Grace bailey

Podcasts

Latest Podcasts

Matt Toomey

Elliott Bonser

Prophetics Gallery

Matt Toomey interviews Grace Bailey

You can also watch this video in YouTube channel of Matt Tommey

Transcript

Tommy:
Hey there, my friend so glad that you're with me on the podcast today. I'm super honored to have a friend of mine, Grace Bailey, who's not only an incredible artist, but just an incredible person all the way from Australia. Grace thank you so much for being with me today.

Grace:
Thank you for having me, you say you're super honored, come on

Tommy:
I love it I love it. I have to roll back the tape and tell people how we met when I was in Australia. I guess what's, it been five years ago maybe something like that uh you took pity on me when I was coming and had me to your house and put me up in the in the beautiful apartment that you had at your house, and took me around Ballarat, and uh introduced me to people and I just had such a wonderful time getting to know you, and the wonderful things that you do but for those who don't know you maybe just give us an idea who you are what you do creatively and where you are in the world.

Grace:
I live in Victoria which is in Southern Australia and as you can tell by my accent I am not American. My boys were saying to me this morning I should say g'day mate.

Tommy:  exactly do the whole thing right? Yeah.

Grace:
I've been a painter pretty well since Noah was a boy and I did my masters and all that sort of stuff from painting and stuff, so I've been in Southern Victoria being a Christian you know forever but the two worlds were like diametrically apart particularly in Australia.  Australia is a very different market or a very different climate to what America is, I believe and Christianity and art were sort of holes apart so I did art stuff, I did lots of university and all that kind of stuff and then the Christianity kind of you know, it was like you just closed one door and go out and come back in again kind of thing for a while.

Tommy:
How did that you know there you are as a believer as a painter you're kind of living in these two separate worlds how did those two worlds come together for you because you're really known now not only as a great painter but teacher and really voice and prophetic art uh not only in Australia but uh for many people all over the world who know you so when did those worlds kind of begin to come together and you said hey maybe God wants to do something with my art through my life.

Grace:
So it was an amazing kind of an unfolding, so I had never heard of art and church being together apart from you know like the renaissance and all of that yeah sure it just didn't exist and then I mean you know you attend church a long time I’ve been part of this church the pastor came to me one day and said hey we're having a conference would you paint at it and I thought oh sure that's a novel idea. Yeah what do you want me to do what do you want me to paint? I’ll leave it up to you so I roll into just so I’ve always been a big format portrait painter that's what I do my master's in like um it's like eight foot by four foot, yeah a face from here so um so I automatically sort of went in so I had I’m trying to put it all in American measurements rather than Australia. so I roll into church with an undercoated board and my easel and I’m up the front and the worship started and I kind of because I’ve never seen any I had never seen anybody do it, I had absolutely no idea that anybody ever painted in church or anything like that and I had kind of silly notions that God would just sort of open the heavens and I and he would stop time like he did for, oh is he here? No you know he stopped time, yeah have lots of time to do the most amazing muscular, if so here we are out front and worship's rolling along and it's all you know and hey God anytime now, it would be great to come on right what do you want me to paint God, um so and then I thought oh my goodness well about the only thing I can do without having a reference is a pair of eyes, so to backtrack all through my master's and undergraduate, I mean I’ve done seven years at university so you know I had done a lot of eyes big format eyes, I’ve just I’m just fascinated by them and I think to do with getting into the soul of the person getting up,  so I’m not okay well I could probably crack out a pair of eyes which I did sort of loose sloppy sort of things and then as I was going along I heard the voice that says old men will dream dreams and young men see visions and I scrolled it across all men dream dreams young men see visions across the bottom where she finished I sat down and said well thanks God and then the party gets up and he said welcome to the conference. The theme for this weekend is give us eyes to sleep, and wow so I had never like this was my very first introduction to wow you can partner with the supernatural yeah this was a God thing

Tommy:
yeah, yeah

Grace:
And I mean how exciting is that this art thing that I thought was complete anatomy to Christianity was hey wow God's going to lose this or would he so fast forward a couple years

