Artist Dave Weiss not only painted an assortment of popular superheroes for about 30 kids at the Worthington-West Franklin Library Thursday, but also taught them to think about their own superpowers.
by Jonathan Weaver
Kittanning Salvation Army leaders invited a Bucks County artist to help kids tap into their inner superpowers last week as part of the annual summer reading program.
At Worthington-West Franklin Library Thursday, Dave Weiss, of Mohrsville, painted the fictional superheroes the Hulk, Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Spiderman in five minutes with a spiritual lesson on each before finishing with his favorite superhero in Jesus Christ.
Weiss, the Pastor of Creative Arts at Ephrata Church of the Brethren in Lancaster County was busy all weekend in the area, including conducting his ministry in Sarver Free Methodist Friday, Woodbury Church of the Brethren in Bedford County Saturday and back in Kittanning yesterday, where he preached “Forgiven” at the Kittanning Salvation Army on forgiveness and grace.
“I’ve done little things with superheroes, but nothing quite like this,” Weiss said. “I talk a lot about people using their gifts to serve others. It’s sort-of a passion of mine.
“I try to get people to embrace their own creativity and do what they do, because a lot of people see the idea of painting a painting in five minutes and they get pretty intimidated by that. I don’t spend a lot of time trying to teach them that – instead, I try to dig out of them what they already do and help them to figure out how they can do it to serve other people. People really connect with it.”
Weiss has painted professionally sine 1986 – from designing grocery circulars to theater sets and comic books. He’s promoted the creative arts ministry for 18 years.
“I’ve done just about everything,” Weiss said. “I had been sharing ideas that I had online and that led to a couple of people saying ‘Can you come show us something?’ It all kind of evolved from having too many ideas to use with what I was doing and sharing them with other people.”
Weiss also presented near Christmas at the Kittanning Salvation Army.
Salvation Army Lieutenant Amber Imhoff’s superpower is drama – which she taught for eight years, both in northeast Ohio and in Kittanning, and how she met Weiss.
“When I was a youth pastor in Massachusetts, I wrote a (Vacation Bible School) curriculum – he designed all the graphics for my VBS that summer for free and I just kind-of kept in contact over the years,” Lieutenant Imhoff said. “We look for those little opportunities where we can do good outreach in the community and this was one way we could bring a little creativity.”
The Salvation Army’s Mission Literacy Team also assisted during the evening and helped kids paint outside after Weiss’ presentation.
Some of those painters included the Daniel Family, who live across the street from the library in Worthington: seven-year-old Xoey, 12-year-old Xaiver and 10-year-old Xander.
The family will return for the next two Thursdays