Performing Art Conference 2006

Silk painting…

I didnt know this was on the menu when I first signed up for Performing Arts Conference. I was planning to take music, actually… or dancing, which seemed more familiar.. then suddenly someone told me there was something called ^Creative Arts^ and the first thought that came to my mind was… oh, no way, man.. i know Im the art fellar but.. Im gonna just waste time making cards or something, ..Dont want la.

When performing arts conference was just around the corner, jie(Debbie) kept convincing me to take up creative arts… she said I was the type… in my mind was.. yeahhh right.. nobody signed up for it, and you need more people, right?... … Well.. no choice la.. Im the only one that so easy to convince.. theres a good reason to take it also… they cannot have an empty class.. but then.. my money wasted la.. but then again.. who else wants to waste money? They all paying themselves you know.. not like me.. dad pay one.. still? I cant waste money…. Well.. Ill just think about it la.. see how it goes.. Ill choose later..

Performing Arts Conference finally arrived… I looked at the time table.. ^silk painting^ huh? What the.. whats that? Where got people paint silk as a Christian thing? Aiyo.. these people dont know anything wan.. simply create all kinds of things only.. not like dance or music.. silk painting is not even Biblical.. oh,.. I sure like to hear their story.. I wonder how they came up with ^Silk Painting^.. hah.. very funny.. useless wan..

At the end of the first day, jie Debbie introduced me to robin..
“Here, this is my sister.. Anna.. she is very good at art, so she is joining your creative arts class.. she’s really good!” says Debbie.

What the crap?

“Oh, really? Im so glad to hear that someone is going to join my class.. Thats great.. Im sure we’re gonna have fun..” replies Robin. *puts her arm on annas shoulder*

Oh,.. thats just gggrrrreeeaaattt! -_-‘ Now Im stuckk~!

Anna answers, “ Heh…heh……….. heh…” >.< *sniff

You wont believe it~! .. First class, was prophetic painting… it was cool.. it was just my thing.. now I see where God fits in the picture.. it was amazing how God can use art like paintings to express Himself to us. He can speak through art as we let God take control over our hands to do wonders.. its just like dancing.. SooYin created the ^Dancing Brush^ with paint on artblock which showed how she expressed her freedom in Christ through each stroke. Simon created Jesus full of passion and love with crayon on artblock. Aunty Joyce created the river of life with waves of blue and green paint covering the whole art block and little spots of yellow shining from it.. Aunty Faith drew and wrote words and stuff all over her art block expressing her LOVE for Jesus using paint and stuff… Rebecca Loo from Ipoh used crayons to draw something that looked like a volcano, symbolizing Gods gonna burst forth. I drew something I saw when we were asked to pray to God to show us and speak to us. I saw clouds and a light like the sun shining through. I saw a purple cloth across the sky. And red one with it. The words I received was Gods glory and majesty coming down, and His blood to cover us. Robin believed it was in context with our land, Malaysia, and God’s glory and majesty will cover it..

Robin also had blue and green paint over her art block. God was speaking to her something like God will use her across nations of the world in ways she never thought of before, and for her to come to Malaysia is the beginning, she can touch many others by teaching us, and whoever that gets touched with our drawings is blessed by her indirectly because she is the one who taught us. And the paintings of whoever we teach in the future will also be the result of what she has taught us. She felt like she has done a great and important deal here.

While we painted, she prayed for us one by one, and went two rounds.. she prayed for me something that was very accurate. Just the day before, I was up in Cameron highlands, and I admired the flowers there.. I kept saying how much I loved flowers and when she prayed for me, she told me, “you love flowers”. I was so shocked~! Its like… she doesnt even know me, but she knows me~! Even those who know me dont know I like flowers..

She said she also sensed that God will be restoring the arts especially through the Native tribes.. I guess that means ^orang asli^.. she really has the heart for east malaysia.. she said so herself and you can see that in her.

Later, she showed us her works of art she had done and her family.. the piece of art that was amazing was the one with the man in the tree. She just drew a tree, as God has shown her. Then, someone commented about the ^man in the tree^ which she didnt know was there. It looked like he was lifting up his hands to God in a great body posture.

She also taught us how to pin a piece of silk cloth on the frames with rubber band,.. it was fun.. Not very long later, we finally got to paint on silk~! We had a piece of silk cloth where we used ^resist^ to draw the outline (like wax on batik but with more fun and no smell) and splattered paint everywhere to scribble or ^conteng^.. Very soon, other participants from other departments came and join the fun.. they scribbled on the silk cloth at the other end of the hall while we were busy doing the cross for the presentation. We could see that everyone had their bit of fun.. even when they were not actually taking silk painting..

Haha.. we even played a prank on robin on the last day.. kakakaka.. what fun it was~!! =P You want to know what we actually did??? Since she was rushing us to finish it up, by fear that we wouldnt have enough time, we actually finished the last two pieces like super fast! While she was teaching creative writings, 2 or 3 of us worked our butts off happily painting, then finally realizing that everything was finished, .. we nothing to do already.. But knowing that we had done a speedy job by doing two pieces in the usual time frame we would have done for one, we hid the earlier one and left the latter one on the table (there were 4 identical pieces altogether) to dry.

A few HOURS later, she came up to see how it was going, but the other 1 or 2 people who worked with me earlier to hide it wasnt there.. and she was asking for it, not knowing we had already done it… Since the other two were not there, I didnt want to let the cat out of the bag so fast.. I left her there looking for it and ran down the stairs from the highest floor towards the main hall to find my fellow criminals..(Rebecca and siblings) So ngam they were climbing up the stairs from the ground floor to the main hall.. I called them excitedly, as though Jesus had just came back.. "Faster~! Faster~! Come~! Come~! Come~!!!!" they ran upstairs to meet robin who was still looking for the hidden piece worriedly..

We arrived with smiles on our faces.. hahaha.. and she kept saying "Where is the fourth piece???" mwaaahhaha… >=) She thought that the one on the table was the third piece and that the fourth was still undone. But the fourth piece was drying on the table already =P so we slowly took out the hidden piece which we hid somewhere near the door behind the piece of silk that we used to ^conteng^ on… and she was horrified.. haha.. just kidding.. she was caught by surprise! She was speechless.. she didnt know what to say.. all she could say was, "Oh, my~! Youve done it already? Thats GREAT~!! And you guys hid it from me? You guys are so silly, you know that?" No, what she meant by silly is not stupid.. she meant something like naughty.. trust me.. later I told her what silly meant in Malaysia and she felt super bad,…

So,.. ITS DONE~! Haha.. and we watched her iron it and all.. yeah while she ironed it out, we chatted.. she told us how much money she made from it.. shes an entrepreneur, just like me, so Im trying to carry on the trade of silk painting back here in Malaysia.. she said she regretted going to college and not taking arts or drama, because she was earlier involved in drama club,.. but she wasted her time in college taking something totally different, but now is in silk painting,.. So I was like.. "Huh? Then what did you take?" She said, "Business." And I almost dropped dead… because I was taking business too.

Well, what can I say.. robin is a really great person and its fun working with her.. I hope to go to U.S to learn from her more on silk painting and buy books on it.. currently, Im still looking for silk cloth, resist and silk paint in Malaysia.. ANYONE OUT THERE KNOWS WHERE I CAN FIND THESE STUFF??~!! PLEASE LET ME KNOWWW…
* tRUST & OBey the LORD *