Tommy:
And what year was that like roughly i mean

Grace:
14

Tommy:
okay, okay

Grace:
Because after that like I had a couple years of I hardly because it just didn't happen church painting so it almost didn't happen at all and we got to present that church and to another one and it's a small little church with a very um supportive pastor and a very authentic place of worship and like we come from um you know smoke machines and bells and whistles right and we went to authentic holy spirit was so welcome hearing worship, so we started this church and then they had this conference again and I painted at it and God clearly moved and then God said to me I want you to do this every week for entire year and I thought yeah excuse me like that's a big commitment yeah sure yeah like materials and things and as well as that it meant that I couldn't go away anywhere, yes I could paint a lot and like paint in worship um so it took me, I don't know two or three weeks a month or something to make that decision and then once I made the decision I started and so I painted but you're just in the process every week I mean it's just this you're getting a master's degree in Holy Spirit right as your as your painting I’m sure you know it was just bizarre so I actually I think it was a four year when he put on a degree or an apprenticeship or whatever it was I had this real sense that I was doing this i didn't know um until I was into it a fair bit but the first year was the practical he taught me a whole lot so I’d been an oil painter and as I said I did large scale portraits but I had to wait on God every week for the image and stuff and I hardly did any portraits in that time but as well as that you can't, I don't believe you should paint in oil in church because it could be people that have got issues with the smell and besides that you kind of need it to be quick and whatever so I had to learn a lot of the skills to be able to do it um quickly and that was kind of that was a lot of fun so I’d start out because oh and if I give you too much detail on how to paint

Tommy:
It that's great, I know we've got so many people from all different creative mediums but I know a lot of painters out there. So grace talk you know so many people when we talk about being inspired by the holy spirit creating with the holy spirit everybody's got a different methodology strategy technique of how that works so for some people there is this really visceral connection physically open visions things like that for other people it's the still small voice or it's going with the the intuition of their creative process so how has that continued to manifest and mature in your life what is what does it look like for you to be inspired and create with the holy spirit

Grace:
Well we kind of during that year he took me on the entire dinner so I hated him but not very many and I would get words and I’d get censored what it normally is but it had to mature so for the first um few about the first three months I had a honeymoon and every time I roll into church it turned out amazingly like it was just fabulous but then I had to actually start to grow up and make sure my skills were I had to put more effort into it he expected me to do more so my process developed through that and it sort of rolled into and settled into well if I know I’m going to paint I start to wait on God what do you want me to paint sometimes and that because now that I’ve been doing it such a long time I’m much more aware so I am always on the lookout for imagery or concepts or something and I always I paint a lot in my head that sort of stuff but in that time I would start to wait so Sunday was rolling up on about Thursday, I was like God what do you want me to paint and sometimes I just know and I go on a journey and develop paintings. I never ever roll into church with a blank canvas I don't think that that's I’m honoring because for a whole reason but so sometimes I get your uh concept easily and sometimes I’ve really got to work at it and through all of that I’ve had miracles, I’ve seen I’ve got three that I can actually validate there's been miracle works, wow, I learned a whole lot so that first year as I said it was the practical year, this is how you do it in the second year, I was much more into the supernatural I did a prophetic course like um I’ve been the prophetic stuff has been around a long time but I needed to hone the skills a whole lot and then the third year we Holy Spirit and I wrote the book and I had a lot of help eventually and published the book and um in the fourth year was right so I actually really felt like it was an apprenticeship

 

Tommy:
Yeah absolutely yeah before we get off this call I want you to share one of those miracle stories because I know that'll encourage people but I want to it may be a great way to end and end our time together but I want I know we talked about this I remember uh sitting around your table there uh I don't know if it was your kitchen table or just sitting in your house and talking about this but you know there's such um uh disconnect for many artists who are really you know feel the inspiration of the holy spirit the move the holy spirit in their life there's been this real disconnect for so many of them of understanding the need for skill and how the holy spirit uses skill development to enlarge our capacity to flow with the holy spirit and that sort of thing you've heard it just like i have you know we don't need skill we just need holy spirit to do his thing and it just comes spontaneously and you don't need to practice you don't need the skills you just need to flow with him i mean there's been so much of that out there in quote-unquote prophetic art circles so talk about that you know we i talk about that being filled and skilled you know what does that mean to you and how are you balancing that or keeping maybe the better word is keeping that intention uh in your life and flowing with that dynamic.

