Elliot:
Welcome artvance community here on the artvance podcast we are going after God's heart for the arts industry you will be inspired to be uncontained in your God-given passion talent and creative ventures join me as we interview other people from around Australia and beyond about their field of industry and how God is speaking to them how he's influencing their field through their life of worship and how they're hearing God in the process of that and impacting their people within their field of industry find your wings with us as we collaborate discuss inspire and peer coach each other through the power of story revelation and industry mission fueled by a vibrant life of worship

[Music]

Elliot:
Welcome artvance community we are on a fresh episode of artvance where we are going after God's heart for the arts industry today we are blessed and honored to have on the show Grace Bailey an amazing artist who resides in Melbourne who I’ve met on a couple of occasions at different conferences and different get-togethers and watching Grace paint in worship you know there's some I’ve been worship leading at some point and I’ve watched over at the side of the stage where she is painting these magical moments, uh you know as a worship leader and I’m gonna speak to worship leaders right now when you have got people on your team that are painting and creating while you are ministering to the Lord in worship there is a synergy that releases stuff in the atmosphere it creates this sense of amazing community amazing support not just emotionally but on a spiritual intelligence level and so I’m just really blessed to have Grace on the show today Grace welcome to artvance

Grace:
Hi Heidi hi it's such a privilege to be here thank you

Elliot:
Oh it's a blessing to have you on, so I’m seeing a couple of paintings behind you and I’m just stoked that we I get to see a little bit of your studio space and some of your major artworks that are just masterpieces could you tell us a little bit about what's happening in the room there with you uh with those paintings and maybe just a little bit about yourself so our audience can catch the fire

Grace:
I’ve been painting since now I was a lad and I did you know all the uni things and I was a project painter for quite a long time like very large scale portrait opponent until about 2014 2015 and I was asked to paint at a conference one time to church conference so it always been I’ve been a Christian for a really long time but I’ve also been an artist for a long time and there's a dichotomy like you know the worlds are like universes apart and anyway so I rolled into a church and I coming from Australia and regional areas in Australia I’ve never heard of a painting in church or prophetic art or whatever label you want to give it and it was to me it seemed like you know okay that's a cool idea so I had silly expectations and I rolled into church with a 1200 by 1200 piece of board which is because I paint large and I knew I had like 25 months only during worship and I thought God was literally going to you know give me the whole technique color open you know the golden Maya opened up the worlds you know this and time would stop and you know I would have a long time to create this masterpiece I’m staying there in front of people and nothing happened God you know what and it kind of came to me um that probably what I could really paint without too much uh without a reference is a pair of eyes so anyway I cracked out this pair of eyes and then as I kept going there was I heard the voice all men dream dreams and young men see visions and I scrolled it across the bottom and sat down and thought oh my goodness that was really bad and then the comfort the pastor gets up and he said the theme for welcome to our conference the theme for this conference is eyes to see

Elliot:
Wow

Grace:
Of all the things so I had no knowledge of that and that's been an ongoing thing it was from there I uh moved a bit further and then God sort of said I want you to paint every week during worship for an entire year and that's a fair uh commitment because well you've it's kind of expensive and but more than that and you can't go away anymore unless you can arrange to paint so you know there were a number of things but underlying that if I was really honest it was about my fear that I wouldn't be able to hear from God that much and I wouldn't you know I’d be like do my own stuff I’m not God stuff so I did the dance for a while I got you no and then eventually um I did say yes we embarked on it I learned so much God was so good in that and I had so many questions about it because I’ve never seen anybody do it and I couldn't understand why he'd do it and as well as that I had this sense that was flippant or that it wasn't really meaningful and so God and I went on journey and I had so many questions and I kept getting answers to them and then he said well start writing down and I thought it was literally about just collating all this stuff that was going on around me and anyway it rolled into a book um and when I published it and then from there I went on a journey um very much I like explored I did some supernatural training and like prophetic training and stuff and uh then I started to travel so I painted in front of huge um audiences like up to 10 000 people um internationally like the states and Fiji and New Zealand and Britain and all that sort of stuff so it was all going very swimmingly until international travel just got

Elliot:
Yeah

Grace:
It's been a time of regrouping and the paintings that I’m currently doing now so when I regrouped because I couldn't travel um any longer I focused on creating courses online courses and um some of the paintings I’m doing now have kind of come out of some of that so I’ve gone back to I guess my words the whole portrait thing but my latest a lot of work well nearly all of my work is about the intersection of the supernatural and the natural world

