Category Archives: photos

My NOA Cover Competition entry

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I’m excited to be participating in the Night of Artists this year and part of the perks of joining in this fabulous event is their NOA magazine cover competition.

This year there are 49 wonderful artists participating in the competition.

I decided to submit “New Song” as my entry this year as I thought it embodied the NOA festival being both an instrument and an art piece. The competition is popularity based and the top 5 most liked artists will move on to the finals for a chance to grace the cover.

The votes are open to the public so if you’d be so kind to cast your vote for me and any others that catch your eye just click on the guitar image below and follow the link to the official page, press like on my guitar and then voila done. Voting ends on January 31st at 9pm Alberta time.

NOA magazine cover contest entry by Amanda Milke “New Song”

Thanks everyone for supporting my Art!

Have a fabulous night!

Cheers,

Amanda

Art just got sweeter

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I had the pleasure of setting up 22 pieces of artwork at Fifendekel on 12028-149st in Edmonton this morning.

Now you can grab lunch, a slice of their famous pie, a coffee and sit down and check out the art for sale.

It’s a great way to relax and get some Christmas shopping done!

They are open Monday to Friday!

What a sweet way to spend an afternoon!

Tree of life- work in progress

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I started this piece this summer at my Blue Pomegranate exhibit to show visitors to the gallery what one of my pieces looks like stripped down, bare bones. This is still a work in progress.

I’m gradually getting back to painting after battling a major artist block due in part by me questioning my purpose. How can I use this gift of craftsmanship to further God’s kingdom.

Art is a tough gift because it’s almost been eradicated from the church so there are no solid church based mentors to come alongside you and help you work out the path to walk and the regular pastors/church leaders seem to discredit it as having no real benefit to the body of the church seeing it as just superficial pretty pictures.

My goal is to prove them wrong. If I am created by a creative God to create then there has to be a purpose and daily I am striving to find it. Revelation talks of the tree of life that believers will be able to eat from and have eternal life and how the leaves are for the healing of the nations.

I love this image of the tree and its healing properties. It makes me question, what if just putting beauty, truth and goodness back out into this world right now in the form of faith based art is a way to refresh and remind the worlds souls that there is more than what is seen right now and there is hope for a future and maybe it stirs up something inside you that sets you off searching out how YOU can experience it. Isn’t that something worthwhile, you can read 100 books on how to have a better life or maybe one day a painting will inspire you to read the one book that will change your life forever?

I have to try for your soul and mine.

God is great! And this is my gift and I want to share my journey with you. So maybe one day we can both eat from the real tree of life.

❤🖌

Amanda

Local artist Inspired by the divine

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I had the pleasure of being interview for the local Fort Saskatchewan newspaper as part of my Blue Pomegranate art exhibit! Tonight’s the night for my Artist Talk. I can’t wait to share with everyone my process, inspiration and a personal tour of the gallery. Starts at 7pm hope you can make it out!

ALFA Gallery Set up

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Well it’s official! I am all set up at the Fort Saskatchewan ALFA Gallery.

It feels like it’s been a long time coming but it’s here.

Here’s a sneak peak of the set up.

So if you’re in the area please check it out and sign the guestbook.

Also, all works on exhibit are available for sale.

I’ll be posting more pictures and video and my interview with the local radio station I did yesterday are coming so stay tune!

Cheers,

Amanda

Wedding of the Lamb

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So sometimes paintings just seem to happen. I’m going about my business and then a canvas kind of screams at me and the next thing I know I have a new painting on the go. That’s exactly what happened with this painting. I wanted to do a lamb piece to go with my series of Biblical inspired animals but I hadn’t planned this lol.

I sat down one morning and it just flowed out of me by the time lunch had come the layout was complete and that’s the way this painting kept evolving. Every time I sat down it was a whirlwind of creation and the next step would be complete. It’s crazy how God can use my talents for his purpose. I thought all along that this would be an Easter piece and I thought for the longest time I would call it “the Passover lamb” but the more I painted and embellished and layered and texturized the more it seemed like it was a celebratory piece. Not a pre-cross sacrificial painting but a joyful conquered death let’s party type of painting and so what’s more jubilant than a wedding.

So here the lamb is clean and radiant. The flowers are in bloom, he is crowned and gleaming wearing his bridegroom clothes of covered in song and ready for the church his bride. The work has been done and now it’s time to celebrate.

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Each sets of words woven into the lambs wool is a hymn title, I emphasized the trinity by crowning in in triplicate “holy”s on his forehead.

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He is clean and pure adorned in gold and sparkling rhinestones that flash and glimmer in the light and he seems to radiate and glow.

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The birds who fly and adorn him with music singing are gold and jeweled but pale in comparison to the light surrounding him.