Grace:
I would put it down on maturity thing if you're a beginner painter Holy Spirit is going to supply more perhaps but as but he expects us in all of everything we do not just in our army to grow up and to take responsibility and so when I had my first honeymoon for my first everything I touched just went to gold but then as I said I had to start building the skills to be able to do the things so yes he's given me the capacity but I needed to actually develop the skills to know like for instance how you can make a painting work and what colors you're going to use and what all you and all of that kind of stuff how you're going to make your perspective and composition work and all that sort of thing before I started because there just isn't time when you're in the moment I’m very passionate about raising or Christians working and doing their utmost to develop their skills to their personal best for whatever they do because it's a glory of God, yeah you can't expect to do what feels good um and put that off as and say well that's just Holy Spirit you know, I’m just relying on Holy Spirit that's actually a very um and I don't mean to be offensive in any way it's an immature way of looking at him he wants us to grow up and so as I’ve written in my book and my courses and things I believe that first um inspiration is like a father teaching their child to write the alphabet some of us use that alphabet to write to just write shopping lists which is how I correlate with just waiting on God doing the blank canvas stuff, some people write one piece like Michelangelo did on the roof of the Sistine chapel so you understand what I mean, I love that but he gives us the concepts but he's saying come on and he gets very excited in the same way a dad gets very excited when their child I don't know who rides a bike or makes or does or can write their outfit, you know that kind of stuff he's that's why he gave us creative one of the reasons he gave us creativity because he gets very excited about it when we experience the fullness of it and besides that

Tommy:
I just love that I think you know that whole the same words that write a shopping list are the same words and letters you used to write a great novel or whatever I mean it's that it's what are you going to do and the capacity that the God gives you

Grace:
How diligent were you being with me how much effort will you put into it and look quite frankly I need to lift my game

Tommy: Yeah and I think for all of us you know there's always because I’m a you know big believer in that too you know I always say if the only tool that you have is a hammer then every problem that you encounter looks like a nail and I think that's the truth when it comes to art if you only have a few skills then you only have a little bit of capacity to you know to create but the more you enlarge the more options you have and I found that in my basketry as well the more things you learn all of a sudden same idea may have come to you ten years ago but now you've got more options to be able to explore with that and roll with it right

Grace:
And isn't it exciting

Tommy:
Yeah

Grace:
Like it's the most rewarding thing you can get when you can when you do things that you're very pleased with that you're happy to be looking at months and years later so I’ve done a lot of art and doing like I’ve done a lot of things that I actually don't want to look at it um a few months later but a few I’m still happy to look at it yeah and that's one of my criteria is for hey is this any good and I’m very passionate about people being able to look at whether it's Christian but particularly Christian art and see quality that they still want to look at in 12 months time

Tommy:
Um yeah

Grace:
What five years time

Tommy:
Yeah they can live with in their home or in their space or whatever

Grace:
And that's aside from the really great stuff like you know that people are still lining up to see 500 years later

Tommy:
Yeah now not only do we love seeing our art and creating art we love it when people have a visceral reaction you mentioned some glory stories kind of miracle reactions that people have had in uh encounters with your creativity tell a couple of those stories maybe of just things that made you go wow God I can't believe that that I get to participate in this process

