GOD PAINTS A PORTRAIT OF ACCEPTANCE
September 13, 2007
Southeast Outlook
Losses lead artist to a whole new purpose by Ruth Schenk rschenk@secc.org
Fifi LeFan's world came to a screeching halt in 2004. Everything looked good on the outside. Critics called her a creative genius. Her paintings hung in banks, office buildings and homes, Each commission sold for thousands. She was a wife and Bible study leader at Southeast Christian Church, a fun-loving free spirit blessed with the ability to re-create what she saw with paint, pencil, or even a ballpoint pen.
What people never saw underneath the facade of success was LeFan's fear of failure.
For a while, success tasted sweet. People praised her paintings-portraits so real you almost know what the person was thinking. Flowers so real you wanted to sniff the canvas and fruit that looked as if it would spoil the next day.
The oohs and aahs of clients and critics filled a deep chasm in LeFan's soul- the one that craved approval. It began when she was just a little girl.
"Art is a visual language," LeFan said. "I learned at an early age that I had no voice but my art. I put on canvas the images I saw in my head, so I felt I was heard."
LeFan painted golden-haired children running through flowers, cows and lambs, sunflowers and hollyhocks. Later she wrote and illustrated a book about Hannah Rose, a self-portrait of her own life on the farm.
LeFan turned practical in college, finishing a bachelor of sciences degree in art education, with a concentration in painting. Her first year of teaching at three elementary schools taught her that this wasn't what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. She began to paint professionally in 1987 after she was chosen to create big watercolors, florals and landscapes that still hang in corporate headquarter buildings.
But success generated even more stress. Some days at 4 a.m.LeFan would decide to try to do everything perfect that day. Of course, it never turned out right.
She stopped painting the year she cared for her dying father. Her marriage fell apart about the same time. Facing the post-traumatic stress of longtime abuse was the hardest part of going through a divorce. LeFan watched her dreams die the day she realized she'd soon be alone and too old to have children of her own. Suddenly success seemed hollow.
"I just stopped painting," LeFan said. "I couldn't perform anymore so, I withdrew from everything." Startling truth came out of those dark days.
"I had to face my three greatest fears," LeFan said. "I'd always been afraid I'd be abandoned, that I wouldn't measure up and that I'd fail. I was an approval addict driven by fear. It was like playing emotional ping pong. When my world fell apart, I felt totally vacant inside. There were days I wondered if I'd be an emotional invalid forever."
LeFan knew what the Bible said about God's perfect love and grace. She'd often drive half the night singing and praying God's character qualities until she believed one of them.
"I had to learn to listen to God's voice over all the noise in my head," LeFan said. "Abuse taught me I wasn't worth anything. A lot of nights, I'd just get in my car and drive for hours, saying Bible verses like "Nothing can separate me from the love of God"...not trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger."
She held onto truths she'd been teaching: God is faithful even when we're faithless. No one can measure up. We all need Christ.
Finally, after two years away from the canvas, Lefan began to paint again. Only this time everything is different.
Walls in her LaGrange studio are filled with paintings of friends and family, Bible verses, benches and antiques. She crafted the floor cloths and painted the walls. She paints in the back of the studio where the light is bright. Partially finished portraits fill those walls.
Days begin with worship. LeFan belts out worship songs so loud people in the frame shop below her studio hear them. They know her routine.
"I get into God's presence very morning before I ever pick up a paintbrush." LeFan said. "I give my painting to Him. I know if I don't paint, I'm still acceptable to God. And as long as I'm looking at Him, it just flows."
Doris Foster has been close to Lefan since the two taught precept Bible studies at Southeast.
"Fifi knows the Word, studies the Word and teaches the Word with her life." she said. "All that comes out in her painting. She tries to do it God's way."
Now Lefan paints for fun. Sometimes she paints a portrait or landscape as a gift. She sketched faces of friends at a local gas station with a ball poaint pen. Black ink brings those characters to life. And some days, she paints "just because." A large sepia tone paintng of Worship Leader Greg Allen and his family fills a wall in Allen's office.
"I just did that out of love," LeFan said. "They've always been so good to me."
Allen said LeFan's incredible gift for seeing something and putting it on canvas isn't her real art.
"Fifi's heart for people, especially people who are hurting, is her real gift." he said. "I love to picture Fifi driving her car in the country with the windows down and worship music playing loudly so she can sing at the top of her voice to worship the God she loves so much."
These days, LeFan sees her art in a whole different light. "When I do it for love and for God, it just flows," LeFan said. I don't do it to please people. I do it for Him. Now painting feels like ministry to me."
