Meet: Alicia Rae Broxmeyer
“When I am creating, He is transforming me. It is a holy space to me,” Alicia says.
We love to celebrate and introduce you to graduates of our Foundations Art Ministry course.
These artists have put in a lot of work and we are extremely proud of them, grateful to have them in our God Loves Art community, and excited to see where God leads them next in their art practice and ministry.
May you be inspired by these artists and may you keep creating because God Loves Art!
Meet: Alicia Broxmeyer
Artist, Alicia Broxmeyer, 53, lives in Bismark, North Dakota, and creates mixed media art with acrylic paint and specialty papers on canvas. In addition to her bright works of art on display, Alicia also creates vibrant communities of joy.
What art ministry is Alicia involved with?
What started as a conversation with her pastor in 2020 transformed into a creative community coming alive. Alicia says, “I was telling my pastor what God was doing in my life [and] he asked me what I needed to start my creative ministry at our church!”
Alicia has been empowering this community to be, “a place where creatives of all kinds were accepted. We created with the Holy Spirit, shared hard things and joys, and prayed for each other in weekly meetings.”
With this boost to her faith, Alicia stayed open to God’s leading. “At the end of 2023,” she shares, “God led my husband and I to transition out of that church and begin attending a new one.”
This church community change coincided with a business change. Alicia Rae Art business evolved into a ministry called, Joy Art House. This transition came with new inspiration and guidance from God, too. Alicia says, “He began showing me that He wanted me to gather creatives outside the church, so now Joy Art House Creative Community has been meeting at a place called ‘The Dream Center’!”
The Holy Spirit has shown up and is healing peoples’ hearts.
Alicia’s heart and outlook in life as an artist constantly gives God the credit. She says, “God has grown it again. He’s clarified my goal: to provide spiritual encouragement and lead us in activities that would allow us to process truths creatively. The Holy Spirit has shown up and is healing peoples’ hearts.”
Empowered creative community is opening up many opportunities for people to connect with God’s love through expressing themselves creatively and making art. She says, “they are learning about creativity and how much our Creator loves to create with us!”
Alicia has continued planning and dreaming new joy with God’s prompting. “This summer,” she says, “we are going to meet at parks, gardens, and by the river to create with Jesus and encourage each other in our walk with Him. After we grow individually and together, we will begin ministering to our community through the arts.”
What is Alicia’s creative process like?
Fascinated by the intimacy of relationship that God invites each of us to have, Alicia’s easel holds a piece in process inspired by her favorite book in the Bible, Song of Songs.
“My darling bride, my private paradise, fastened to my heart. A secret spring that no one else can have are you— my bubbling fountain hidden from public view. What a perfect partner to me now that I have you.”
Song of Songs 4:12-14, The Passion Translation
This piece is a great example of her multi-layered approach in partnership with God’s creative hand. Describing it, she says, “It’s layers of paint and mulberry papers, with some inks dripped on it also.”
Inspiration and conversation with God guides her schedule for her creative process. “I create whenever I have a free moment and the Holy Spirit invites me to spend time with Him,” she says. With a variable part-time work schedule, Alicia is open to the flow of creativity.
She loves this spontaneous approach. Alicia says, “I like to put something down, then decide how to respond to it. I find that when I leave things open, Jesus speaks to me, and I to Him.” She has experienced God’s faithfulness through co-creating. “I love that He meets me in creating every time,” Alicia shares.
Why does Alicia create?
Alicia has found that her creative process opens her to connect with God. This intimate collaboration has grown her faith and her practice as an artist. She shares, “When God speaks to me and transforms me, I often respond and process through writing or creating with layers of paint and other things. And also, When I am creating, He is transforming me. It is a holy space to me.”
But the creative transformative process is just for Alicia. She is generous to share what God has given her. She says, “Sometimes, the things I create help other people connect to Jesus and they hear from I’m and feel His love for them.”
Having started selling artwork as a business as an artist, Alicia has experienced God’s transformation through her work, finances, and her soul. “There was a period of time where I had started to create things to sell them,” Alicia says, but “then people stopped buying them! Now I create with Jesus, and if something sells, yay. And if not, then I thank Jesus for the time with Him and the things He revealed to me in the piece.” It’s clear that this heart of gratitude has helped adjust Alicia’s outlook as an artist and creative community curator.
Inspiration is everywhere for Alicia. Artist friends who create in all kinds of media and methods and subjects are great companions of inspiration for Alicia. While she loves people and creating in community, solo creating is fruitful, too. She often feels a call to solitude in nature, loving to observe nature and the processes of changing seasons. Alicia says, “Jesus teaches me about Himself and my relationship with Him through trees and flowers and other things in nature.”