Grace:
Well you mean when people go weak at the knees because they've seen a print that you did um yeah um one of my so this is my all-time favorite and there's a video on my website um with the with the woman the couple in in involved so my girlfriend had her and her husband had been trying to have a baby for over a decade and they'd had lots of prophecies that were going to have a baby but it'd become such a wise thing for them that when she was sharing the process with me she was really going through a hard time with it because she was you know getting to an age where they'd been waiting such a long time and I was I sort of said to God I would like to do a painting for my friend and the image he gave me was like a stalk you know with the baby and I said no way I am not going there so um because we just as I said we I did this supernatural training in the supernatural and we only just had the course on no but I know that's this emerges you know hatchet's matches and dispatchers and I said no God it's too painful and my God and I God um so the emu just by the way is Australian very American he's God's got a wonderful sense of humor and he wants us to be real and authentic and I was being very rude real and authentic and I said God it's too hard on my friend I know the journey she's going through anyway I you know God's very gentle and kind and he just sort of didn't let up and he said that one so of course I wasn't about playing stuff but I did go here like I was a bit carried and I said hey this is what I think God said to do that he wants me to paint a baby for you and meaning that you know a baby is coming and she just sort of sat there and in fact I think she had kind of constipated look on her face but she's such a sad man and anyway she ran me a week like and I went home I just wanted to crawl under the chair, yeah sure yeah on the time also God that's horrible anyway she made me a week later and look this still brings out an emotional reaction because it's such a big deal yeah she rang me and said she found out the day before she was pregnant wow I painted it live um and I had like a back black background on it and I had invented a huge studio my studio was American 45 foot long like very few so I was going from one end to it to the other end and that painting had I brought home from church sitting on my easel and I looked up and thought gee that's flat that's really ordinary so I and then I do this a little bit I walked in and i grabbed a three inch paintbrush and some burgundy paint and slapped it up slightly flat and washed my brush and went on clean the bathroom whatever it was so then I gave her the painting and like so this is part of how Holy Spirit works sometimes, I didn't know the implications of what I’ve just done but when she saw it and everybody else saw it, I saw it so what it was a baby held in her hand and they saw it as the father holding this baby in her room and put it on the wall has everybody got goosebumps yet because I assured you, I mean this is this is some years later because that child is four years old and putting it out there so she had some health issues and they all said she wouldn't I carried a baby past the first trimester well every time she looked at that painting she said that she believed God was sort of saying your haircuts come on and as I said the child is four years old so yeah come on

Tommy:
Love it, love it

Grace:
I mean I’ve had other miracles as well but

Tommy:
Yeah well why not i mean you know if god can use the jawbone of a donkey and a spit ball that Jesus used to put in somebody's eye why not paint things why not art why not whatever we do you know it's the kingdom moving in and through us and I just love that

Grace:
It's a very exciting thing I think when God says things to people in your paintings that you didn't I didn't even know about it yeah and that happens often and much so when I first started I used to be really bothered about what's this mean and I don't I’m not moving in the prophetic enough I’m sure I can do the image but I don't know what why am I doing this what's it about and eventually I had Dan McCollum said to me hey just chill just don't worry God can do exam talking so um and once I let go of that thinking that I had to have you know the beginning of the end the answers yeah um and just let God it just changed and it became much simpler much easier and I was much less stressed and God just speaks amazing things to people so I let other people do the interpretation lots of the time

Tommy:
Yeah and it does it takes the pressure off and it allows us to I think as artists embrace the mystery of the process that as we're faithful to listen and respond in our creative process then God's faithful to take that and accelerate and exponentially do whatever he's going to do in and through that and that's the beauty of it I was talking to I don't know if you know Simon bull who's a fabulous painter in uh he's from the UK but he lives in uh in uh California now but we were kind of talking about this the other day just about you know the concept of prophetic art and he's like you know you just gotta go with you know the process that you're in he said it's not like you can reach over and pull out your holy spirit bottle and be like this he's a little more prophetic you know this needs a little more holy spirit it's like God's gonna do what he's gonna do in and through us as we invite him in the process so

Grace:
And oh man it is fun

Tommy:
Yeah

Grace:
It is just like the height of being alive when you're painting when worship is off the charts and um the supernatural is coming through and it's extraordinary and I’ve done it like I’ve had it so I’m very nice to say that this happens all the time I would like to say hey oh come on but um that's part of that you know that dance we've got to get our skills up and all that stuff but I have had times I had a lot of supernatural help and the funny thing about it is when I’m going to do those paintings again I have not been able to recreate it anywhere near the power I did one in January last year uh just so we went into lockdown last year in uh march and I painted um generally February march well painting I did in January is a line and it's a scarred woman and he's an old lion and essentially what it's saying is he's still standing so we go through a whole lot of stuff but we're still standing and still got your throat and there's such an authority about that particular painting so in lockdown I tried to do it again same image that I started with because I always use reference images and there's a story about that um and do you think I could get that I have had I have been back to that painting over and over again and it looks loving and kind but it's missing the authority yeah missing power and oh look that's happened so many times that I just now yep that's just the deal

