Brown shares her faith through art
Feb 08, 2010 | 541 views | 0 
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The walls of a youth classroom at First United Methodist Church in Cedartown have come alive with scripture in the form of murals painted by seminary student Beth Brown.
A Cedartown native, Brown, 26, is home on a winter break from Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky. She returns to school on Feb. 8 for her fourth semester. She is majoring in biblical studies and intercultural studies.
Brown is a 2001 Cedartown High School graduate and is the daughter of Dave and Susan Brown.
After graduating high school, Brown attended North Georgia College and State University in Dahlonega, earning a bachelor’s degree in art education.
She taught art at a Pickens County elementary school for a year.
She enjoyed teaching but “I felt directed,” Brown said. She’s interested in pursuing missionary work.
“I feel strongly about social interaction … unity between people,” she said.
The murals are a project she started last summer. Brown said the church’s youth program paid her to paint two murals. One illustrates the story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale, or large fish.
The second illustrates Isaiah 11: 1-9:
“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.” It shows a lion and lamb at peace, along with bible verses and the phrases “The Lion of the Tribe of Judah” and “The Lamb of God.”
“Those are both names for Jesus,” Brown explains.
Her new mural illustrates the story of The Great Flood, from Genesis, chapters 6-8. An anonymous donor contributed the money to hire Brown. She’ll use the money for college tuition, she said.
Brown is diligently working to finish this week before she returns to school.
“It’s going slower than I expected,” she said. “There’s a lot of detailed work to do.”
Brown works in acrylic paint. She downloaded photographs from the Internet to inspire some details of the mural. For example, photographs of live elephants in motion were used as a guide for one panel of the mural, in which an elephant is seen entering the Ark. With her laptop computer nearby, she uses these photos to inspire an original piece of art.
The new mural consists of four panels that illustrate four parts of the story of Noah and the Ark.
In the first panel, Noah and his family load animals into the Ark. In the second panel, a dove returns to the Ark with an olive branch in its beak. In the third panel, the ark comes to rest on dry land. And in the last panel, the flood waters have receded and a rainbow symbolizes God’s promise to never again send a flood to destroy the earth.
Brown said the finished work should be kind of like a storybook, illustrating the Bible in an easy-to-follow manner for young children. The mural will also include references to the Bible verses that inspired the artwork.
A Cedartown native, Brown, 26, is home on a winter break from Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky. She returns to school on Feb. 8 for her fourth semester. She is majoring in biblical studies and intercultural studies.
Brown is a 2001 Cedartown High School graduate and is the daughter of Dave and Susan Brown.
After graduating high school, Brown attended North Georgia College and State University in Dahlonega, earning a bachelor’s degree in art education.
She taught art at a Pickens County elementary school for a year.
She enjoyed teaching but “I felt directed,” Brown said. She’s interested in pursuing missionary work.
“I feel strongly about social interaction … unity between people,” she said.
The murals are a project she started last summer. Brown said the church’s youth program paid her to paint two murals. One illustrates the story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale, or large fish.
The second illustrates Isaiah 11: 1-9:
“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.” It shows a lion and lamb at peace, along with bible verses and the phrases “The Lion of the Tribe of Judah” and “The Lamb of God.”
“Those are both names for Jesus,” Brown explains.
Her new mural illustrates the story of The Great Flood, from Genesis, chapters 6-8. An anonymous donor contributed the money to hire Brown. She’ll use the money for college tuition, she said.
Brown is diligently working to finish this week before she returns to school.
“It’s going slower than I expected,” she said. “There’s a lot of detailed work to do.”
Brown works in acrylic paint. She downloaded photographs from the Internet to inspire some details of the mural. For example, photographs of live elephants in motion were used as a guide for one panel of the mural, in which an elephant is seen entering the Ark. With her laptop computer nearby, she uses these photos to inspire an original piece of art.
The new mural consists of four panels that illustrate four parts of the story of Noah and the Ark.
In the first panel, Noah and his family load animals into the Ark. In the second panel, a dove returns to the Ark with an olive branch in its beak. In the third panel, the ark comes to rest on dry land. And in the last panel, the flood waters have receded and a rainbow symbolizes God’s promise to never again send a flood to destroy the earth.
Brown said the finished work should be kind of like a storybook, illustrating the Bible in an easy-to-follow manner for young children. The mural will also include references to the Bible verses that inspired the artwork.
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