Your art, your craft: Kim → Adine Pietersen

Shalom beloveds

I stumbled across Kim’s Instagram a few years ago. I was so intrigued by her style and creative flare, that I followed her account. We bounced back and forth with likes, comments, DM’s and eventually a meaningful connection flourished through social media. As I watched her grow into her faith with Yeshua, we had more to talk about and also pray about. It feels like we have known one another for quite some time. Talking to her on the phone or via voice notes every now and again is always such a blessing and we learn from one another to and fro despite the distance. I enjoy hearing from her, getting updates, shared information as well as testimonies. She helps me with natural hair tips, as part of her own small business called Curl-lectual. I chatted to her about her craft and her art. Read more about this below.

My name is Kim and I hail from a small city called East London in the Eastern Cape. I am an artist and smaller business owner and a follower of Jesus. My creative skills and craft vary as I do not like to limit the areas I creatively express myself through. I have dabbled in fashion, styling to be specific as well as pottery. I’ve written poetry and prose too. The two main areas where I’ve practiced my craft for years has been painting and drawing. I have recently started learning about rug making.

Painting by Kim (Founder of Curl-lectual)

I consider myself a late bloomer, creatively speaking. I’ve always been creative and now looking back, I can see how I expressed myself in the only ways I knew how to at the time. I believed this false narrative that one was born an artist and that you couldn’t learn the skills so my discovery only began after high school. I’ve had to unlearn this falsehood and it has been difficult as I’ve suffered from ‘imposter syndrome’ from time to time. My creativity was the gift, the skills I learnt.

Just picking up a paint brush or pencil and actively using my gift and my skill is a victory. It’s been a difficult journey of trying to fight the lies of the enemy and overcoming a limited mindset when it comes to this specific area in my life which Yahweh is still currently helping me overcome. I’ve had a crippling fear of failure too, which Yahweh has freed me from and now it’s just me and my mindset and having to be mindful of what I allow to take root in my mind. Being creative in and of itself is an act of vulnerability and risk. Sometimes we’re not aware that vulnerability scares us until we are called to be vulnerable. My creative and spiritual walk has taught me that vulnerability is an act of courage. Courage is not this grandiose act of bravery but choosing to do something even when you’re scared.

The challenges would be the crippling fear of failure, the fear of vulnerability and a limited mindset. This would be the lie that because my dream is something outside of what would be considered the norm (the status quo), to become an artist, that somehow God wouldn’t allow it. The enemy knows exactly where to attack you and it’ll be God’s purpose and calling for your life that he targets. It is so much more than us and what we are afraid of and that is what I have to remind myself of. I once read somewhere that the enemy resists you completing something because that is where the authority, favour and influence come from. Your creativity reminds him you are a son or daughter of God.

I honestly, didn’t create during most of the pandemic. I felt unmotivated and just basically avoided creating altogether. Since last year I’ve rediscovered my love for learning, creating and taught myself how to make rugs. I’m still a newbie but it’s one of my favourite times to spend with the Most High.

Nothing worth being pursued will ever be easy. Always consult God on your journey. Enjoy the process, the discovery, the learning and unlearning of the journey, instead of becoming fixated on the destination and the result. Moments of success and the feeling of elation are fleeting; it is the processes and discoveries which make life interesting. The other day while listening to a podcast on the Nike Run Club App, a coach asked: “Do you speak to yourself or listen to yourself?” and I think that could be translated to “Do you speak to yourself about who God says you are (scripture) or do you listen to what the enemy says about you?”. Fight those lies! Your creativity is bigger than you.

As an artist when you start to walk with Christ you automatically assume that now your art can only contain biblical imagery like it has to be a story out of the Bible in your paintings or drawings when God created us each as individuals. We will express our ideas differently so even if I wanted to depict the story of creation it will be expressed differently- it won’t necessarily be the sun, moon and stars, it could be symbolic. I could in my own creative expression and ideas use something totally different. It doesn’t have to be cut and paste for God to use it for His glory. It made me get stuck for a really long time because that is not how I create, in cut and paste ways, and I can still express other ideas it doesn’t always have to do with my spiritual journey but God can still use it for His glory. We will always want to glorify Him with our life, that’s always our intention, but it doesn’t always have to be in the way we have perceived. He won’t come to us and work through us like He did the older generation. We are not the older generation, our struggles, triumphs and experiences and the context thereof are different.