Tommy:
Yeah it was a moment you had a moment in time you had an encounter and that was what it was so yeah

Grace:
If the supernatural paints through me it's going to be the quality is so much better and if

Tommy:
Listen I know people are going to want to connect with you grace and not only see your work but grab your book see the you know classes that you're doing online and that sort of thing where is the best place that uh you'd like for people to connect with you and just uh see all the great things that you're doing in the kingdom

Grace:
My website is gracebailey.net that's nice and easy to remember I have got a Facebook group which I have to admit I’ve been a bit um slack with for a while because as I mentioned before we've just moved and my headspace because we went a hundred square house like under roof we had an enormous house and I downsized for six weeks and then the removalists said this is their third largest that they've ever done out of ten thousand. It’s Painting with God group

Tommy:
Wonderful we'll be sure to put the link to that in the show notes that both so folks can connect with you but grace is just always good to connect with you see your beautiful work and just hear your story and uh just like we always say you know the same thing that God's done in your life he wants to do that and even more in other people's lives and you're just you're standing as a great testimony and example to what God wants to do in all of us as we cooperate with him so thank you so much for being my guest today on the podcast

Grace:
Isn't it an exciting concept

Tommy:
Yeah

Grace:
The worldwide is a rise in quality you know the real renaissance

Tommy:
That's right

Grace:
Supernatural creativity and that's exciting if people can get a hold of that and what God wants to do with it and that this is not a this month thing or this year thing this is like yeah let's put stuff into place that creates significant supernatural legacy thank you it's been good fun anytime you want to talk I’m happy to talk

Tommy:
Absolutely, thank you

Grace:
Thank you, okay, ciao

Artvance with Elliot Bonser

You can also watch this video in YouTube channel of Elliot Bonser

Transcript

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]

Prophetic Artist Grace Bailey and Debbie Marino gallery owner at PropheticsGallery.com

You can also watch this video in YouTube channel of Debbie Marino

Transcript

Debbie:
Recording right now here we go sorry guys I just I had a little bit of a bloop there this is Debbie Marino I’m with Grace bailey in Australia today and I’m so excited to have Grace I Grace I haven't seen her in a few years she was here visiting with us um what two years ago I think was it two years

Grace:
19, 2019.

Debbie:
yeah oh my goodness it doesn't seem like it was so long ago but anyway we hope you'll come back and do some more training here

Grace:
yes yes yes

Debbie:
I can't wait and hopefully I'll be in my new house then so but Grace is with us today and she's going to be talking about a couple of um beautiful art pieces she just created and I’m going to screen share them with you so just bear with me

Grace:
so just by the way the one on the wall behind you

Debbie:
yeah, oh yes and that one behind me Graced it here and this is actually our mascot for our website it was a blue sandy blue um heron which is also in the crane family and um it flew around our house when Grace was here and I told her about it and then we started looking it up and we realized oh my goodness it there's a lot of uh incredible words about this particular bird Christian um background on it where he's it he is a type of bird that kills snakes so we know in the spiritual realm that's demonic and also he is a type of bird that is a messenger from heaven and brings special message messages to earth and that's why we use that because we know our artwork brings special messages from heaven so that's our logo so Grace did that for me and she gifted it to me last year and it was such a such a blessing and I have it in my office and it really does a lot for me when I’m working every day so thank you Grace it's gorgeous

Grace:
Thank you

Debbie:
so oh my goodness well Grace I’m very excited to talk about some of your new pieces and I’m going to go ahead and screen share so let me click on that and then I’m hitting on share and here we are look at these beautiful pieces so go ahead Grace you have the floor

