Arise Artists is pleased to host Ms. Liz Miller Esq. this Thursday, July 21st at 7pm on Zoom. Liz, founder and CEO of International Organization for Stopping Exploitation of Women or IoSEW will be our Salon speaker and artist. Liz is a lawyer by education but a protector by nature (hence her email name, "Archangelorum"). She is a fierce and fearless agent for the Lord!!
I met Liz at the March for Life in Washington D.C. right after I'd delivered my poem "Decades" outside of the Museum of African American history. I felt an immediate kinship with her which I think stemmed in part from knowing that we both served vulnerable women in horrible situations who were often left to live with the awful consequences alone.
When you work to help God heal people you bond with others who do the same.
But it wasn't until a couple of months later when we reconnected that I discovered that Liz was also an artist! That, needless to say took our connection to another level and provided Holy Spirit inspired insight into how our two ministries might build a bond.
As some may know, there is an intersection between human trafficking and forced abortions. The parallels between the multimillion dollar industries may not seem apparent at first blush but the evil behind them is very much the same. To learn more, may I be so bold as to direct you to the movie, "Trafficked" from 2017 (*trigger alert!) The movie tells the story of unsuspecting young women being forced into slavery in the international sex trade. Three young women from India, Nigeria and the United States attempt to escape from a brothel in Texas after having faced unspeakable treatment including forced chemical abortions. The movie stars Ashley Judd among others and is heartrending to say the least. View the trailer for "Trafficked" here. Be prepared for stunning cruelty...
Given our connection, we are excited to not only hear about Liz's life-saving organization and her recent fundraising event but also how we might partner with her in the future. What a blessing it will be, above and beyond all of that, to see the sculpture and drawings that have flowed through her as an artist who hears from the Lord.
Join us by RSVP'ing on our main page at AriseDaughter.org. Scroll down and look for the card describing what will be an exciting and humbling evening together.
In His strength! Sylvia
Liz's Bio:
My first love in art I would say was sculpting, which I discovered in high-school, although I had been in art lessons since a small child. My second love, which was more like a perfection of my first love, was during my studies of philosophy in college, especially my studies of the philosophy of the human person. There, I fell in love with the human face. Not in abstract form, but in the beauty that pours out from every immortal being I encountered, both those I knew well and those I merely walked past on the streets. I was struck most profoundly by this beauty in and through their faces. In my classes, when the material was very dense, I would draw my professors’ faces in great detail, it both helped my mind to focus on the abstract ideas that were coming out of their mouths, but also, unintentionally perfected my skill in capturing the person, in some small way, and representing their image on paper. Shortly there after I began expanding my painting from primarily landscapes, which I enjoyed because of the beauty I found in nature, to the human person…..and since then I have not even once gone back to any other subject. In philosophy, my personal life and in my art I discovered that the human person, particularly in and through their face, express the greatest beauty and goodness that I have encountered and continue to encounter on this earth. It is all I desired and still desire to spend my time contemplating and portraying through my art.
Because I was also studying theology and falling deeper in love with Christ, I began to paint His image, which eventually led me to attempt to paint His Blessed Mother, then St Joseph and finally the angels. The only copies of any of my art that I still have today, or at least have access to, are religious in nature.