Elliot:
Wow

Grace:
Um in some way um not necessarily overtly sometimes if it's a for a Christian audience it's quite a bird otherwise it's more subtle but the last series um has come out of my niece um died of a drug overdose in early October and that rocked um and the painting that came out of that in in dealing with that was because she's not faith-based kind of it was a remarkable work that was about the where is she now and the intersection between you know the other and the now that I could give to my family and um it's like a visual representation and anyway it really is meaningful and powerful and stuff and I believe that God speaks through imagery and yeah that's my opinion well from that uh it sort of started to develop more and more into these glimpses of and they seem to all be women although the one at the back here this one um is a is a man um an African man um but most of them are women and I think there's uh lots of being revealed um to me and you know through that

Elliot:
Wow that's wow what a deep what a deep place because this whole thing of prophetic art I think it can get really um it can get really ambiguous and what you've just talked about there with the intersection between the natural and the supernatural like that's kind of that feels like the phrase attached to your art is the intersection between the natural and the supernatural. I know from my personal experience because we did a conference together back in uh 2018 where you'd never met us before um could you tell a little bit about that story because that's still a watermark for Mia and I concerning prophetic art and what happens in worship um when you don't know what you're doing until you meet the person uh that might you know make the difference and I just uh could you talk a little bit about our daughter and what happened at that conference

Grace:
Oh I sure can I love telling the story so I’ve had lots of times when I’ve painted with angels I know that I know you know that I’ve painted with angels but I’m quite careful um not to say that unless I can actually validate it because well I’m surrounded by people that you know are very cynical and don't necessarily see and it has to stand up if I’m going to make a claim it has to stand up and this is one of those that I know really stands out because here evidence is there so I rolled into a conference I my friends Naomi and Aaron Cavanaugh worship leading for this conference and they said hey can you come and paint sure love it didn't know anything about who was coming to speak or anything except that come on rock and roll weekend worship conference yes you know that is that's the top of the pops so usually when I get a little painting um I start days before I said God what do you want me to paint and it's very much about waiting on him until you get what it what it is and sometimes often more often than not probably 80 percent of the time that comes pretty quickly now because I’ve been doing it for a while and you know you you've got images in my life well this time it did not I spent hours I was literally looking for about three hours and God what do you want me to paint like I went through all of the usual stuff that I was I was looking for inspiration and it just didn't come and eventually and that's just by the way a key I think often for creatives is to hang in to get the jolly answer so anyway I rolled it I kept looking and eventually I remembered that there'd been an image of a child that I sort of wanted to paint so I looked for something that was kind of you know sort of similar I found this cute little image of this random little girl that I was quite intrigued with her hands the posture of her hands so I drew it all up and as I was drawing it I heard the words of a song wonder I what's that one you know no I can't remember but I thought uh maybe that's what the painting be called call wonder so I rolled in on the Thursday night and started to paint and a Friday night painted the painting nine o'clock following morning we're on stage getting ready to open with worship and I was and this person came up to me and said Grace I’d like you to meet my daughter so that was Mia your wife and she introduces me to this little girl who's the spinning image of what I’ve just painted yeah whose name is Taya Grace so it turns out Taya means wonder and Grace and like okay let's come and sit down to have done a little girl the spinning image an image of a girl that I didn't even know existed and then her name means wonder but more than that the whole conference the theme of the conference was about wonder she uh Mia was talking about an encounter Taylor had had with an angel when she was two years old

Elliot:
Yeah

Grace:
And I was pretty that that one yeah it's on my website um have a look at that that's pretty cool

Elliot:
Yeah and while we're there I’ll just say it is gracebailey.net and if you go over to the about tab you'll see another tab appear with stories click on stories and just scroll through because um there's something about the testimony of Jesus in the arts that just keeps on giving back you can't deny it you keep going back reading it you will see something fresh every time and it'll encourage your heart um so yeah that was just a powerful story I remember that encounter actually I was in the room when she started giggling as a two-year-old and started saying terrace and Nia oh no this was Elisha’s encounter and terrace and Nia these two names one means wonder and one means um grace favor and grace maybe I’m getting mixed up between the stories but there was that kind of tie to that conference of the whole theme of wonder and yeah I love that story that's an evergreen in my heart as well as Taye’s dad um now in terms of you know skills and techniques and routines Grace because of you know the nature of prophetic art could you impart something to our audience who might be like you know when you said you get stuck you think I’ve got to wait it out for the answer what are some routines or techniques or skills that you just practically use um to get you in the zone

