My name is Karly Alexandra Smith. As an artist missionary on staff with United Adoration, I work in Northeast Ohio to cultivate creative community, minister to artists, use the arts to minister to people and develop ministry partners to support these endeavors prayerfully and financially. I am starting by raising support and praying about what might be the best first step in order to support the artists of Northeast Ohio. You can scroll down to learn more about how to participate and support this work, about United Adoration, and about how God brought me here.
Read through my little book of arts missions >>
Having grown up in a household of encouraging, imaginative artists, I've been writing stories and poems since I could form letters. Writing isn't just about creating beauty, but about experiencing God's beauty and goodness and truth and letting it change me as I create.
Do come and visit the little blue room, an imaginary place for us to meet and ponder rhythms of beauty: poetry, walking in nature, grieving, and reflection. It is a quiet place, but there is a chair, a fireplace, a cup of tea, bookshelves aplenty, and a nice window.
Much of my other writing work is in the secret places of process, where I am cultivating and shaping works of fiction. I also love to help people who feel intimidated by writing to enter into it, slowly, quietly, and yet with a boldness they don't realize they are capable of. Sometimes I teach writing classes, too!
I've been making little books for a long time. It started with making little stories and illustrating them for the children of our friends. Now I make a variety of little books.
One of the things I incorporate into my little books is cyanotype, an old process used to develop inexpensive copies of photographs. By treating paper with a solution, then placing objects (or negatives for photos, or drawings for blueprints) on top and leaving in the sun, a print will develop. There are also ways to make the prints not blue by soaking them in anything that has tannins (results in black/sepia looking prints).
My work with cyanotype is about both the expected and unexpected shapes and depths of thigs--I find different objects more translucent than expected, or less. It is a way to add depth to my books.