Filling a five-metre long canvas in plain view of the public would fill any artist with trepidation – what more a person who is not artistically inclined. Yet to Wendy Wong, it presents space for ideas and learning opportunities.

Wong is among a handful of Singapore-based visual scribes, whose work requires her to capture the essence of discussions during conferences or meetings in real time, through text and illustration. It involves listening to and synthesising what is in the “white space”, ie what is unspoken and unseen.

Seeing the beautiful drawings peppered throughout her body of work would make one think that she has excelled in art since birth. But she will let on that this cannot be further from the truth.

Photo from Welenia Studios.

“I don’t watercolour, brush letter, knit or crochet. I don’t see shadows or tones when I look at an object; I couldn’t in school and I still can’t. I’m not a fine artist,” says Wong.

“I believe it’s a God-given gift for the season as it comes so unnaturally, especially since I’m very left-brain trained.”

She picked up visual facilitation in the course of her work at the Civil Service College when she attended a three-day training programme in 2009 with David Sibbet, who pioneered the field of visual organisational consulting. After the workshop ended, she wrote to the US-based consultant to ask if he could review her work, something she said is “quite against my own nature”.

To her surprise, Sibbet agreed. This gave her the impetus to look for opportunities to practise this new skill at work – a move the College supported.

The freelance route 

In the latter half of 2011, Wong met again with Sibbet, who was in town for a conference. By then, she was midway through her year of unpaid leave as she took time out to recuperate from a medical condition.

Over their breakfast meeting, the trainer-turned-mentor asked her to consider freelancing, which would give her the freedom to dictate how her hours are spent. Her close friends thought it was an idea worth exploring.

Despite the reassurances, it remained a tough decision to make – whether or not to leave the safe confines of the Civil Service, which she had known for over a decade, for uncharted territories.

“It was very hard because there was no lightning, thunder, pillar of fire or cloud to say: ‘This is the way.’ It basically came to a point in the road where it felt as if God was saying: ‘If you choose this, good. You want to go back into Civil Service, that will work out too.’

“What do I do now? In the end, I chose to come out.”

That 2012 step of faith into the unknown has since shown her that God is indeed her Jehovah Jireh, her Provider (Philippians 4:19).

Her then-Human Resource director jokingly made a wager with her, that if she found herself struggling in the next two years, he would send over a bag of top quality Thai fragrant rice.

Two years went by and while she was not always in the black, she was alright. “I asked him out and over lunch, I gave him a little box of Japanese rice,” she recounts with a laugh.

God of the more-than-enough

Six years on, jobs continue to stream in despite her lack of marketing or desire to grow her business, Welenia Studios.

“I don’t set targets for myself,” reveals the jovial creative director, who is in her 30s. Instead, she consistently asks that God take care of her needs and her family’s. Anything above and beyond what’s required, she sows back into His kingdom – not just in monetary terms but her God-given talents too, using her skills to work with churches, parachurches and bible colleges.

Visual recording done by Wendy Wong for Our Daily Bread Bible Conference 2017. Image from Our Daily Bread.

One such collaboration is with Our Daily Bread at their annual Bible Conference. This will be the fourth year that Wong will be visually recording the conference proceedings.

“I love seeing these areas come together – the Word and discipleship, coming together with the visuals,” she says.

Interestingly, her greatest satisfaction is not found in a piece of work adorned with beautiful illustrations. Rather, it is from hearing that she has accurately captured the discussion and people are able to benefit from it.

For the moment

Believing this unnatural gift is likely just for a season, Wong maintains a loose grasp of the creative work that she does. What this means is that while she is responsible for stewarding the talents she has been given (Matthew 25:14-30), she is careful to not see this as her life’s calling.

“I hold it loose enough so that anytime God says: ‘Mission accomplished, next assignment’, I hope not to be found kicking and screaming but to joyfully release this and say: ‘Ok, great! What’s next?’

“God gave the assignment for the season and He ensured that I have the necessary resources. It all comes from Him and goes back to Him. Without Him nothing is possible (John 15:5).”