This nature inspiration easily comes through Alicia’s artwork. She shares, “I once painted a bare winter tree with a warm heart underneath it in the roots. After a tough winter of looking at what seemed like death, I read about how tree roots keep growing under the earth, even though we don’t see the signs of it on top of the snow. He reminded me that my relationship with Him can grow deeper in the roots, even if there is no outward sign currently.”
Her artwork is a source of hope for herself as well as anyone who encounters it. She says, “There is always hope with Him!”
Alicia’s favorite book:
Naming the Animals by Stephen Roach and Ned Bustard (although, she says, “Wow! It’s hard to pick a favorite book!”)
Alicia’s favorite piece of art:
Michelanglo’s “Pieta”
She says, “The detail is incredible and I can’t believe how he made marble look like skin! There are some sweet characteristics in it like the placement of Christ’s fingers in a fold of cloth, and a sash across Mary’s chest and how it interacts with the folds and ripples of her clothing. The beauty in all of it contrasts the subject of Mary’s grief over her son’s death and ultimately highlights God’s accomplishment in bringing beauty from ashes, joy for mourning, redemption and restoration in relationship with Him.”
Something else loves about this piece, she says, is that, “Michelangelo was only 23 when he sculpted it!”
Encouragement from Alicia Rae Broxmeyer:
The best advice she’s received as a creative is that “It’s about the process, not the product. Connect with Jesus in it and you’ll never run out of inspiration!”
She lives this advice in her ongoing art practice, but also urges others to follow it. Alicia believes the truth in it so much, that she repeats it to encourage aspiring artists by saying, “Connect with Jesus and you’ll never run out of inspiration!”
To find out more about Alicia Broxmeyer’s work and to be encouraged by her even more, please visit her here:
https://joyarthouse.org/
On Facebook, search: Joy Art House
On Instagram, search: Alicia Rae Art
“When Jesus called me to arts ministry, there was no-one around that I knew was doing anything like it, so I searched online and found this Jessie doing this new thing to me, in Boise Idaho! I thought, if Jessie can do this in Boise Idaho, I can do it in Bismarck, North Dakota!” Alicia shares.
As a Foundations Art Ministry Course graduate, Alicia Rae Broxmeyer has experienced transformation through art. “My definition of ministry has changed from talking at people (hopefully a large number of people!) to holding space for even the one person God sends you sometimes,” she says, continuing that “Ministry for me has become just me, changed by Jesus, sharing how He’s changed me.”
Not yet a graduate of Foundations of Art Ministry?
Find out more here.
Alicia Broxmeyer is a graduate of God Loves Art Foundations Art Ministry Course, led by Jessie Nilo.
Alicia Broxmeyer says, “I saw [Jessie] had a course in how to minister in the arts, and my church was willing to pay for it or me. The video lessons were incredible and I enjoyed her sweet personality in them, but it was on the mentorship calls that I got to know a little more of her. One time she asked if I would pray for her, and it really helped her! I was intrigued by this mentor who would ask me for help.
I started taking any workshop she had online, and soon realized that she was exceptional in her ability to make a person feel completely wanted and able to be themselves without having to perform or offer anything at all – simply being there was valuable enough. I’ve learned so much from her about how to truly show people respect and treat them with such value.”
Alicia says that as an instructor and mentor in Foundations, Jessie has “taught me how to invite people in, not placing pressure on them to give up anything they are not ready to give. I love Jessie and I feel like I know her even though I have not yet met her in person!“
Alicia continues, “I feel like Jessie gave me nuggets of gold along the way, like creating with Jesus in process, inviting other people into that, allowing people to be themselves without trying to change them…It’s awesome to know that someone has been this way before, and is willing to share her life experiences and wisdom from Jesus with us.”
Thank you for joining us for this installment to share about graduates of our Foundations Art Ministry Course. Artists like Alicia Rae Broxmeyer have put in a lot of work and we are really proud of them, glad to have them in our God Loves Art community, and excited to see where God leads them next.
Not yet a graduate of Foundations Art Ministry Course?
Click here to find out more.
About Author + What is GLA?
Molly Ovenden writes Artist Stories. When she’s out in the wild making art you might find her writing poetry on her vintage typewriter for new coffee shop friends, photographing lines or textures in the streets, or experimenting with acrylics and collage.
Meet the rest of the team here.
You were born highly creative. Everyone around you was born creative, too. By the time they’re adults, most people believe they’re not creative at all. Let’s listen to God together. Art is important, so let’s get creating. God Loves Art.