Arts in Education

The Arts Council for Youth's signature event is the Arts Jam, which took place Saturday in Tempe.

The audience.

The group that rocks!

This amazing singer captivated the heart of a little girl.

Gotta have one of these!

A middle school group

EARTH Day

Rally for clean air at a local high school.

Let Us Breathe to the music of the Beatles Let it Be.

Dada's girls

What's in a Dad? He inspires and provides. He sparks and nourishes the creative juices and has high expectations.

Psalm 3:5-6

Whenever someone feels anger, there is a potential for powerful dignity, a sense of responsibility, and the expression of some deep personal value that has a universal rightness. This value needs acknowledgement.

- David E. Doiron

Anger and Personal Power

Ponder This

Forgiveness is giving up the right to retaliate. Forgiveness is the willingness to have something happen the way it happened. It's not true that you can't forgive something; it's a matter of the will, and you always have the choice. Forgiveness is never dependent on what the other person does or does not do; it is always under our control. Forgiveness is giving up the insistence on being understood.... Jesus forgave those who crucified him. This is a radically new way of thinking. For those who accept and practice this discipline, there is a release of energy and a sense of freedom.

- Pixie Koestline Hammond

For Everything There Is a Season

Among Us

What unspeakable comfort and strength is ours to know that in the midst of all our mischief, amid our scheming and bad speculations, regardless of our shaping, misshaping or reshaping of life, with all of our activities and failures, God is among us. God is not a graven image of our own longings and shortcomings. Rather God, through Christ, is among us as friend, advocate, savior, and above all as our living Lord, to correct, to forgive, to comfort, to love, and to heal.
- John A. Stroman

The Thunder from the Mountain

Vision Gallery

The gallery offers free workshops for children taught by local artists. They are so popular, that one must call to reserve spots, the day registration begins.

Today's workshop was Wearable Art taught by Mary Poindexter.

You can sign up for 4 classes per season. Grasshopper and Snowden really enjoy these.

Ostrich Art

We visited the Vision gallery today and finally saw the lifesize ostriches that stand tall in downtown Chandler, dressed for a party. We saw these:

For more information on the Interactive Tour of Chandler's Art Collection go here.

Rebirth

I marvel at the rebirth around me.

Palo Verde

A bush with purple flowers.

Another desert plant.

Boy, I sure do need to read up on desert landscaping don't I...

My Sunday Verse

Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

- Matthew 7:7-8

Spring in Arizona

Lovely images from around the valley.

It is so nice to be outside in 80 degree weather.

Papoilas

Poppies are a symbol of the revolution that took place in Portugal in 1974. In Mozambique we learned many songs too but if a different kind. I learned about the poppy through this song. I love the word PAPOILA. They are vibrant, regal, noticed, and eventually run their patch of land like this one I found in The Valley as I went on my morning walk.

Pretty.

Almost there.

There was a bee around here somewhere.

Glory.

And more.

78

Today she would have been 78. She's the tall one of the group.

I celebrate privately.

Honoring a mother

L.S., my mother's mother.