amokarts

Tuesday, October 7, 2009 Going to Stiltsville
A few months back I received an email from Max Lucado's publishing company looking for people to be a sort of street team for his new book Fearless. I figured I would read the book review it here, pass along a few promo pieces and call it a day. Well things rarely go the way we plan. I received the book and by the time I read the back cover notes, I was pretty sure there was a sermon series in there. They also sent me (I kid you not) 500 copies of this nice promo piece called The Fearless Times. It looks like a newspaper and in addition to the obligatory advertising copy, there were quite a few quality articles on the fears we face in the times in which we live. I was running out of ideas for ways to distribute 500 copies when a thought occurred to me. I liked the book, the paper was really pretty nice, so I thought why not combine this piece with a flyer and use it to promote the series to our community so that it what we did.

I started the series last week with a message called Fear Itself. In working through preparing the message for this week, I was fascinated by this full length poem about Stiltsville that Lucado uses to illustrate the point of the chapter which is on fear of insignificance (something I, and I believe a lot of people, especially artists deal with). As I read and reread this poem I started seeing all these little characters playing out the parts and I decided I am going to attempt to make a video to go along with the message. The above is a frame from that video. I have no idea how I a,m going to get this done, but I have a feeling the rest of the creations for the week will have to do with Stiltsville.

Thursday, October 1 through Monday October 5, 2009 The challenge moves on.
I apologize for my lack of blogging these last few days but rest assured the creating continued, praise God.

Thursday saw the completion of the coding of my swine flu project and a few sketches. I have a few more pages to complete for a supplemental piece which I am hoping to complete in the next few days. Friday and Saturday were devoted to two projects, the writing of my sermon called Fear Itself (Hear it soon at runningamok.mypodcast.com). This will be the first installment in my series based around Max Lucado's fantastic new book Fearless. The other project is one near and dear to my heart.

If you remember a few weeks back I posted a logo for a new program I was planning called ArtMAD. Well after much deliberation, I decided that I really did not need to create a whole new ministry to do that project. I decided instead to combine some things I am already doing to accomplish the same purpose. The new concept is called A.M.O.K.M.A.D. Simply stated A.M.O.K.M.A.D is a page on the AMOKArts page calling people to donate to important causes, using my art as the catalyst. My eventual plan is to sell some of the video paintings and prints if I can get a printer to take on the project at a reasonable price. While I am trying to get a few last minute things in place, I devoted my most recent Weird World of Weiss comic to raise awareness of the work that remains to be done in the New Orleans area and information to donate to and/or physically help the St Bernard Project's 4NOLA campaign and Brethren Disaster Ministries. All this can be found on my new web page at http://www.amokarts.com/amokmad.html.

In addition to seeking donations and workers for these worthwhile ministries, I am making an offer. If anyone donates $30 or more to either of these worthwhile ministries (as well as Blood Water Mission) I will send them a free hand drawn and signed sketch. I don't know if that will help to get more people to donate or not, but it's yet another way I am trying to put my money (and or my work) where my mouth is.

The comic is 11 pages (including the cover I did several days ago.) In addition to that, I had to build the web pages and graphics. I also wrote a short puppet skit and did a worship painting in church, which did not quite get completed. I praise God for all the ideas He is giving me right now and pray that they bring glory to His name. If any of this stuff doesn't, that's the stuff to attribute to me.