

Today is the two year anniversary of Jane’s conception through Invitro Fertilization after four years of infertility. I made a video about our IVF process that I’ll add down below. We’ve been exceedingly blessed with our little miracle. I have been wanting to write about this journey and what it taught me for a while. Even though I’ve been able to talk about it through the years, I don’t want to forget the details because I know for sure that the Lord doesn’t waste our pain and our hardships. If we let Him, He will use it for His good purpose. 

When I look back at my life, I see each season in a different theme. Our four years of infertility season was my “seeking” theme. After the first year of trying to have a baby I really began to fervently seek the Lord in my quiet time. I’m sure I was praying about it before, but I really began to ask God to show me some direction. What am I supposed to do? Do I change doctors? Do I do this exploratory surgery? Do we adopt? But the verses that stood out to me the most in my Bible study (where I was totally expecting some answers) were usually about seeking. 

I don’t remember them all, but I think I marked most of the verses in my bible and dated them. “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Matthew 7:7-8. 

What great verses right? But this went on into the second year. One day I remember reading another verse that was something about seeking the Lord in it and feeling that it was really meant for me and I got very frustrated.

I was like Okay Lord I am seeking you, now what? What do we do? And I felt like the Lord was gently saying to me, that is it. That is your answer. What I’ve been telling you this whole time, seek Me. 

I don’t know that I grasped everything in that moment, but I gradually began to understand what this meant. To seek the Lord not for what He could do for me or for His answers to my problems, He wanted me to seek Him for Him and value who He is and to know Him deeply. Eventually I realized that even if the Lord never answered another one of my prayers, He is still good, and His plan is still the best and I don’t have to know the details. I just have to trust the one making them. That’s an easy thing to say on the other side of waiting, but harder to come to terms within the middle of a struggle I know. 

Another time that shaped me through this hard time was when I crying in the shower. I let out most of my frustrations and hosted most of my pity parties in the shower, at least after each monthly disappointment. I remember being in the shower and telling the Lord that it felt like I was on a moving assembly line in a baby factory and God was handing out babies to all the people in front of me. But right before He got to me, He turned around as if to get my baby like all the others before me. But He paused a beat too long and handed the baby to the person after me. 

He skipped me. 

He didn’t even notice and kept on going like nothing happened. Everyone else got to hop off the assembly line and go about their lives, move into their next season, a season they probably didn’t even appreciate, at least not like I would have. That’s how it felt anyway. 

And that is how it feels, like you’ve been skipped, left behind and everyone else gets to keep living while you’re left circling on the assembly line getting skipped every time your turn comes around. But I very much felt the Lord say to me in my sad self-pity state alone in my shower, that He didn’t skip me. 

He picked me.

And as the water washed over me and I thought about that, I felt like I already knew what He meant. He picked me for this journey of waiting, watching, stretching and growing. He would never leave me and would show me eventually how He was working and be sure to encourage me along the way. 

I knew this to be true in my heart because at this point, I was teaching at Christ Covenant School, an opportunity that I probably wouldn’t have had if my prayers would have been answered on my timeline. Those kids made me feel so special at a time I really needed some encouragement. When I started IVF, my staff family prayed for me at our staff meeting, they texted and emailed to check on me and threw me the sweetest baby shower. I felt so beloved. When the kids found out I wasn’t coming back the next year, I was about 8 months pregnant, I told each class my testimony and told them that the Lord had a plan for their lives too. No matter what they were going through or would go through they could count on Him to never leave them and to use the hard times for good. I told them that I loved them and that they were so special to me and were like my very own kids. I said if they were that special to me, just imagine how much more special they are to God who created us. 

For the past 4 years we have been dealing with unexplained infertility. After 6 IUI's, 1 surgery, countless prayers, and a few other procedures we decided to...