Grace:
The biggie is wait on God for what it is that he wants me to paint and then it's actually a lot of time in your head I painted my head a lot because I’ve been doing it for so long um it's essentially practice it's the same way a worship leader I guess um doesn't ever roll into church and expect to just get up you know without having practiced or without knowing the songs and stuff so I’ll wait and go get the image and then I look for the best representation image that I can use and then I’m very careful to draw it up this is just my process because I have tried the painting out of my head thing and the quality of what I do is so poor and I actually think there's a real key in that and I believe very much that we need as artists to develop our skills and to go on developing our skills and that's what my latest audio workers actually come out of because I was making these online courses and people kept saying teach portraiture and I thought I need to go back and work out the processes in that because I do it but it's a different thing and that's where that that's come from so that's kind of a long-winded way of saying you wait on God and then you go after the processes and then in my head I go round and round how am I going to do that what's the best way of doing that what's this going to say what color will mean that what so all of those sorts of processes sort of kick around and don't take it for granted but by the same token don't get too precious and hung up about perfectionism for your own ego because that's another thing you've got to be prepared to fall on your face if

Elliot:

And recover and come back to the table and go again

Grace:
Because it's not the greatest show I mean hang on that could all be a bit of videos it is the shell of Grace it's God's Grace but it's um yeah it's very much about and that was one of the things that God taught me early on that it's very much about reflecting his glory and reflecting what it is that he wants to say and if you go humbly to it and you've done the work you've been diligent with it God honors it so much and so often and I actually think he gets excited about it I think um like you can almost feel God smiling about it and you can feel this yes yeah go girl come on girl you know it's great fun

Elliot:
And I love the heart of the father you just captured there because I think one of the things with the thin line between excellence and perfectionism is the difference is the heart of the father isn't it when you when you hear the heart the heart of the father speaking over you uh it inspires excellence in you. Can you think of any time Grace where you have waited on the Lord and he has not come through

Grace:
That's it question now um

Elliot:
Sorry I sprung it on you because you're just talking about this whole process of patience and waiting and for so many of us that's just like our kryptonite because we can get disappointed before nothing happens you know and um you know I think waiting on the Lord has always paid off for me maybe not in the way I expected it uh but for visual artists you know that's a really big because you're depending on the imagination you're depending on you know the right inspiration and you know God's direction and being the master artist he wants to put those blueprints in us um, can you think of a time

Grace:
Yeah so if I go back to that time when I painted um each week for the whole year um this is easier to explain because I chronicled it and I took the notice of it and so I did 66 paintings that year live and all of them there were only like a handful that were paint overs which is to my mind quite I was very surprised I thought as I was going along that I’d done I’d failed on a lot more than I actually had done and on the other hand something upwards of 30 percent of them were crackers like they were really good like at my level at that point okay and doing live and what that sort of stuff which is like that's a pretty big an and as I’ve gone on more and more percentage of what I’ve done is better like I’m very rarely now ever like really embarrassed or want to crawl under the floor about a painting so um it is a journey it is because part of the journey is you know you're like laying your ego down I mean one time I did this painting and I got I finished it and I didn't think it was any good and I literally I was sitting there feeling that I want to crawl under the chair and because everybody else in the room can see it and you can't you can't get back from them when I sat down and felt and then this woman came up afterwards and said you know and she bought it and it was like God was still saying to me maybe your judgment is not the deal maybe yeah maybe you're meant to be the instrument jolly will get on with it and get over yourself you know and by the way God's got a wonderful beautiful gentle sense of humor

Elliot:
Yes he does and he knows the artist's heart and how sensitive we can be and

Grace:
Yep because as well so the last painting of that I remember this so clearly um it was the last one in the entire year and I was as flat as attack the black dog had bit me up to my armpits and I just was not rolling and I kind of said to go on the morning you're gonna have to do this because I can barely function and we roll into church and it was one of the best paintings in the entire year

Elliot:
Wow and isn't that testament just you know your weakness he is strong um and when our ability just empties out he shows up and just moves through us beautifully that is just amazing Grace thank you so much for talking about that because I know so many artists right now being in process feel like constant critics of their own work and they're not feeling like they're making headway and I know that feeling myself as well guys we're going to come back in a moment we're going to talk about breakthrough moments through prophetic art so stick around we're just going to go to a quick ad from our sponsor and we'll be right back after this.

