R.O.C. Fest 2002
In a meeting where a committee was at odds, trying to decide how to decorate the center stage cross for the upcoming Orange Diocese, 50th Anniversary and multicultural youth event, one of the Blessing Cards came into possession of the decoration committee. The two in charge, Colleen Pena and Suzi Punnell, looked at each other and said, "this is our cross!" They eventually came into contact with me and I consented to donate the one event usage rights for a Freedom ART Project image.

What resulted was a 21 foot by 16 foot banner of the book of Psalms. It took me nearly 60 hours to get the Hebrew Scriptures in place (the entire book of Psalms had to be formatted to fit the art's dimensions) and re-detail the art for it's large scale. In the process I had to upgrade my computer to handle the large image file (1.2g).

Crazy as it is, in getting the art ready for production, I made a huge error in deleting the "Beth" (the Hebrew B) from the entire book of Psalms. This caused my having to reconstruct the text and lay it out a second time. Still, I was able to get the art to the printer within the 5 days given. Of course the error would not have been caught in time had it not been for the gracious aid of Dr. Philip Payne of Linguist's Software. Phil worked with me over the phone, late at night going over areas of the text, letter by letter to make sure the entire Hebrew alphabet was present in the second text formatting. And it was. I owe a debt of thanks to you, Phil, God Bless you. Phil has been instrumental in the development of this project - he has been with me since 1998.

Check out the R.O.C. Fest Banner as it was displayed at the event.
The event was a blast! And many got to see the scale at which many of the paintings will be when they are painted. Of course, the banner is 21 feet tall, which if you can imagine, is 9 feet SHORTER than the actual painting of Psalms will be (at 30 feet tall) .If you are on a dsl line or broadband, you can watch a Real Audio movie of the raising of the banner. This is a sneak preview as it is VERY low resolution - as you will see. We lost the ending cedits in the compression which is too bad. BUT Enjoy anyway! You will need Real Audio Player on your computer system. CLICK HERE for the movie.

And if there are any computer experts out there who would like to donate a bit of time and expertise to clean up and recompress the original file (so the credits aren't lost) - PLEASE contact me
( lefever@freedomartproject.org )

Meeting Father Rod
I spent a great five hour meeting with Father Rod Stevens. It was refreshing to converse with someone with vision and knowledge of the arts. I came away impressed with the ideas of death and resurrection symbolically imbued throughout the Catholic Liturgy. It was a fascinating afternoon giving hope to the future that there may be a patron out there if not a few. Blessings to you Father Rod.

Banner Program
Because I have been asked for Banner use at Christian events, I have developed a Banner renting program, where the proceeds will contribute to the Freedom ART Project. For those who would prefer a straight rental per event, a program has been defined. For others who would like to have a banner donated, while at the same time earning donations for their church or organization, another program has been developed. Click HERE to download an Acrobat PDF file to see the program. Help support the Freedom ART Project - an art ministry.