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New life grows up from his feet and even the earth is growing with hymns embedded in it. I did a double emphasis on “art” along the bottom of the piece because I do believe God enjoys art and to be praised through it as I’ve spoke on in previous posts.

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And finally the lambs position of facing straight out at the viewer was intentional because Biblically we as Christians make up the body of the Church, and the Church is the Bride of Christ so here the Bridegroom, Christ is looking at us the Church on his Wedding day as through him we are made pure and holy and most assuredly ready to celebrate.

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I used a large variety of materials to create this painting including genuine peridot stone chips, rhinestone crystals, gold leaf, paper clay, modeling paste, acrylic, oil paint sticks, beads and old choir music / hymns.

I’d love to hear what you think of this painting or any of my other works. You can comment below or email me and I’ll be happy to respond.

Cheers,

Amanda

Broken Hearted-the Golden lining

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Heart 11x14

The problem with the human heart is it’s so damn fragile, like an egg.

This whole human experience of dealing with other broken humans leaves scars on us.

So when we enter into a relationship as two broken individuals, that doesn’t mean we complete each other and that we magically fill in all the blanks. Don’t believe me?

Try taking two separate broken eggs and fit them together without causing further damage or without spilling any yolk. It doesn’t work. Cracks will worsen, more damage will ensue and things will get messy.

That’s humanity.

And let me tell you, I am one broken egg.

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You see all along for this painting I had this image of this light shining out of a broken heart just like that children’s song “This little light of mine” based off of Mark 4:21.

This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine,
Let it shine,
Let it shine.

Hide it under a bushel? No!
I’m gonna let it shine
Hide it under a bushel? No!
I’m gonna let it shine
Hide it under a bushel? No!
I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine,
Let it shine,
Let it shine.

If you’re like me you’ll have that stuck in your head all day now. You’re welcome haha.

Anyway, I wanted this piece to be a testament of my love, trust and faith in God. A light shining out of my heart illuminating the way for others to be healed, to understand humanity’s brokenness and the need for an all loving, all forgiving Abba, God.

However, God is Good at using us in these moments to shed light on issues that we need to address and in this moment, this painting, He stepped in and said “Amanda, you haven’t let go of this. You’re being tight fisted about these past hurts and you need to open up and share to be healed.”

It’s not that I didn’t think God could help me through it because I knew he had brought me to where I am now and had already blessed me and rebuilt so much of my life. It was more that I didn’t want to deal anymore with those things.

You see I had spent a lot of time and energy trying to fix it myself, but despite my best efforts to crazy glue, duct tape and cement that sucker back together it was still broken, so I gave up, I dug deep and I buried it so I wouldn’t have to deal with it ever again.

But dammit, it comes at a cost and that debt was starting to come due. I had walled off part of me, buried it deep to protect myself from the past and future hurts, and I never once realized how much of me I had shoved down that hole with it. And I was scared. I was scared to let it out, I was scared to be hurt or broken again.

I mean my shell was just barely holding together as is. If I pulled it out from that tomb I buried it in, I might break beyond recognition. But man, God has a way to fix the un-fixable and nudge us toward his image of us. So here I am, heart in hand, broken into a million pieces handing it to God to fix and do you know what HE brings to my mind? Two things.

#1 Kintsugi.  Kintsugi is Japanese and it translates into “Golden repair” and is a centuries old Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with a special gold lacquer as a crack filler. God was reminding me that He was the potter and I was His vessel and that there is VALUE and BEAUTY in those cracks that make me me. Just because I was broken doesn’t mean I was irreparable and to be discarded. It didn’t even mean that God’s love and my faith in Him would make me perfect and flawless. No. it meant that He would use my brokenness, highlight it in Gold, draw attention to it because it’s those Golden cracks in my shell that are the true value, the true testament of what God has done in my life.

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#2 He reminded me of the purpose for those shining broken seams in Genesis 50:20 “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” You see, that’s the true miracle, the true testament of God’s love. Can you image sitting there patiently repairing something so broken with something so valuable as Gold? It seems inconceivable, but you are loved and valued that much by the one that made you. You are worth the time and effort because once God is done, you will gleam, radiate and shine a true testament to His craftsmanship.

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This painting is gritty and cracked and the inside is flawed but shines with Gold because inside that is exactly what God is doing in my life and is the truest testament I can give. If you pass over your brokenness, God will repair you, the vessel he loves and values. I am proof, because I’ve traded in these broken pieces for beautiful healing golden repairs: Abandonment, Rape, Neglect, Abuse, Depression, Suicide, Loss, Divorce, Anger, Fear, Infertility and Loneliness.

It’s easy to want to lock away the past and the pain, but God can use my golden highlights to help shine hope to someone else. You may be broken now, but you are loved and you are valued and this is not the end; you will glow again!

xo- Amanda