Murphy – Outside the Murphy Art Center during the Art Walk on Dec. 6, an artist new to town was introducing herself and showing her fine oil paintings.
Eight of those paintings were ones she saved while escaping China in a time of persecution.
Cynthia Pollett served as a Christian missionary in China. For six years, she taught art while sharing the gospel. Although she knew Chinese, she had a tutor who would teach her lessons in Chinese, so in return she could teach her own classes in Chinese.
Living in China was something she wanted to do since she was 12 years old. When Pollett got the opportunity, she thought she would live there for the rest of her life.
She worked with a girl who ran a community center and taught life skills to teenagers. The girl went on furlough, and when she returned the Chinese government came in to her apartment and confiscated her equipment – including computers with Pollett’s name on documents.
While being questioned, she gave Pollett’s name to authorities.
“She was afraid she was going to be put in prison for a long time,” Pollett said.
Pollett was contacted by the organization that sent her as a missionary. She was told she and her husband, George, had 72 hours to leave the country.
“We did get out. We actually got out in 24 hours,”
Pollett said.
They were living in a small town and got an unregistered taxi to take them to the airport. They left just about everything they owned behind, with church members getting their belongings. Their art supplies were given to a local art teacher.
“The art teacher was overjoyed to get all our art supplies,” Pollett said. “That was neat, knowing our stuff went to good use.”
‘Every day life’
Pollett loves to do landscape paintings, but her favorite work is showing people, culture and everyday activities.
“I like to capture people in their everyday life … the activity that goes on between two people,” she said.
Sometimes, Pollett bases her art on photographs she’s taken, even combining images in two or three photographs to create one painting. She said it’s natural for her to discuss God while teaching art.
“God is such a part of my life that he’s a part of my art,” she said. “One doesn’t go without the other.”
Pollett’s husband added that even when she taught Sunday school, she would draw as she taught. The children would remember what they were taught because they could recall the drawings.
“That to me, that was awesome,” George said.
Pollett said that as she teaches art, God naturally comes into the discussion. Students would ask who created color and who created light.
“God is the one who gave us color, and we’d get into discussions like that,” she said.
Through struggles in her life, Pollett has also seen how art can be healing. She shares that power in art healing classes.
“God used art to keep me sane, keep me alive, keep me going,” she said.
‘God has been good’
While Pollett has known she wanted to live in China since she was 12, her husband wasn’t so sure.
Pollett met George at Red Bird Mission in Kentucky. He was a seventh- and eighth-grade teacher and principal at the school there, while she was the director of photography and graphic design for the mission.
They left the Red Bird Mission with hopes of going overseas. But she started having medical issues, and they started a family in Florence, S.C. Time went by, and they thought it wouldn’t happen.
Then the pastor announced a two-week missionary trip to China – and, in George’s head, he heard God telling him to go, and how he was going to pay for it. He wasn’t sure until on the way home, but Cynthia said she also heard God tell her that he had to go, and this was how they’d pay for the trip.
George went with the pastor, the pastor’s wife and another woman from the church.
“I fell in love with it,” he said.
A year later, the couple went to China for a month before deciding to go there for the long term. It took another 2-3 years before they could return to China.
Since returning to the states, they’ve moved 20 times in the last year, staying with family and friends before landing in Murphy only a month ago.
“God has been good. He provided to us in so many ways,” Pollett said. “There’s always been a place for us to live.”
She and her husband are interested in providing art to people who do not have the opportunity to do art. They plan to visit local churches and do art missionary work. They chose Murphy for their home because it is within 300 miles of seven of the 10 poorest regions.
For details, email gcpollett@gmail.com or visit www.murphymountainmission.org.