VIDEO: “Relatable Retablos, Vince Campos”: In this segment from ¡COLORES!, a production of New Mexico PBS, Faith Perez interviews santero Vince Campos (@santero_riteno), who paints retablos, a centuries-old Hispano-Catholic sacred art form, but in a contemporary idiom. Campos likes to relate the stories of the saints to those of people he encounters in his everyday life. Here he discusses his retablos of San Lorenzo (St. Lawrence), San Francisco (St. Francis), San Rafael (St. Raphael), and more.
Retablo by Vince Campos, showing St. Francis (the patron saint of Santa Fe, animals, and the impoverished) with the legendary wolf of Gubbio
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SONGS:
>> “Padre Nuestro” (Our Father) by Diana Navarro:Diana Narvarro is a singer-songwriter from Málaga, Spain. In this flamenco-style setting of the Lord’s Prayer, originally featured on her 2011 album Flamenco, she is accompanied by guitarist Juan Antonio Suárez “Cano.” [HT: Tamara Hill Murphy]
>>“Shaddai’s Shadow”by Joseph Henry Cortese:Joseph Henry Cortese is a pastor, musician, songwriter, and record producer from the Bronx. Last year he released his original song “Shaddai’s Shadow” as a single; it’s performed here at his church, Crossroads, with Amber Ojeda and Ashley Carbaugh on vocals, and he’s on drums. (See the YouTube video description for the full list of credits.) It’s inspired by Psalm 91, which opens, “You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.’”
I’m very grateful to Crossroads for financially supporting Art & Theology with an ongoing monthly contribution. Their validation of my ministry of curating, writing, and resourcing the church to engage the arts has been an immense encouragement. If you are a church and would like to set up a recurring donation to help me continue this work, please let me know by email! (Of course, individual contributions are welcome as well; see my Donation page.)
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NEW BOOK: Be Afraid: What Horror Reveals About Facing the Darkness by Kutter Callaway: Publishers sometimes send me books to consider for review, and this is one of the recent standouts. Part of IVP Academic’s Discovering God in Pop Culture series, Be Afraid by theologian and psychological scientist Kutter Callaway “explores how our Christian faith is made better when we engage with the horror genre.” One of the book’s key assertions is, as filmmaker Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street; Scream) puts it, “Horror films don’t create fear. They release it.” “The power of horror,” Callaway expounds, “isn’t just in generating fear—it’s in giving us a space to express, externalize, and process the fears we already carry. It’s a kind of emotional purge” (25).
An intriguing argument, and one I enjoyed following throughout as the author wove together wisdom culled from his two fields with quotes from interviews he conducted with Hollywood filmmakers and others. He writes about The Babadook, The Exorcist, Monsters, Inc. (part of a whole chapter on horror tropes in Pixar films!), A Christmas Carol, and more.
Along the way, Callaway addresses the common Christian objection “Why dwell on so much darkness when the world is already overflowing with evil?”
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NEW EP: Turnaround by John Millea: On September 14, singer-songwriter John Millea from Oklahoma released four new songs “for the ones who feel like giving up, the ones who want to hang on, and the ones who are praying for a turnaround.” Here’s the first, “Good Earth,” inspired by the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:10–17:
ART SERIES: Pallay: Andean Weaving of Liturgy and Design by Daniela Améstegui: Daniela Améstegui is a graphic designer from Cochabamba, Bolivia, who holds a master’s degree in theological studies from Regent College in Vancouver, with a specialization in Christianity and the arts. Her work “revolves around exploring faith, social justice, and Christian contextualization through design” and “reflects her commitment to using design as a tool for expressing and exploring theological concepts,” she says. She currently lives in Langley, British Columbia, with her husband and two young children, working as a freelancer.
Améstegui’s final Integrative Project in the Arts and Theology for her master’s program was Pallay: Andean Weaving of Liturgy and Design, a series of seven digital illustrations, one for each of the major seasons/feasts of the liturgical year: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time. The designs are inspired by Andean textile art and culture. You can view the full series at the link above from Regent College’s Dal Schindell Gallery, where the works were first exhibited in early 2022, but also listen to this wonderful online talk Améstegui gave about Pallay in 2020 for INFEMIT’s Stott-Bediako Forum, where she discusses not only her motivation and influences but also the content of each specific piece:
Whereas those of us in the northern hemisphere associate Advent with cold, darkness, and the onset of winter, in the southern hemisphere Advent falls in early summer, a time when the earth is most fertile and farmers plant their seeds. In her Advent design, Améstegui connects Mary carrying the seed of new life within her with Pachamama (Mother Earth).
Daniela Améstegui (Bolivian, 1990–), Adviento (Advent), 2019–20, from the digital illustration series Pallay: Andean Weaving of Liturgy and Design. Used with permission.
In Bolivia, Christmas takes place during a season of harvest, so in her Christmas design, Améstegui places Jesus in the center between crops of corn and quinoa, the two main agricultural foods cultivated in the country. Mary wears braids and a bowler hat and Joseph plays the zampoña (Andean panflute), and at the bottom three cholitas, Indigenous women from the Bolivian countryside, gather reverently to greet the Christ child.
