For Artistic Evangelist, Divine Inspiration Pointed the Way to Medium

For the past two years, street evangelist Sharon Saxon walked through California and Oregon preaching the gospel. “God . . . told me to go,” she said.

And eight years ago, she said, God told her to finger-paint.

“One night I had a dream and saw myself lying on the floor finger-painting,” the 37-year-old San Clemente resident said. “I felt it was God speaking to me and answering my prayer for career guidance.”

Saxon dashed out and bought some poster board and $5 worth of finger paints. Now, without so much as a formal lesson, she is a premier finger-painter, one of 160 artisans whom judges selected to exhibit their work at the prestigious Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach.

“I learned everything from library art books,” she explained.

Saxon said she actually uses her forearms and other parts of her hands more than her fingers to produce the abstract forms of tempera painted on 20-by-40-inch treated glossy paper.

“I really don’t like the term finger-painting because I don’t think people believe finger-painting is an art form,” she said. “They see children doing finger-painting and don’t see an adult doing the same thing and calling it professional art. “

Saxon said people sometimes turn her paintings upside down and sideways as they look at them. “But that’s OK with me,” she said. “When you paint something, it will have meaning to someone no matter what way they turn it.”

And there seems to be plenty of people willing to pay $300 and up for one of her paintings.

“I’m doing very well this year, and it’s really scary,” she said. “I can’t believe it’s finally happening--that it’s being accepted.”

Nevertheless, she still depends on her job as a medical records clerk to buy groceries and pay the rent.

During her two years as an evangelist, she supported herself by washing cars, delivering phone books and baby-sitting “to keep me spreading God’s word.”

She returned to finger-painting and her office job in February.

Saxon said she was discouraged from pursuing a career as an artist when she was younger. “My parents frowned on that because they thought I’d be a starving artist,” she said. But she persisted, she said, seeing flowers and emotion in the different pieces of colored paper she would put together in abstract forms--much like what she sees in her abstract finger-painting of today.

“I think when we grow up into adulthood, we leave the child behind us,” Saxon said. “But the child in me is still there.”

It seems right that Fire Station No. 10 in Anaheim named its pet golden retriever Decon, short for decontamination, the process used to clean the clothes worn by the station’s firefighters, all of whom are hazardous material specialists.

But Decon is now a mother, and firefighter Ray Galvez of Lake Forest said everyone on the crew has shown a special affection for the new mother and her nine offspring. To make sure each puppy would go to a good home, crew members interviewed each prospective owner, including the three of their own who wanted to adopt one.

As a final touch, Galvez said, each new owner was presented with a pink or blue birth certificate with paw prints of mother and puppy.

George Ferguson was a volunteer at the Fullerton Interfaith Emergency Service Inc., a shelter for homeless families, until his death last year.

“George always gave a little more of himself,” said Lorril Senefeld, who was in charge of a recent tree planting in his honor at the shelter.

It was a golden medallion tree with yellow blossoms.

“He was very dear to us all,” she said.

Acknowledgments--Carol Weddle of Brea, owner of Neels Brea Mortuary, was named 1988 Funeral Director of the Year by the California Funeral Directors Assn. The group cited him for his service to the community and for his work in the funeral industry.