Creative compassion

“Psychedelic. Nativity.”

Those are not two words commonly used in the same sentence to refer to the same thing.

But that’s just what Jan Martinez, director of Christ Kitchen, boldly does in describing an edgy watercolor that was purchased last year at a luncheon and art auction dubbed “A Nativity Event.”

The piece was donated by local artist and Avenue West Gallery co-owner Dian Zahner. Her work joined that of dozens of other locally renowned artists at Christ Kitchen’s annual holiday fund-raiser, which last year raised more than $30,000 to help support the nonprofit’s innovative job training program for poor or homeless women.

This year’s gala, which will be Monday at First Presbyterian Church, carries the theme “Angels Watchin’ Over Me.” Some 50 area artists, from Zahner to the well-known Stan Miller, will again offer up their artistic renditions in a variety of mediums.

Martinez is a street-smart former clinical psychologist who for the past eight years has run what she – and the 125-or-so women she employs annually – simply call “CK,” or “The Kitchen.”

The nondenominational support-system-for-women-in -poverty-turned-viable-business assembled and sold close to $120,000 worth of elegant, dry food gift baskets and products last year – a fact that caught the attention of Today’s Christian Woman.

The national magazine, which is read by more than half a million people, ran a major feature on Martinez’s creatively compassionate approach to getting women off welfare and out of poverty with a plan that stirs together Bible study with job skills, prayer with paychecks, fellowship with foodstuffs.

As a result, Christ Kitchen received hundreds of inquiries from readers all over the nation about to how to duplicate it in their areas.

“We were just swamped with e-mail requests for the organization’s prototype and its products – including one business that wanted to order 1,000 Christmas gift baskets for its employees,” Martinez says.

Christ Kitchen has grown from its modest beginnings in the kitchen of Westminister Presbyterian Church on West Boone into a bona fide business that recently garnered a $220,000 grant from the foundation Presbyterian Women and is on the hunt for an expanded commercial kitchen, retail storefront and catering business.

The art auction fund-raiser was born three years ago when Martinez heard about a nativity that was created solely out of matchsticks.

“I started wondering what effect a whole room full of artists’ renditions of Christ’s birth might have on our understanding of the familiar story,” Martinez explains.

She says Zahner heard about her idea, read what Martinez calls the “psychedelic version” of the nativity story found in the Bible’s Revelations 12 and then ran with it artistically.

As she did, the vivid watercolors literally spilled out onto her painting in the form of a woman in the throes of childbirth with a seven-headed dragon waiting nearby. It made for a cutting-edge crèche.

“I got so excited that I said, ‘Oh, I have to do this,’ ” Zahner says of the creative juices the passage inspired.

She adds that she’s watched Martinez’s work at Christ Kitchen for the past six years and can’t think of a better place to donate her talents.

Zahner hopes that another similarly wild angel donation of hers will net even more money at this year’s auction – money Martinez will pour back into CK as wages.

“Some businesses hire more workers so they can do more business,” Martinez says with a grin. “Christ Kitchen does more business so we can hire more workers.”

Both CK volunteers and “the women of The Kitchen” – its impoverished employees – will work side-by-side at this year’s event, ladling up a lunch rich with Christ Kitchen products with catchy names like Converted Rice Salad, a curry, almond, raisin and rice festival of flavors, perfect for the holidays; and Living Lentil Salad, a nutty red lentil, caper and currant concoction.

They’ll be paired with CK’s Blue Corn Bread of Life Muffins, made with organic blue cornmeal, and followed by Joyous Gingersnaps Cookies, drizzled in a special frosting.

All CK products begin as original recipes cooked up by Martinez and her inspired workers and are then assembled in The Kitchen’s trademark handmade cardboard, raffia and gingham packages.

The entire product line – almost all of which can be made by simply adding water and cooking – will be for sale at the function.

Music will be provided by the local all-woman contemporary Christian band Door of Hope, which has appeared at such venues as the Big Easy and whose members are all church music leaders in their own right.

“We are particularly drawn to programs that benefit women and children and our ministry of hope fits with Christ Kitchen, which provides women with dynamic opportunities to better their lives,” says Door of Hope member Kristen Renz.

The event’s emcee will be KHQ-6 Saturday morning news anchor Julie Humphreys. Humphreys says that news personalities get asked to emcee lots of events, but it was while she was working on a news story about Christ Kitchen that she felt profoundly moved to help.

“Both my photographer and I walked away and said, ‘Wow!’ ” Humphreys says. “This organization is about empowering women to help themselves. I want to be a part of that – sharing (CK) with women who haven’t been drawn to the down and out places.”

As for the artwork, auction visitors “will see everything from calligraphy and watercolor to oil and sculpture,” promises Sue Zimmerman, former coordinator of First Presbyterian’s Women’s Ministries and Membership, who says CK art auctions and luncheons in years past have filled the church’s facility to capacity.

Zimmerman says the highlight of the auction – in addition to the artwork – is always the CK women themselves. Some of them will share with the audience their poignant and powerful stories of transformed lives.

“These are truly beautiful women,” she says.

”(The CK story) is a wonderful story in that these women have been able to see themselves succeed, working together in community to produce these wonderful products and run a business. And Jan has devoted her life to this ministry,” Zimmerman adds.

“People really support that we’re doing all this in order to provide jobs for disadvantaged women,” Martinez says.

“Our little business of selling beans simply helps God do his really big business of changing lives,” she smiles softly as she returns her focus to a table of laughing women cutting labels for Peppermint Bethlehem Brownies.