Orlando Florida Folk Art Festival

I really wanted to get out over the weekend to do some street evangelism, but every venue I was looking at seemed blocked. Then I got a call from Tina Bucuvalas of the Florida Folk Life Council inviting me to participate in the Florida Folk Art Festival in Orlando.

Orlando has never been open to me. In fact I have been met with hostility more than once. Any way I went and set up a booth and after 4 hours only two elderly ladies had stopped by. I was wondering what I was doing wasting my time there.

Finally I left my booth and set up an easel by Lake Eola where hikers were passing and did get a chance to witness to a few dozen passerbys over the next 6 hours.

The point of this blog is to say that during those 4 down hours I reflected on the use of street paintings to present the Gospel. I think it is a a good way to speak to strangers. But it presents a mixed message.

First, art is a commercial product in and of its nature. It is wall jewelry. I was appalled when I first heard of people making Jesus Jewelry, but religious paintings are no different.

Now granted in my mind, I say I am trying to present a message and not trying to be a painter selling paintings. But in everyone mind who sees me they see a painter selling paintings.

So it is a mixed message. When someone stops to look at my art and I start telling them the gospel, for some of them it may come off as hypocrisy. They say here is a salesman pretending to be a holy Joe. On guy said "Oh is see this is also a way to be a ministry". The key word was "also." It's like saying you are a salesman and "also" a minister.

Then another dynamic enters when someone buys a painting. The money that they spend for wall jewelry could have fed a hungry village, or in someway been spent on something that was not a vanity item.

Instead of presenting a pure gospel, I have created a"dust collectors" things that has to be moved when people move and passed on as part of an inheritance. Will people someday line up to touch one of my paintings for healing? God forbid.

I have already seen that when I paint a message, the viewers often miss the message and come up with their own ideas of what I intended that are even the opposite of what I meant. So once more a mixed message become further mixed.

Kristin Congdon who with Tina Bucuvalas wrote Just Above the Water a book on Florida folk art stopped by the Orlando show and I showed she and her husband David my 3-D paintings and David's first response was "How do you do it?

I told Kristen that this is my major problem with the 3-D paintings. People are so fascinated with the method that they miss the message. The media overpowers the message, so once again what I am trying to do in presenting the message gets mixed, or lost.

All in all , I am coming to see that Street painting is a good way to meet strangers but is not really a good way to present the Gospel. There is too much baggage and commercial tainting involved. I'm ready to chuck it.