Grace:
so the one on the right the blue one is called metamorphosis and so of course we we're in Victoria in Australia and we've been locked down for eons it feels like and last year was a really difficult year and I went through some fairly bleak kind of times and God had me paint a whole series of birds it was a God thing and I finished the birds and I mean I haven't been able to paint live I haven't been able to go to church for yeah almost two years hardly and anyway earlier this year a little while ago I had started because I have pivoted where I used to teach a lot of uh face-to-face is to have retreats and people would come and we will wait on God and prophesy and worship and uh God unlocks creativity through it that was great a great fun and I couldn't do that and it was like okay God what now so we moved more into online courses and I’ve got four now and the next one I thought would be a portrait class because that's what everybody kept asking me about so I started playing around with portraits and then one day this blue one sort of it just was such a God moment it just sort of began to happen and that little area over there on the right hand side near her ear that funny looking thing that's there I was near the canvas and painting away and then I stepped back and I thought oh look at that and anyway I just kept going and often you know that anybody that's done any painting with God that's how it works you kind of get back oh wow God I like that thank God so anyway this one what I sensed um it's to do because it's to do with the intersection between the supernatural and the natural so this metamorphosis um that's what I call it because she seems to be changing and little did I know within a couple of weeks uh a number of prophetic people started talking about metamorphosis and change and I completely without any connection to them or anything I just saw it on Facebook that's what I was suddenly talking about was metamorphosis and then this one on the right the leftover pattern this one is called hope and she is um again it's the intersection between well where is she is she heaven or in the supernatural or and those flowers these things are sort of like symbolic but she's been through a hard time she's been broken as we all did you know during lockdown um but the fragmentation um she can still see through it and so it's a message of hope I’ve got I’ve started an entire series of them now and I that's where I believe God's taking it more because where I was focused very much on live painting and painting in church um I specific I feel now that God has sort of moved me on more to where my work is meant to create beauty that releases the power of God so I’m specifically going after works that are inherently beautiful and in Australia that's culturally very unfashionable

Debbie:
interesting

Grace:

yeah

Debbie:
wow

Grace:
I mean I’ve got lots and lots more um but yeah this is this is my recent works

Debbie: look at and I you know I love your work because the eyes the eyes speak volumes I mean you just and they're incredible they're like glass they're just beautiful

Grace:
um for some reason had this so I did my masters um and I’ve actually got like I went to university or I just focused on eyes I just it was like this itch I had to scratch and scratch and scratch and I’ve done huge drawings of eyes and I’ve painted very large portraits and things and it's kind of uh it's as if that's how you get really close to somebody or you get right into their soul is being able to look at eyes and I’m I’ve always just been really fascinated with them and now they're kind of my comfort zone so if I started painting that's where I start and oddly enough I tend to start on the right hand side so the photo is looking back at me so it's their left hand eye I tend to start that right hand eye all the time and I’ve got to really watch myself but I don't keep plonking that eye in the same place on the canvas all the time because it's really easy to get into because it's such a comfort zone

Debbie:
yeah

Grace:
there's another one on the back um now if you pop it off screen share

Debbie:
okay

Grace:
um there's another one I’ve just started um in the back but that's very early, you can see um I’ve only just started so it's still here

Debbie:
yeah

Grace:
yeah it starts quite abstract and I fiddle about and keep dying and get lost

Debbie:
wow

Grace:
yeah

Debbie:
oh my gosh it's beautiful all your work is gorgeous it really is well um now Grace you have been really sort of busy doing a lot of online training um I know because I have a customer up in New York and she loves your work and now I understand she's training with you and you know I get people now Grace has a book with us and I don't know if you have the book close by at hand I should have had it up on my desk I should have done two if you can wait one second I’m sure the crowd won't mind let me grab it real quick

Grace:
okay my book is called while she's gone it's called painting with God and it came out of so when I first started this painting was God thing I didn't know what it was about and I’d never seen anybody paint in church or paint during worship or anything and I thought it was just so removed and then God said it was a really it was a God directed steps a little bit a little bit and then he said hey paint every week for an entire year during worship and I bought initially I thought that's expensive and I can't go away and uh oh and besides but see underneath my secret fear was that I actually couldn't hear from God enough to do that

Debbie: I understand

Grace: yeah so um and but God was very gracious as always and he gradually took me through it and so the book is the story of that but it's also the story of what he revealed to me about prophetic art because I know I keep calling it prophetic because that's what we call it but it's actually it's art that partners with the supernatural partners with God to create works of beauty or to release his messages and prophetic uh possibly has some connotations but anyway I believe God has uh great things in store for it he wants it to be refined and improved and there are different types and that's what he showed me