Elliot:
Worship leaders and artists it's time to reveal heaven sometimes worship ministry can get stale from unchanged routines and a rigid perspective of a worship leader's role I released my first book a worship leader's guide into prophetic worship to be a map to the worship artist pursuing excellence whilst hungering for more whilst it's a worship leader's guide it's written to engage and impart to the artist and anyone who longs for a deeper experience of God in their worship and in their craft or art form you can get a worship leader's guide into prophetic worship on amazon, kindle or order a hard copy from us and we will post it to you

Elliot:
And welcome back everybody we are with Grace Bailey prophetic artist from Melbourne Australia who is going to share some prophetic breakthrough stories uh that has happened through her time of creating art either in worship services or just whatever it may be I know she's got tons of stories to share but we're going to share a couple and in this time I really want you guys to if you're driving or you're hiking or you're walking or you're at the gym I really want you to zero in on what God might be saying to you through this because the testimony of Jesus is spirit of prophecy according to revelation 19 and when people share testimonies it releases an ability for that breakthrough itself or the essence of who God is in that moment for Grace to be that for you right now I really believe there's an acceleration that comes through testimonies in general but specifically in the area of prophetic art through Grace Bailey so Grace let's talk some amazing breakthrough moments

Grace:
One of them I’ll tell you about the first time I painted with angels so as I’ve said before I have no knowledge of what this painting with God thing is all about and I didn't even know the eagle paintless angels and but I’ve been asked to come and paint at a Wyoming conference so I had nine regional conferences like Singapore, Perth, Melbourne around the place and I got to paint at this Melbourne and I waited on God I got my image and it's a drama line it turns out this is now my you know my brand image and all that stuff because it's the line of Judah playing the drums and roaring in worship and I really resonate so much with the power of it and it's actually called the power of worship but that's what God said to do and in actual fact lions don't have hands to hold you know sticks and all those stuff so I had to sort of kind of fudge this a little bit but I got up on stage and worship took off and it was just amazing and when worship is really you were talking before about the synergy that happens when painters and worship leaders connect and stuff sometimes there's a release of the spirit that is just unbelievable and the place becomes like a like and so I was dancing and that's what was happening on stage and um as I’ve said before it's very much a humble thing I don't know what's going on behind next thing this somebody got up and said hey I think there's a morning for worship I’ll dance here so this whole conference just took off and erupted it was just amazing so yeah sure in the natural that's a lot of fun and you get a lot of um happy vibes released and all of that sort of so several months later I had a vision and God showed me that I actually had an angel either side of me when I was painting that line um and telling me you know do it like this and what about this you know all of that concept

Elliot:
Guiding you through

Grace:
Yeah and that that really um established like a baseline and I began to recognize after that when I know that I know that I know that I’ve had angel help um sometimes it hasn't felt like that and I’m not you know I’m saying that that it's always but when it just flows and you can't put a brush stroke wrong you don't have to change any of it and it just works that whole painting I did live and I have not touched it since in fact there's a little bit on the side that some years later I realized I haven't done so the canvas so that that was one of them. I’ve got others on my website that I talk about I painted I’ve had other miracle works particularly I have a friend who had not been able to have a baby for 10 years like they'd been married and actively trying for 10 years and they'd had prophecy after prophecy and it become like an open festering saw in their lives it was very painful and she'd shared it with me and I sort of said to God hey God I want to do a painting with this couple and he said an image he told me um was you know about a baby I said no way God there's just no way I’m not doing I’m not, no

