Another funny little twist: We had a "Spiritual Emphasis Week" here at the OM USA office, which involved a lot of time for team building and training... and just sort of mixing things up. Since OM has a substantial "Arts Link" department (http://omartslink.org/), they set up some tables in the main worship area with different kinds of art supplies, encouraging people to "get out of the box" and use the arts to worship, or just kind of exercise the other side of their brain.
Well, they had one table with drawing and painting supplies and another with colored paper and stamps and glue for making cards and pictures and another table with a huge pile of Lego blocks ... and another table with home made play-dough. Now, this was actually pretty good quality play-dough, but it's still not the same as REAL clay. I still had a 25lb block of air-hardening clay left over from when I did the kids ceramics class in our Sunday School a few months ago, so I asked if I could add that in. Well, once I got started with the clay, I immediately got absorbed. The team had scheduled lots of free times through the week (games down in the dining room and just time to get away...) and I started making things out of clay. Some of the families brought in their kids in, so I found I had an instant class room of anywhere from one or two, to a half dozen children, all VERY anxious to get their hands into the clay. I don't think I've been that happy in years! I was able to make some significant pieces during that time (I'll try to get some pictures soon), but the funniest thing was how surprised all the people in the office there were at seeing a totally different side of my personality. They all know (and appreciate) the technical side of my work there, and how I can do what they consider to be miraculous things with their computers, but they'd never imagined the artist lurking inside of me. Especially the real artists there in the group. I think they're already scheming about how to get me along on their next Arts Link trip to work along side of their musicians and dancers and painters and all... ;-)
Well Mom, I guess all those ceramics classes you sent me to at the Memorial Art Gallery during the summers when I was a kid really seem to be paying off! ;-)
