I have crossed paths with Steve Bell throughout my life, long before I came to work in his office in 2007. Nowadays, my husband fixes his lawnmower and he even sang at our wedding and at my mother’s funeral. He made appearances to sing at my first art showings. Below is one of my paintings that hangs in his home.

One time in my employment with him, I took photos of his home for a proposal to a magazine that showed famous people’s homes, but the photos were turned down with the elitist reply, “We don’t do bungalows…”

The first time I met Steve Bell was in my youth when I sang in a church band, and our group twice opened Steve Bell concerts at local Manitoba coffeehouses. At the time I thought he was a bit “snobbish”, as he didn’t say hello to the individual members of our band, except for our pianist, Jane Reimer.

I again saw him when he showed up at the door of my home after I had started a freelance artwork business, and asked if I could try a sample layout for concert posters. At the time, design was not done on computers yet, and I needed to send out for visual prints and typesetting, and assemble it manually. I was embarrassed that my poster layout was awful at the time, and I didn’t hear from Steve again, and he never gave me the free tape cassette he had promised in payment. 

In later years, I worked as administrative assistant at Portage Ave. MB Church and his team did his Sons & Daughters Tour concert there. At that time, my husband had just passed away, and Steve showed compassion, giving me several CDs, including Solace for Seasons of Suffering. It was a lovely, generous gesture.

During my widowhood, a healing trip to Guatemala became available, and I went on this tour led by Wally and Shirley Schmidt, and who else went along? Steve and Nanci Bell. Steve was a guest who gave us wonderful mini concerts throughout our journey. It was great to get to know them better.

The next time Steve and his manager Dave used my church was for rehearsals for the Symphony Sessions concert. At that time, I was thinking of changing jobs, and God urged me to comment to Dave Zeglinski while passing him in the hallway, that if they ever needed an administrative assistant, to please consider me.

Signpost Music did indeed call me about a job a while later, but I had just accepted a new job at Newcap Radio. However, on my first day of training, I was told that the radio station was switching over to become a country station, and that my new job had been eliminated. In shock, I went home and considered my options. I called Signpost Music back and found out that they were still hiring, so I immediately applied. It was only part time, so I re-started my freelance business, applied at Kelly Services, and still worked part-time as a banquet server at Rossmere Country Club. At one time, I had five part-time jobs, including training the new person at my old church job. It was a miracle that I had enough work to make ends meet!

The multiple jobs lasted a year, until I was gradually hired full-time for Steve Bell’s independent record label. It has been a learning experience over the years. I have also been inspired by Steve’s photos to start painting again. I have helped his business to stay flourishing in many areas, including fundraising and sales. I have never regretted a moment of working with him and his partner Dave, and learning through his storytelling and avid reading. Steve has developed over the years to become a kind, generous and humble man who loves God and all people.

I have found over and over again that God leads us throughout our lives if we allow Him.

More about Steve Bell at Stevebell.com

Three Artists: a Songwriter, a Trapeze Artist and a Painter

My artistic journey has been a series of awakenings, where I recognized certain aspects about art for the learning benefit, improvement of my craft and my ability to feel closer to God when I paint. I have always known about "the zone", but never before categorized it as a special place that every artist yearns for and works toward.

My boss, singer/songwriter (and now author) Steve Bell is in that zone when he is onstage sitting alone on a stool, with guitar in hand. He doesn't prepare ahead of time with a set list, but allows the Spirit to lead him in what he sings and speaks. He also encounters the zone when, as he says "a new song comes down the pike". A song can arrive suddenly and be written on a napkin in a restaurant, or can come slowly with the collaboration of others.

In his book "Balance - a story of Faith, Family and Life on the Line", Trapeze artist Nik Wallenda describes the zone as "the place in which God and His glory are manifest everywhere." When I read those lines, naming the concept of "the zone" fell into place for me - a way to describe the feeling an artist has when faith, God's glory and one's gift all collide in a certain space of time.

Non-believers certainly do experience the zone in their work, but as a Christian artist, I believe as Steve and Nik do, that the Spirit manifests His glory at that time. Nik describes the experience in the zone as "moving by instinct, by gentle feeling - nothing is forced, the rhythm determined by the motion that you neither create nor fight."

The other evening I experienced the zone as I painted the hair portion of a difficult, detailed portrait. It's a feeling that time is suspended and goes very quickly, progress is made, and one makes decisions by instinct about the next stroke or colour to use. Everything seems to come together and in one other recent painting I had the experience that it "painted itself".

"The zone" is not limited to the experience of artists...it is found in the daily life of every human being, whether that person is cooking dinner or writing an exam.

Quotes by Nik Wallenda used with permission from the book, Balance: A Story of Faith, Family, and Life on the Line by Nik Wallenda with David Ritz

Pinch me, I'm dreaming...

A soon-to-be published book of thirty-two of my paintings for a dream project to help support an orphanage in Kenya. ..pinch me, I think I'm dreaming... here's my story...

In 2010, the Mully Children's Family (MCF) choir performed in my home church, North Kildonan MB in Winnipeg. I was captivated by the talent on display and the simple, honest stories of lives changed because a man in Kenya gave up a multi-million dollar career to rescue orphans.

A seed was planted in my heart - I wanted to paint these faces to help tell this fascinating story. But I didn't know how. I had only recently taken up painting in my spare time, and wasn't particularly confident in my abilities.

I asked the official performance photographer, Ebonie Klassen if I could have copies of the photos from the night of the concert, and she gladly gave them to me. The faces were practically begging to be painted, but I didn't know what to do about it. So in my spare time, I chose a few faces to paint, and a series began to develop.

On another occasion in 2011, an MCF promotional video was presented in our church, where a child stood in front of a Kenyan countryside and pronounced that her home (MCF) was "the biggest family in the world". Watch the inspiring video about MCF, the Biggest Family in the World.

This video felt like God was whispering in my ear, and I saw a large quilt-like painting in my mind - a painting of the many faces of the children of MCF. My project for that summer became a 40" x 40" canvas painting of these faces. The progress was chronicled in several blogs on my website, and the painting was on display at a church BBQ celebrating the success of cycling philanthropist Arvid Loewen, who completed a record-breaking fundraising cycling trip across Canada that summer in support of MCF. Charles Mully himself was at that BBQ, and I was honoured to meet him, in addition to having photos taken of him beside the painting. Here's the finished painting (from my website).

How can art help support a mission like this? I still did not know how it could possibly happen, even after consulting with Arvid Loewen, a board member of Mully Children's Family. So I assigned myself the job of continuing to finish the large painting, which now hangs in the foyer at NKMB Church.

In late 2012, Paul H. Boge, the author of the two biographies about Charles Mully, Father to the Fatherless and Hope for the Hopeless called me on the phone and asked to visit. He suggested that I join him to produce a children's book version of the life of Charles Mully, called "The Biggest Family in the World".  Cue light bulb turning on...

Paul asked me to pray about it and think about it for a while before deciding. In the meantime, my heart was singing out - this is it...

Present Day: Feb. 16th, 2014.  I am one year and one month into the project. Twenty pages are complete, four more are in the finishing stages, and another four are in sketch form. I have two months to finish the paintings, in order to allow for edits, drying and photography time to get the art images to the publisher in June. At this point, counting the number of faces that I've painted is daunting, but I may do it at the end!

Below is a closeup of a small portion of the book of many faces...