Elliot:
Arguments with God

Grace:
Oh yeah oh yeah God is too painful what if I’m wrong so that's you know that whole thing we go back to what if I’m wrong yeah so in my calves I went to this person and I said I said to her rather than doing the painting I went and I said I had a chat this is what I think God said to do and anyway my line is that she sort of sent me this funny constipated look on her face and didn't say very much so I went away and I literally wanted to crawl under the chair I was so oh God why did you make me do that God that's just not fair you know the raven constant anyway she ran me a week later I said I couldn't tell you last week but I found out that David bush was pregnant that still brings me to tears like and the little girl is pushing six this year now wow because as well there were health issues and the painting that I did was a baby held in father's hand and um because of the health issues they said she wouldn't carry it past the first trimester so she put painting on the wall every time she has had this issue she thought God was actually saying hey I got this I got this and as I said the little girl's you know sick so that was a yeah to paint oh and the other thing because this is the only thing with the tail painting there were three things that were pretty remarkable with this one there's three things um the baby looked like the baby when the baby was born so I under I painted a random baby and it looked like the baby so um that was a bit further on from the painting with the angels one and so I did a lion um I had hit this is so early on just before covered you know the lockdown really hit and I was really sort of pretty flat about a lot of things and God said to paint this line so when I first started painting prophetically I said to God I’m not painting lions and eagles I will do this but I’m not so anyway he has this big chocolate when he says yeah so of course well actually what he said was don't despise my iconography in other words don't allow the supposed secular intellectualism to cloud what you know what he's saying so I did go on this journey and I painted a lot of lions and eagles but I thought I was not going to paint anymore I thought finally I have finished with those lions and he's clear specifically to do this lion so it's not a beautiful lion it's not um young and handsome and your island all that sort of stuff it's an old lion and he's scarred and knocked about and it's the one behind me on the wall

Elliot:
Yeah

Grace:
And what it means is that he's still standing and it's a call to resilience to not give up to just keep going and regardless of the scars to keep going that was a bit of a breakthrough too I’ve got lots of them but

Elliot:
Yeah, and there's so many that are breakthroughs for other people and then there's ones that are really just a breakthrough for us personally as the artist where God reminds us of something or he says like you said keep standing keep going keep pressing forward Grace that's so awesome thank you so much for imparting the testimony in those stories because from the smallest to the greatest it doesn't matter it has an impact on whoever is listening right now wherever they're at personally in their journey um yeah so that's a word for you out there keep standing keep getting up keep picking up the brush keep trusting the Lord he's going to birth something powerful at this time especially the season we're in around Australia and beyond right now, um Grace could you speak a blessing over artists would you pray a blessing over artists I just really feel in the heart that that you carry the father's heart but in the same way you carry the mother's heart of God for artists there's this there's this amazing um nurturing spirit around when you share and how much you feel God's heart for the art that you do and for the people that it involves would you just pray over our listeners right now and then we're gonna wrap up

Grace:
Cool. Holy God we honor you for the gift, we honor you for the ability to be able to be creative and God I pray for every person that hears this that you would unlock their creative creativity in a greater dimension that you give it breath and depth and height and with they haven't known about before God that you would show them the marvelous things that they don't know and explain to them more and more God the depth of creativity and Lord the other thing that they would realize the ability to be able to call creativity out of heaven to pull the supernatural out of heaven and release it on earth, God that would be released with purity and this freedom with excitement with joy with love, Lord that we would create the work the art that creates a legacy that reflects ship glory on the earth God and Lord even brings new levels of excellence particularly to do with kingdom artists but with all of our God that we would go after you for the things that you want us to paint and do and create and we would do it to the best of our ability the ability that you're partnering with you God you give us to do, in Jesus name amen

Elliot:
Come on so good so people out there that are feeling called to visual art and design and all those things just remember this that God uses the arts to bring about a collision between the natural and the supernatural and that is the call on the artist's life is to bring heaven to earth through their craft and art form. Grace Bailey thank you so much for being on today where can people find you we know that Gracebailey.net is your website is there any other platforms that we need to know about

Grace:
So my Insta is Grace Bailey Artist and I’ve got a Facebook group I Facebook page as well painting with God anyways God Grace Bailey is the page which I hardly even go to but I do have a group and people post art and ask for critiques and all that kind of stuff but um yeah my website is fairly extensive lots of work and lots of that's where the courses are online courses

Elliot:
Fantastic yeah Gracebailey.net and when you get to the home page you'll see homepage online courses shop and about go into the online courses and see what's available there. Grace Bailey thank you so much for being on today it's been such a pleasure hearing from you

Grace:
It's so cool Elliot thank you and all the best with artvance it is super cool I hope it's very blessed

Elliot:
Thank you so much. Well guys we're going to see you on the next episode for artvance until then shine bright keep rising and shining and hearing the voice of God where you are right now and being inspired by a life of worship to have impact in the arts industry we'll see you next time on art man

[Music]

Elliot:
Thank you again for joining us on this podcast you guys as our artvance community are the reason we produce this podcast because we realize there's a need for the narrative of what God is saying right now concerning worship and the arts industry here in Australia and beyond live the unboxed life be uncontainable in God's heart for you to be released into your field your open place and reveal Jesus to your people see you next time on artvance

[Music]