Interview with an artist
Trees, rocks, water, sky, wildlife - Sheila Van Delft paints refreshment for the soul
48x36 acrylic on canvas
Near Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island – Sheila finds the forest one of the places where she recharges the best. She is so grateful to live in the country with trees all around her – and the endless inspiration they provide!
The quiet cool of a forest trail brings inspiration to artist Sheila Van Delft. As an introvert, she finds she can recharge by breathing deeply in the midst of nature. And in her work, she brings that feeling to others, through haunting scenes of groves on Vancouver Island, fog-filled vistas of the West Coast Trail, or serene views of a lone eagle surveying his kingdom.
“When I think deeply about why it’s always nature ,” she says,
“I realize that I’m painting my longing for the new earth and fellowship with God. Adam and Eve in Paradise enjoyed perfect nature with God, and the renewed earth will also have landscapes and seascapes, trees, animals, and big skies – all perfected and even more incredibly beautiful than what we enjoy here because of the redeeming work of Jesus. I long for this, and dream of this, and in my own way, must paint it again and again.”
Sheila is blessed to be able to work in art full-time – part-time as an art teacher and the rest of the time in her home studio. A typical day for her might involve: catching up on email requests and admin tasks, painting, taking a break for household tasks, taking the dog for a walk, brainstorming the next twenty paintings, painting some more, reluctantly making dinner, and then painting the rest of the evening because, really, it’s her favorite thing to do.
36x24 acrylic on canvas
The artist’s granddaughter in a field near her home in Ontario
Van Delft has been an artist since she was a child, encouraged by her parents. Later, she studied graphic design, and then even later, as a mature student, she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Arts. Through it all, she honed her skills, motivated by Colossians 3:23: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”
“I sometimes have market customers tell me that they feel so at peace when they look at my work, or that they don’t want to leave because it’s all so beautiful. I marvel at this! How can it be that what I do can have this effect? It’s all God’s hand working through my hand.”
One of the things she’s most proud of is her work as a high school teacher. Through it, Sheila nurtures her students’ ability to use their talents to share beauty and truth. Students she never expected have come up to her and admitted she made them care about art, and that brings her a feeling of fulfillment.
“When I try capture emotions like awe, contentment, gratitude, harmony, joy, peace, and wholeness in my paintings, I think others can feel that too. And that’s why I paint, so others can also feel the hopeful anticipation of the better life that is coming. I’m trying to share a bit of Heaven.”
Learn more about Sheila Van Delft's work on her website, where you can also stay up to date about the markets and other events where you can view her work in person. And she shares her work on Instagram and Facebook.
Send Harma-Mae Smit suggestions for artists to profile at [email protected]
News
“Transition” victims decry conversion therapy law
In early May, seven people hosted a press conference in Ottawa to express their concerns with Canada’s conversion therapy law. This law bans any practice, treatment, or service designed to help someone identify with the sex that God gave them – if, for example, a man feels effeminate, but wants help aligning his feelings with his male reality, this law bans professionals (including pastors) from helping him.
But the group’s unspoken petition was to ban sex-denying medical interventions like puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries.
Each of the seven took their turn at the microphone. Jeff Evely, a military veteran, shared how an Ontario hospital tried to surgically “transition” his teenage daughter without his consent. Scott Newgent shared her testimony of how these sex-denying interventions led to lifelong health challenges. Mia Hughes, a senior fellow at the McDonald-Laurier Institute and the Director of Genspect Canada, described the lack of evidence to support these medical practices. Kellie-Lynn Pirie, a detransitioner and founder of the Detrans Alliance Canada, Dr. Ann Gilles, a former therapist, and Barry Neufeld, the former Chilliwack school trustee who was fined $750,000 by the BC Human Rights Tribunal for speaking out against gender ideology, also offered brief remarks.
But perhaps the most moving comments were offered by Faith Groleau, who shared her personal story of the dangers of ideological gender medicine. She described being born with a hole in her diaphragm that required extensive surgery as a newborn to fix. At the age of two, she was sexually assaulted. That assault broke her collarbone, reopened that diaphragmatic hole, and rammed much of her intestines further up into her chest cavity. These internal wounds, misdiagnosed as mere asthma, also left her in poor emotional and mental health.
Eventually, the same hospital that provided the life-saving surgery as a baby suggested sex-denying interventions as the fix. “A pediatrician overrode a psychiatric diagnosis – several of them,” she explained, to clear her for sex-denying hormones and surgeries.
“Instead of assessing my mental health thoroughly, they decided to assume in the emergency room that my suicidal ideation came from the gender confusion. It did not. It was already there long before.”
And yet, the medical professionals used this fiction to fast-track sex-denying interventions, giving her cross-sex hormones at the age of 16 and approving her for top surgery at 18.
“Everything that had happened to me was wrong and had nothing to do with evidence-based medicine,” she accused. (You can hear both fury and sorrow in her voice during the entirety of her remarks.)
“I was experimented on. I was not told they were experimental. I was told it was medicine and that it would help. And it did none of that. It gave me complications that the doctors ignored or would treat as separate illnesses. It made my already pre-existing mental health worse. And my physical health continued to deteriorate.”
“These people do not know what they are signing up for because they are children,” she continued.
“I was a child. I wanted help. That’s all I wanted. I did not need to be medicalized. I did not need to be cut up. I did not need to be drugged. I just wanted to be loved the way I was.”
Faith didn’t further explain what she meant by “the way I was.” But for orthodox Christians, her identity is obvious. God created her as a female, just as He creates every person to be a member of one of two sexes. Whenever someone is confused about their identity as a man or a woman, they don’t need to be “medicalized,” “cut up,” or “drugged.” They need to be counselled that they are wonderfully made in the image of God and to embrace their God-given identity as male and female.
Yet these are truths denied by conversion therapy bans across the country and the practice of sex-denying medical interventions. While no explicitly Christian perspective was offered at this press conference, all seven took a stand against harmful conversion therapy bans and sex-denying medical interventions.
Today's Devotional
May 28 - Are you humble (II)
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you.” - 1 Peter 5:6
Scripture reading: Proverbs 11:1-31
Peter continues his teaching on humility in verse 6. He tells us to humble ourselves so that God may exalt us. Pride can be viewed as dependence or confidence in oneself. A person may think he is >
Today's Manna Podcast
Call upon Me
Serving #1221 of Manna, prepared by C. Bosch, is called "Call upon Me".