Debbie:
so this is Grace's book and um it is well it's going to be backwards and I’m not sure how I can make that uh we can see it we can see it okay it's painting with God um by Grace bailey and she you really can tell them a little bit about the book I think it's pretty much going into like you said a little bit about what prophetic art is and um it's just really wonderful and I’ve sold a lot of copies I think recently you know since you left me with a box and I’ve been selling them over the course of time and I think they're 20 online so if anybody would like to get this book and start learning a little bit more about prophetic art and definitely with classes with Grace I mean you can see her work and if you really want to learn how to do those eyes and those faces and the colors it's just amazing so Grace um tell us a little bit more about your training classes um they're available now or when they're going to be able to

Grace:
yeah as of two days ago they were available but I have a horrible snazz that my website has been hacked

Debbie:
oh my God

Grace:
just yesterday so you know what a great time for it had happened not it's never a good time but um I with my techie people are onto it but so I have when my website is working I have the four courses so far my you can view my website you just at the moment can't um get into the um portal where the courses um I are sitting it's a standalone sort of website alongside my other website so the four courses I started with uh what is prophetic art because that's what I thought God told me to do and I’m um in the new year I’m going to revamp that because what I’m sensing that he wants me to do um is to actually have like a whole year course that you can do so the term at a time and a couple of weeks often um so one's a very basic one it's called painting basics like you know I mean I’ve been painting since Noah was a boy so all sorts of stuff that um you just cut out a lot of the you know oh nobody ever told me how to do that sort of stuff right and then I got the prophetic one and then I did a powerhouse which is things like composition and backgrounds and how do you get your drawing and all of that sort of stuff that can bounce uh somebody's art very rapidly and then the last one that I’ve just done is painting birds and that's been a lot of fun oh yeah I take them through step by step and you know module by module there's lots of videos no talking head

Debbie:
okay right

Grace:
so um yeah I, I’m a bit allergic to talking heads so I don't do talking heads

[Laughter]

Debbie: oh no

Grace:
but there's a lot of paintings a lot of work on my website which is Grace bailey.net yeah and the links back to the courses and things are all on that website when you can get into it

Debbie:
yes and we also at propheticsgallery.com if you go in you can type in Grace bailey at the top even if you just type in Grace it'll come up with all her artwork or you can go up into the top and do the shop now and it'll drop down artists and you can go by her last name bailey and um it's you can get her that way as well and see the whole artist page again with all the artwork so either way you can get her on our website and we sell all of um several of your um prints um we do all the printing for her but we sell several of your pieces I’m trying to think how many we have up there we've got them up there Grace has been with us for gosh what about four or five years now with our website so we should have a bunch of things on there and I’m hoping to get some new ones so when you get a chance and when the website comes back I’d love to get some of the new pieces up there um but definitely please come and visit and right now um during the holiday we are doing a sale for the Christmas holiday and you can go on to the website yeah we're given 20 off of all art and photography prints so you can get your Christmas list checked off right quick with some of Grace's work and they're beautiful they make beautiful wall art and you can have it on archival papers your choice of archival papers or canvas or you can put it on acrylic or metal um and so you can go in and if you'd like to have it framed and matted we also have those options too so um just go out and check us out on propheticsgallery.com so anyway well thank you Grace for coming today we really appreciate it you're taking the time to show us your new pieces I know you're busy at work in your studio but thank you for coming on we'd love to have you again and I’m sure we will and maybe talk some more about some of your classes and maybe have a sign up page too at that point where we can

Grace:
with a website that's working

Debbie:
yeah when the website's working we'll have it up so anyway

Grace:
thank you for having me

Debbie:
oh yes thank you Grace

Grace:
I am so hanging out to come back to the states

Debbie:
I can't wait for you to come back I can't wait for you to come back and you stay with me and we'll get some classes going this time we'll have a place where you can go and actually do some artwork in a classroom so we'll get that taken care of too but anyway thanks Grace, take care

Grace:
thank you Debbie.

Meet Your Art Mentor Grace Bailey

Grace Bailey,

  • MA, Visual and Performing Arts,
  • BA Fine Arts,
  • Grad Dip Teaching (Sec),
  • Assoc Dip Creative Arts,
  • Cert IV Information Technology,
  • Cert IV Business Management.
  • Author.

And years of teaching both in Australia and overseas.

Grace Bailey, Prophetic Artist