Kindle 2017

Artwork by Holly Hudson

Kindle: 

1. To start (a fire) burning 

2. To spark or stir up 

3. To bring into being 

4. To cause to glow 

Holly demonstrating print making with teens

My dear friend, Artist, and Teacher: Holly Hudson, has been igniting the flames within young hearts through creativity for years. She started a group for teens over 7.5 years ago at a local library called, Kindle. They meet once a week to learn, create, and converse together in community. Throughout the years youth have come and gone, stayed, brought their friends and their siblings, and continued to create and build friendships. And even now, as they currently meet at Holly's art studio instead of the library, they keep showing up.

To quote Holly:

Kindle is a weekly gathering designed to cultivate creativity & character in you. 

We make art.
Together we work on original projects emphasizing imagination, creative process & problem solving. We believe that thinking creatively is important in all areas of life & that making art is a way to discover this. 

At Kindle we believe that investing in you (teenage human) is one of the best ways time can be spent. We endeavour to incite identity, to encourage ethical relationships & worldview & to cultivate creative problem solving skills. 

We seek to foster a safe place for everyone regardless of her or his gender, spiritual beliefs, race(s), sexual orientation, disabilities/abilities, maturity, &/or weight/body type. We seek to be a place where people can safely express his or her thoughts & opinions...and can ask questions. We recognize that we will not & need not agree on everything but we choose to be kind & respectful to each other. 

All peeps have great worth & value. 

Making art is an excellent spark for mental & emotional expression. We will encourage you to use creative processes for fun & as tools to help you thrive in the midst of life's opportunities & inevitable challenges. 

We encourage the use of recycled & re-purposed materials for supplies; believing that we are surrounded by everyday objects that have creative potential if we choose to see the possibilities. What is considered junk can often be redeemed. 

For inspiration we look within & without:
To our experiences & stories,
To books, art, music, film, culture, social media & the earth around us. 

Previous projects include: art journals, sculpture, printmaking, painting, plaster masks, charity projects, collaborative art, drawing, etc.

For the last 2 weeks I had the honor of joining Kindle as a guest artist and introduce some of the art projects with the teens that I've implemented on my Art Ministry Travels. 

I had a wonderful time connecting and conversing and getting to know them over popcorn and tea and creativity.   

The first week we did a project that had multiple layers and mediums and gave us the chance to work in collaboration. The main focus and theme was the chance to talk about feelings (especially the ones that are difficult, like feeling broken, depressed, fearful, hurt, etc.) and explore what those feelings might look like and talk about how we work through those feelings.

The second week we did a project with modeling clay. It gave us the chance to explore how we view ourselves (identity) by creating something with the clay that represents that. We also paired up and created something representing how we view each other (which gave us the chance to speak encouragement to someone, and hear encouragement from someone). 

There are a couple of things that I admire about Kindle...

They do art.

and..

They really do care about each other. 

I got the chance to tell them that they have something very special in the existence of a group like theirs. It's a gem...and it's rare!

I was honored to come alongside Holly (who has been faithfully serving these youth for years), to listen in on the conversations that God is already having with these kids, and get the chance to enter those conversations for a brief moment through creativity. It was a blast!

I love what I get to do (what WE get to do)...and it doesn't always require getting on a plane. It's not just "out there"...it can also be "right here".