Creativity Bootcamp- Day 1 "ivory"

The first day of the creativity boot camp was “ivory”. The medium I am choosing for this boot camp is photography. I am taking on this journey not just to push me to dig deeper at my art but to search out who I am. Someone asked me about a year ago “who is Sharon?” and I had hardly anything to answer. The “about me” section of my blog has always been hard to fill in.

As I began to think on this assignment and pray about where it should take me, my first thoughts of the word ‘ivory’ took me to the keys of my piano… however they, being attached to a rather modern digital piano, are not very ‘ivory’ to say the least.

Music being still on my mind, the word ‘ivory’ took me to my grandmother’s old hymnals and an old favorite book of mine. The pages of both are aged and are therefore very ‘ivory’.

My grandmother played the organ and piano in church for many years. As a kid I loved listening to her play. She could play anything. From “Round and Round the Mulberry Bush” to “New York, New York” to “Nearer My God to Thee” and even a bit of Mozart in between. As a child I wanted to be able to sit and play like that but I never had the patience or the ‘stick-to-it-ness’ to learn it well.

Music has always been important to me. I enjoy communicating through song. Songs of my Savior; what he has done for me in my life, what he can do for others in their life, and lifting up praise to Him -the author and finisher of my faith. The hymnals were opened to specific songs that have held meaning in my life.

The book is the biography of John G. Paton, a Scottish missionary to the cannibals of the South Seas. A man who, through great heartbreak, continued on for the cause of Christ, against a stream of tremendous tribulation, to win the heathen cannibals to their Creator and Savior, all the while wearing a kilt. (For him Sunday attire was a kilt, he preached in it with  zeal, and just think… kilts are always made of wool and he lived in the tropics.) Not only do I love the missionary aspect but having Scottish heritage makes me even more fond of this old saint.

I enjoyed getting out my camera and actually having purpose in seeking out what to photograph. I think I am going to enjoy this boot camp, as long as I can keep up with it. These next few weeks are some of the busiest I have had in a long time; funerals, birthdays, anniversaries, the only thing missing is a wedding it seems.

Click on over to find some linkage in the comments to others who are participating in the boot camp with their selected mediums. They range from writers, to crafters, fine artists.