First Mother's Day

My first Mother’s Day💗 (besides puppy Mother’s Day which totally counts 🐶). The years of waiting do make it extra sweet especially with this little cupcake.💕 It’s the most rewarding but also hardest job to be responsible for someone’s wellbeing, comfort, happiness, growth, learning, development, security, and so much more. I’m so grateful to be entrusted with this little life (even with a lot less time to paint 😜). I sit here thinking about all the women who have helped shape me into the mother and woman I am now. I know God has put different “moms” in my life exactly when I needed them, even now. I think about all the women who wish to be mothers. I want to send you all a special hug and tell you that you mean a lot to someone (probably me if you’re reading this long post.💗) The world needs you and your gifts. And my girl will need women like you in her life to help show her the woman God meant for her to be. Heck I’ll need your wisdom and certainly your encouragement! So Happy Mother’s Day all you mums and puppy mums! You are loved. Thanks for sharing your love with me.

-May 2020

The Vine

“I am the true vine🌱, and My Father is the vinedresser. 🌿Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more 🍉🌺. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, 🌸🌼for apart from Me you can do nothing.” ‭‭John‬ ‭15:1-2‬, 5
Such a powerful few verses for me. He cuts from my life what doesn’t bear fruit, but more than that he cuts what does bear fruit so it will make more and better fruit! And that cut hurts. It can hurt deeply. But when I trust that the one making the cut knows exactly when, where and how my perspective changes and I’m even grateful for the Lord’s loving pruning and the results it produces.

-March 2020

Art Teacher Adventures

I keep meaning to write about my first year as an elementary art teach and it's already almost halfway over! I need to be working on my Christmas commissions and learning my lines for the community theater Christmas play, so I'm going to post the first email I sent to my kid's parents. I have so much more to say and many more projects to talk about, but I'll just save it for lata! 

Howdy from the CCS Art Room!

I know I know, you have all been on pins and needles wondering what has been happening in the art room and what sort of messes and creations we have been making! So here's a peek at the last 4 weeks in the studio. We have been busy bees! 

We have been focusing on The Elements of Art (EOA) which include line, shape, color, form, value, texture and space. If you haven't already heard it, ask your kid to sing the "song" and do the motions for you. The Elements of Art are the building blocks to any great work of art, like the ingredients in a delicious cake. I tell these guys if they can master the EOA everything else will be a piece of delicious chocolate cake!

Our Artist of the Month of August was Walter Anderson who happens to be a great example of lines, shapes and color, am I right? We read a story about his life and did our own WA style chalk drawing with warm and cool colors. He is the most famous American Artist you (may) have never heard of!

Next, we've been exploring form and value with still life drawing and collaging. 

I hear this phrase a lot in the art room "I'm a terrible___ (drawer, artist, shader, circle drawer etc. etc.)." I'm thinking about banning said phrase. After a pep talk about negative self talk, I've told some of the kids that being good at art is a lot like being good at a sport. There are a few people who are just naturally athletic, but for the other 95% of us we'd have to practice a lot (maybe everyday), and learn good technique to be an awesome baller. And if we want to be a well-rounded artist/athlete it's a good idea to be inspired by the things we love (maybe it's drawing narwals and unicorns or dribbling a soccer ball) and keep finding new challenges to grow us (still life: errbody like ahhh that looks so hard! BOOM you did it. What's next!)

I encouraged the kids to bring in things they've drawn, painted, etc. at home instead of something doing something electronic (tv, video games, iPad, computer) cause lets be real these things have not helped our art game (this gal included). I also give them points toward a class party. You can email me pics of their work too. 

I know this email has turned into a small ebook, but my goals for the young masters this year are for them to be excited about art and for their confidence to get bumped up (you can do it, you eat a whole cake one bite at a time.. I mean theoretically..), to inspire creativity and to open their eyes to the beauty all around us that our Master Painter Jesus created just for us. I also have a few projects in mind to use our artists' gifts for others. 

It's gonna be a great year! Look what they've accomplished already! 

Until next time!
Leslie Saucier *<:0)

He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them skilled workers and designers. Exodus 35:35