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I want to encourage you today. My early Christian life was not a Spirit-led, Spirit filled life...but God scooped me up from the "prison" I found myself in and I, too, sense a calling to the impossible. One thing my husband has helped me to understand is that ALL of us are "called," but few apprehend or fully realize their "appointment" to appropriate or steward their gifts to fulfill the appointment (God-given purpose).

Many times in my life, it's been "back to the cross," which is where we belong as we take up our cross daily, follow Him and live a Resurrected Life with Him. Walking our faith walk with Jesus for me means throwing off my grave clothes and walking in His freedom, His peace, His righteousness, His power, His love. We are overcomers, too when we face difficulties with unfeigning faith inspite the circumstances, betrayal or rejection. These challenges prove the genuineness of our faith as 1Peter says (AMP translation) and THIS is building an invisible edifice IN us which NO MAN can destroy.

I'm reminded of a quote from an old church bulletin that seems appropriate to include here.

"Life is a building. It rises slowly day by day, through the years. Every new lesson we learn lays a block on the edifice which is rising silently within us. Every experience, every touch of another life on ours, every influence that impresses us, every book we read, every conversation we have, every act of our commonest days adds something to the invisible." Unknown

Standing shoulder to shoulder with Jesus and you,
Kate

As artists, we put our work out there. It's nice when people actually LIKE it. Like it enough to buy it...right? Knowingly or not, each collector is purchasing a small piece of ...me. My vision, my eyes, my heart, my skills with whatever my camera captures or my hands can produce comprise the substance, time, Spirit and personality that becomes matter on a wall.

Sometimes the walls are international in scope. Such is the case at Fine Art America, home of thousands of the best artists in the world, where I participate with many groups within FAA.

Included below are artworks that are featured by three or more of the most prestigious and highly active groups on FAA. Thank you for featuring a piece of me on your group walls!

Here's another beauty from my nostalgia series of vignettes staged on my kitchen counter. I spent many Sunday afternoons capturing images of family memorabilia. I frequently added roses from my neighbor's yard to spruce up these still-life compositions. Other friends contributed cuttings occasionally after learning about my photography sets.

One friend named Diana loves purple and the search was on. She once gave me a soft lilac-colored rose from her garden, but alas, I was never able to capture its true color. These were the days before my Photoshop experience. The image above is as near a likeness as I can remember and is coupled with my mother's blue and white sugar bowl and creamer. I think she would be thrilled to see her collection married to my mother-in-law's blue & white dishes that we use every day.

This is another reason I love to document everyday life with photography. We can capture little snippets of today (yesterday) that transcend time, place, relationships and events to bring a light-hearted perspective for tomorrow.

(c)2015 All Rights Reserved

Recently, I rediscovered some images on my external hard drive. I had previously published them as nostalgic greeting cards but it was so long ago that I had forgotten about them.

These vignettes were small, still-life compositions that I staged on my kitchen counter and are proof that searching out treasured memorabilia can document a family's legacy forever. Siblings' bronzed baby shoes, a grandmother's bracelet with her boys' profile charms, a father's clock, and an antique doilie were all fixed atop their matriarch's handmade crazy-quilt.

Since their original captures, Photoshop's Creative Cloud has wet my appetite for experimenting with filters that enhance the vintage qualities of these photographs.

So, when your creative time is limited, search out some files in those buried folders and bring new things to life. Just don't forget to have fun while you run down memory lane!

There was a time in my life when I was critical of and offended by my local art community, and I distanced myself from it.

Years passed and the Lord, through my husband, said, "How can you speak Life to a 'culture' you hate? or condemn?"

With that I vowed to do my part to be solution-minded, love-focused, and Life-driven. This recent show of my work, "Dreams Never Die," is my first effort in several years to 'shift the atmosphere.' As in every transformation, changes must begin in me. Times of refreshing can only come after times of repentance. Acts 3:19 has ministered to me more than once.

"Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord;" Acts 3:19

Maybe you need some encouragement today.
Maybe you are weary.
Don't give up.
Press on.
God began a good work in you.
He WILL carry it to completion.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
(Please click the video link in the "see here for more information" browser)

This is my artist statement from my current show, "Dreams Never Die."

All children dream about who they want to be when they grow up. I was no different. As is common in life, “dream killers” came along to crush my reality. One day when I was asked about my personal life dreams, I drew an absolute blank. My inner little girl dreams were so dead, that I had no reply.

My husband remembered overhearing me describe my love for New Mexico and how I had wanted to live there and make my living with my art. “Dreams Never Die” is a personal affirmation to encourage others whose trampled dreams are waiting to be reborn.

In the words of Oswald Chambers, “Every hope or dream of the human mind will be fulfilled if it is noble and of God. But one of the greatest stresses in life is the stress of waiting for God.”

For 43 years, I did make my living with my art as I applied a sculptural approach to hair design. My participation in our local art community was limited so the walls of my beauty salon became an art gallery. Retiring from cosmetology enabled me to rekindle the embers of a smoldering dream to pursue art. More than a hobby or merely something that I do, Now I realize that my art is more about who I am.

It is God Who created me to revere and recognize His Beauty in people and in the world around me. My passion has always been for revealing beauty in any form. I don’t create something new, but instead, unveil what is already there, hiding.

I believe everything exists in the mind of God. We creative people use our imaginations to unveil impressions we “see, hear, and sense” when we express those impulses in written words, art forms, film, music, song or dance. Not only is it God Who deposits those things that beg to be expressed, but He beckons us to express them!

In his second letter to Timothy, Paul said, “Stir up the gift that is in you.” And so, alas, we must do the work. What you see in this exhibit is the result of a daily studio practice. Some of that practice is at my computer as I continue to manipulate my photography in Photoshop. I’ve continued with mixed-media collage using coffee filters and dyed fabrics simply because I love working with them. Rather than printing my images on inkjet transparencies, the central focus of the mixed-media presentation is acrylic on board. This is my first public viewing of my abstract paintings.

“Living a life of faith, consistently, without fainting, means never knowing where you are being led, but knowing and loving the One who is leading.” (Oswald Chambers)

Thank you for coming along the journey with me.
Kate Browning Word

If you feel like the last leaf on your branch, then “Branch out from where you are.” This became my focus after a real, orphaned life experience.
After reading Zechariah 6:12, “Behold, a man whose name is Branch, for He will branch out from where He is; and He will build the temple of the Lord,” I realized I could “branch out from where I was,” and I began building again.