Daniela Améstegui (Bolivian, 1990–), Navidad (Christmas), 2019–20, from the digital illustration series Pallay: Andean Weaving of Liturgy and Design. Used with permission.
Améstegui does not have a website just yet but tells me she plans to launch one in 2025. If you would like to purchase one or more of her Pallay pieces, you can contact her at daniela@amestegui.com.
Thank you to blog reader Nicole J. for alerting me to this striking series!
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VIDEO COLLECTION: Casa del Catequista (CADECA) chapel paintings: As chance would have it, the same week I learned about Daniela Améstegui’s work, a different blog reader, Mark M., emailed me a link to some videos his Langham Partnership colleague Paul Windsor took during a recent trip to Bolivia. They record the many paintings, most by the late Quechua artist Severino Blanco [previously], inside the chapel of CADECA in Cochabamba, a place where men and women are trained as Christian leaders who then go out to serve their rural communities. They portray scenes from the Old and New Testaments, the parables of Jesus, and Latin American church history, including a remarkable liberation theology–inspired Resurrection, in which Jesus breaks down the doors of death and hell, holding high a cacique’s staff and leading the people of Bolivia into their future. Here’s a 360-degree view captured by Windsor, but visit the boldface link to see additional videos that narrow in on particular portions.
Severino Blanco (Quechua [Bolivian], 1951–2020), Infancy of Christ painting cycle, 1985. Chapel of the Casa del Catequista (CADECA), Cochabamba, Bolivia.
On the west end of the chapel (where people enter the space) is an Infancy of Christ cycle—reproduced here from a scan of a pamphlet, it appears. In the center is a Nativity, the Christ child painted over a pane of glass through which natural light comes gleaming in (see a closer view). The oblong shapes radiating out from the center are also glass, onto which the artist has (I think) etched lambs in various stages of prostration. On the sides, two villagers come with hot water and towels, and at the bottom two shepherds kneel before the Savior, removing their hats as a sign of respect. At the top, a host of angels with rainbow-colored wings and indigenous instruments sing Christ’s praises.
To the left of the Nativity are six scenes: (1) The Annunciation to Mary, (2) The Visitation, (3) The Annunciation to Zechariah, (4) The Journey to Bethlehem, (5) No Room at the Inn, and (6) The Flight to Egypt. To the right are (7) The Annunciation to the Shepherds, (8) The Annunciation to Joseph, (9) The Presentation in the Temple, (10) The Adoration of the Magi, (11) Jesus with the Scholars in the Temple, and (12) The Massacre of the Innocents.
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SONGS:
>> “Admirable Consejero” (Wonderful Counselor) by Santiago Benavides:Santiago Benavides is a Colombian singer-songwriter living in Toronto. On his Facebook page he describes his musical style as “trova-pop-bossa-carranga worship.” This song he wrote is a setting of Isaiah 9:2, 6–7 in Spanish. In the video, he’s the guitarist with the red-tinted glasses.
>> “The Word Became Flesh” by John Millea: John Millea is “a storyteller with a guitar,” singing in the tradition of Americana, folk, and gospel “about life and all of its joys, sorrows, and struggles.” He’s one of the artists I support through Patreon. This was the first song of his I encountered, and it’s one of my favorites, engaging with John 1:1–3, 14 in a wholly unique way!
In contrast to everyone and everything else in the universe, Millea explains, God had no beginning point, and all that is can in some way be traced back to him, the first link in a massive chain of cause and effect. So here Millea playfully traces his guitar all the way back to God—from the store he bought it at in Illinois, to the factory in Pennsylvania they ordered it from, to the mill in Washington that supplied the wood, to the Alaskan forests whence the tree was logged, and so on and so forth, imagining many thousands of years of fallen and dispersed tree seeds that traversed seas and continents, with an ultimate source in a tree planted in Eden by the Word of God.
When he hits on Eden, he starts moving forward again, through the story of creation, fall, and redemption in Christ, the divine beginningless One who graciously and mysteriously entered human history, born of a woman named Mary.
>> “Mary Had a Baby”: Arranged by Roland Carter, this African American spiritual is performed by the Nathaniel Dett Chorale, featuring the amazing mezzo-soprano Melissa Davis. It’s from their 2003 album An Indigo Christmas, the tracks taken from two live concerts given at the Church of St. George the Martyr in Toronto.
>> “Що то за предиво” (Shcho to za predyvo) (Behold a Miracle): This Ukrainian folk carol is performed by Trioda (Тріода), a musical group consisting of Andrii Gambal, Volodymyr Rybak, and Pavel Chervinskyi.
What is this awe-inspiring miracle? There is great news on earth! That the Virgin Mary gave birth to a son. And upon birthing him, she declared, “Jesus—my son!”
And the aging Joseph stands nearby in awe Of Mary having given birth to a son. And he prepares the swaddling for Jesus Christ. And Mary swaddles him, and scoops him to her heart— The pure Virgin Mary!
