WHY CELEBRATE ADVENT? Some of my evangelical friends don’t understand why I observe Advent. Cheryl Bridges Johns’s recent Seedbed article “Advent and the Winter of Our Disenchantment” answers the question so well, opening like this: “Advent is the time to open the first pages of the Church’s story of salvation. It is an enchanted portal into a world of darkness, deep mystery and the Spirit’s hidden brooding. Advent asks us to sit a while in the darkness, waiting for the light of God.” It’s a counterweight to “the unbearable lightness of Christmas,” a space to groan alongside our spiritual forebears. See also the Desiring God articles “Christmas Is Too Big for One Day” and “Seven Reasons to Celebrate Advent.” Christmas didn’t occur in a vacuum! Advent makes us mindful of the larger story of God’s promise to his people.
LIGHT MASONRY: Michael Wright tipped me off to this stunning light installation by Jason Bruges Studio in the main nave of York Minster. It was one of six works commissioned for Illuminating York, an annual nighttime festival supported by Arts Council England that encourages visitors to explore and discover the historic city through the imagination of artists who use the medium of light in all its forms. Designed to highlight the cathedral’s Gothic architecture, Light Masonry was constructed using a bespoke system of forty-eight computer-controlled, icon-beam moving-head luminaires (see the “making of” video) and was complemented by the live performance of Arvo Pärt’s Pari intervallo on organ. It ran October 26–29, 2016. The video below captures some of its magnificence.
BOOK LIST: I recently compiled an annotated bibliography of books published in English between 2014 and 2016 on the subject of Christianity and art: http://www.artway.eu/content.php?id=2204&action=show&lang=en. The thirty-seven entries, from a variety of authors and publishers, cover topics such as iconographic exegesis of the Hebrew Bible, the religious art of Pablo Picasso, contemporary church art commissions, visual culture in the Christian kingdom of Kongo, black public religious art in Chicago, a theology of human creativity, how to launch and manage a church gallery, and building a curriculum for the fine arts in Christian education. Let me know if I’m missing any!
INTERVIEW: Earlier this month I was interviewed by Joan Huyser-Honig for the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship about my vocation as a Christian arts blogger, the two Advent art resources I developed, and my participation in the “Bodies of Christ” seminar at Calvin College this summer. (Read the interview: “Victoria Emily Jones on Gazing as a Spiritual Practice.”) Joan had some good questions, including
- When you post to your Art & Theology blog, who do you hope will see it and what do you hope they’ll do with it?
- Your blog’s tagline is “Revitalizing the Christian imagination through painting, poetry, music, and more.” What might or does happen in Christians and congregations who are open to revitalizing imagination?
- Picture a worship planner without your deep knowledge of art and theology. How might he or she start using resources from your blog in planning public worship?
THEOARTISTRY: TheoArtistry is a new initiative of the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “Through new projects and research, TheoArtistry celebrates the practice, making, performance, curatorship, and reception of Christian art. It also seeks to inform the scholarly and public perception of the role of the arts in theology and church practice.” The first project they’ve launched is a collaboration between internationally selected composers and PhD candidates in the St. Andrews Divinity School to set to music “annunciation” texts from the Hebrew Bible. (Two of the participants talk process in the recent Transpositions article “Setting Fire to Music.”) TheoArtistry will also be launching a new database that links artists interested in working with Christian themes, theologians interested in creative collaborations with artists, and commissioners of Christian art. I am SO stoked about all this! For more information, see http://theoartistry.org.
Art & Theology 
[…] choral composition was commissioned in 2016 as part of the TheoArtistry project [previously] of the Institute of Theology, Imagination and the Arts (ITIA) at the University of St. Andrew’s […]
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