Blazefest 2008: Day 7

I woke up with these two ideas of what I can do with my art that God had blessed me with in my sleep. It was the last day of day camp I had Fall write the test and he passed. We handed out tshirts. The theme this week was "he got love for you" everyday Ray and others had been sharing about how much God loves you, that he loves you so much that even when we were far away from God, sinning doing our own thing that God came down to earth lowered himself to our level and gave up his up in heaven for a life of pain, so he could be with us humans for his time on earth instead of living like the king he was he served and didn't ask for stuff for himself but tried to help us out. So much so that he took the rap for us, the punishment for all the bad stuff we've ever done and died for us in our place. He did all that and all he asks is that we accept that. All he asks is for us to accept that we screwed up and to accept his sacrifice. Love the poet and Ray spoke and asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus as thier saviour. 23 kids accepted his love and asked God into thier lives. The evening went well and we continued painting the back drop.

Blazefest 2008: Day 6

For my class in the morning I broke out the cans and had them do some painting. I taught them all about can control, how to get smooth lines without drips, fill in and cutting. In the evening I was asked to rap again but this time it was different, I think I let those compliments from yesterday get to me and I just had this attitude of I'm gonna show them what I've got. I spit a few bars and I forgot my lines, my mind went blank, it's a song I knew very well, I couldn't explain it. I honestly think it was God saying to me "check yourself". I kept painting the backdrop and we packed up and went to sleep humbled.

Blazefest 2008: Day 5

I taught the kids 3D, fluff and bits. I gave my star student a name, we opened up the bible and he put his finger down on the word "Fall" he drew a nice fall piece. The big back drop started to arrive and I started painting the backdrop in the evening while the show was going on. They got a cypher started and people started rapping and Ray asked me to spit something I've never rapped for an audience before (just in the shower or for my wife). It was amazing the energy from the crowd, their reaction at the end of a well delivered line, the oohhs and everything was intoxicating I remember just being in a different place like I was outside my body, after I finished people kept coming up to me with compliments. I can understand why people love it so much. Usually at the end of the night the team cleans up and gets dinner together and unwind from the day. I decided to skip out on dinner and go back to the citylife centre and paint instead.

Blazefest 2008: Day 4

The second day of camp kicked off and when I got to class there was nobody in my class. Ray came around to the different classes to see if anybody needed anything and there was nobody in my class I was half ashamed and half confused. Which is really stupid 'cuz I can't make people sign up for my class. But again more people trickled in until I got about 6 again. I taught a review for the the new kids and moved on to 3D for the one repeat student who is showing a lot of promise. One of the staff has a car that he lets people sign if they give him a dollar it's to raise money for a new car. Ray paid him $40 so that we each paint a piece on either side of his car. I painted one side real quick and then me and Ray painted the other side together.

Blazefest 2008: Day 3

We got up at 6:30 to be at devotions early, finished up and the kids started to arrive for the first part of blazefest which is like a summer camp in the morning. When I got to my class there was one kid. In previous years Graffiti was by far the most popular class, so when I got there I was totally shocked but we started up and I started teaching the class and more people trickled in until I had about 6 in my class but I felt real nervous when it was just one kid. I taught them about bars and letter structure etc. In the evening time we go to an inner city park and have a kind of outreach-show-performance thing. They set up speakers, a DJ booth, tables and chairs, they had a prayer table, and they put a trailer in the center and me and Ray started painting it.

Blazefest 2008: Day 2

Well it was the first day of work at blazefest Ray set the tone by calling this an urban missionary week and eluding to the bible verse that we come to serve not to be served. We started by cleaning up the centre where we would be holding the summer camp part of the week. Then I got to painting, setting the theme for the building I was drawing graffiti all over the building which transformed the old church into a hip hop training ground. The other artists arrived and I got to meet Bam Bam the liquid robot who was our breakdance instructor, Jaz our MCing (rapping) instructor and also DJ Exo and B-boy B-bop from last year who were back from the previous year to teach DJing and help teach break dancing.

Blazefest 2008: Day 1

Annother year of Blazefest and Ray the director of Blazefest invited me again to teach the instructional area of Graffiti for my third year. I took my wife along and we arrived in Schenectady NY late. We called up Rayski and he took us out for dinner and took us to a hotel. At the hotel they only had smoking rooms available, so they said we could check it out before we paid. We go over to the room and there's some strange looking woman wandering the hall and coming from the next room are VERY loud sounds of a woman. We all looked at each other with a confused look and then with a look of embarrassment as we realized what the sounds were. We quickly left and headed to the holiday inn. I guess it should be noted that my wife is an extrovert and struck up conversations with two of the toughest looking bikers as well as every fast food worker she could find.