Over the past year or so, it seems I keep running into artistic responses to the book of Revelation. There was the “Apokalipsa” icons exhibition held in Nowica, Poland, in fall 2016, to which thirty-six artists contributed (see photos, plus this Artful Devotion); then last September there was the release of the book Picturing the Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation in the Arts over Two Millennia, which I mentioned in an earlier roundup. What’s more, this April, Pillar Church in Holland, Michigan, was awarded a Vital Worship Grant by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship “to enrich worship by collaboratively creating artistic liturgical resources inspired by the book of Revelation in order to promote a rich engagement with Scripture.” I’ll be interested to see what they come up with!
Joanna Zabagło (Polish), The Angel Locks Satan in the Abyss [Rev. 20:1–3], 2016. Tempera on board, 18 × 10 cm.Now I see that the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art (ASCHA) is calling for papers on the topic of “Waiting for the End of the World: Eschatology and Art 1850–2000,” for a symposium to be held February 11–12, 2019. Proposals due by September 4.
After 1850, religious subjects became increasingly suspect among modernist artists determined to paint only what the eye can see. Gustave Courbet’s pronouncement, “show me an angel, and I’ll paint one,” exemplified a new, more skeptical orientation. Nevertheless, historical forces and personal motivations compelled many artists, working across a spectrum of materials and visual methods, to directly employ or obliquely reference themes of the Last Judgment and the Apocalypse. Over a century that saw two world wars, economic booms and devastating depressions, the rise and fall of ideologies of left and right, the collapse of colonial empires and the chaos of failed states, the threats of nuclear annihilation and ecological degradation, artists frequently turned to eschatological imagery to visualize the experience of modern life.
The Last Judgment described in the sacred texts of the Abrahamic religions threatens damnation and promises redemption for both the individual and society. This symposium will explore the way that apocalyptic beliefs and imagery—Jewish, Christian, and Islamic—have informed the work of avant-garde artists from all regions of the globe. We invite proposals for 20-minute papers of original research that explore questions such as, but not limited to: What different visual languages have artists used to address the idea of the end of the world? What meanings have they found in the eschatological narrative? How are cultural differences and similarities manifested in their work? To what extent is the teleological narrative of modern art a disguised, secular version of a theological narrative?
Another recent release, from December 2017, is the poetry collection What Will Soon Take Place by Tania Runyan, “an imaginative journey through the book of Revelation” that “offers a poet’s view of the prophetic, not in the sense of seeking out clues to the ‘end times,’ but a means of taking this strange, fantastic book of scripture and letting it read its way into personal lives.” I love Runyan’s poetry (all the poets published by Paraclete are great), so this volume is near the top of my to-read list. Check out “The Angel Over Patmos” and “The Great Throne,” and see the promo video below, with an excerpt from “Vision of the Son of Man.”
Also from 2017, a collage by Nicora Gangi inspired by medieval Last Judgment triptychs. Commissioned by Spark and Echo Arts, Kiss the Son calls on us to love Christ with sincere affection, adorning his feet with kisses like the woman in Luke 7. The left panel shows a heap of humanity’s various “golden calves,” those things we worship that only lead to death. This is contrasted on the right with the New Jerusalem, where the Lion and the Lamb sit atop a cascade of glory. At the bottom of the central panel is the city of destruction, the destination of those who give Christ the betrayer’s kiss; the snake-like forms recall the Evil One who deceived Adam and Eve and plummeted humanity into alienation from God. Above, though, the Son shines brightly, inviting all the reconciled into his loving presence.
Nicora Gangi (American, 1952–), Kiss the Son, 2017. Collage, 21 × 33 in.
Lastly, though it was released in 2013, I just recently discovered The Lamb Wins by the Lesser Light Collective, an album of thirty-plus original songs by fifteen-plus artists based on John’s Apocalypse. My favorite song is “The River and the Tree of Life.”
Oh yes, and because I just finished reading the massive Collected Poems of Thomas Merton, here’s a short, thematically relevant excerpt, from “Figures for an Apocalypse: VIII. The Heavenly City” (page 148):
Shine with your lamb-light, shine upon the world:
You are the new creation’s sun.
And standing on their twelve foundations,
Lo, the twelve gates that are One Christ are wide as canticles:
And Oh! Begin to hear the thunder of the songs within the crystal Towers,
While all the saints rise from their earth with feet like light
And fly to tread the quick-gold of those streets . . .
Update: On June 28 and 29, 2018, the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM) in the UK hosted the conference “Apocalypse in Art: The Creative Unveiling.” All the talks, given by various scholars, have been added to the organization’s media archive. They address the theme in Hans Memling, Albrecht Dürer, William Blake, James Hampton, Keith Haring, Michael Takeo Magruder, David Best, Bob Dylan, and more.
William Blake (British, 1757–1827), Whore of Babylon, 1809. Pen and watercolor over pencil, 26.6 × 22.3 cm. British Museum, London.
Michael Takeo Magruder (British, 1974–), The Horse as Technology, modular installation (in view: SLS 3D print). Part of “De/coding the Apocalypse” v1.0 solo exhibition, 2014, Inigo Rooms, Somerset House, London. Photo: Jana Chiellino.
