Tag: roundup

Pentecost roundup

Victoria Emily Jones5 Comments

SONGS: The Holy Spirit Prayer is a traditional Catholic prayer that’s sung at Mass on the feast of Pentecost: “Come, Holy Spirit; fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy his consolations, through Christ our Lord. Amen.” The following two songs are settings of the first part of this prayer.

>> “Kindle in Us Your Love” by Deanna Witkowski: This funky refrain by jazz composer Deanna Witkowski “works well as a gospel acclamation, prayer response, or opening song,” especially for Pentecost. I’m planning to introduce it to my Presbyterian congregation this Sunday. (For church services, Witkowski charges a licensing fee of just $3 per use.) You can purchase the piano score here; it also appears in the Voices Together hymnal. Hear a high school choir perform the piece in the video below, with Witkowski accompanying on keys.

Come, Holy Spirit
Kindle in us the fire of your love
Come, Holy Spirit
Kindle in us your love

>> “Holy Spirit, Come to Us” by Jacques Berthier (Taizé chant): Taizé is an ecumenical Christian monastic community in France comprising more than one hundred Catholic and Protestant brothers from some thirty different countries. They welcome in around a hundred thousand young pilgrims a year, who come for prayer, Bible study, and communal work and worship. The songs of Taizé use simple musical phrases and few words that are repeated. Composed in 1998, “Holy Spirit, Come to Us” is one of 232 songs Jacques Berthier wrote for Taizé. It consists of solo verses sung by a leader over an ostinato refrain sung by the people.

Holy Spirit, come to us
Kindle in us the fire of your love
Holy Spirit, come to us
Holy Spirit, come to us

Jesus said, “It is by your love for one another
That everyone will recognize you as my disciples.”

Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this:
To lay down one’s life for those one loves.”

We know love by this,
That Christ laid down his life for us.

This is love: it is not we who have loved God
But God who loved us.

Taizé songs may be sung in public worship settings free of charge, provided their simplicity is preserved (i.e., no elaborate arrangements are permitted); for other uses, see here.

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DIGITAL DOWNLOAD: Pentecost Party: Word & Wonder is offering a free twelve-page PDF of resources for celebrating Pentecost with children. Besides a list of party ideas, it includes an imaginative retelling of the Pentecost story from the perspective of a child, a prayer guide, prompts for talking about the Holy Spirit, coloring pages, and a pinwheel craft. On their website you will also find other family-friendly resources for the church year. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

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BLOG POST: “Whitsun Week” by Eleanor Parker: “The week following Pentecost is a lost holiday. From the Middle Ages until the early 20th century the period around Whitsun was the principal summer holiday of the year – especially Whit-Monday”—which is June 6 this year. “It was the time for fairs, Morris dancing, games, ale-drinking, school and church processions, weddings, wandering into the countryside, and generally having a good time.” Gooseberries and cheesecakes were broken out for the occasion, and communities engaged in fun activities like cricket, archery, sack races, and donkey derbies.

British medievalist Eleanor Parker compiles several sources that describe the Whitsuntide festivities of medieval western Europe and calls her readers to revive the week’s outdoor merrymaking!

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SHORT FILM: Stickmatch: Created in 2020 by London-born animator William Crook, this twenty-second stop-motion animation uses autumn leaves to simulate flames. [HT: Colossal]

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Here’s a new Spotify playlist I made for the month of June.

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Previous posts on the blog that are related, either directly or indirectly, to Pentecost include:

Roundup: Spirituality of food docuseries; a psalm and a jazz band walk into a bar; and more

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

DOCUMENTARY SERIES: Taste and See, dir. Andrew Brumme: “Taste and See is a documentary series exploring the spirituality of food with farmers, chefs, bakers, and winemakers engaging with food as a profound gift from God. Their stories serve as a meditation on the beauty, mystery, and wonder to be found in every meal shared at the table.” The Rabbit Room, who is partnering with them for a virtual cinema event (see below), says, “If, in some blessed alternate universe, Robert Farrar Capon had decided to make a documentary with Terrence Malick, guided by the foundational wisdom of Wendell Berry, then they would have made something like the pilot of Taste and See.”

Some of the people you see in the series trailer are Shamu Sadeh, cofounder of Adamah Farm and Fellowship in Connecticut, which integrates organic farming, Jewish learning, sustainable living, and contemplative spiritual practice (Adamah is the focus of the pilot film); The Soul of Wine: Savoring the Goodness of God author Gisela Kreglinger, who grew up on a winery that has been in her family for generations and who leads wine pilgrimages in Burgundy and Franconia (“a spiritual, cultural, and sensory exploration of wine”); Norman Wirzba, a professor at Duke who teaches and publishes at the intersections of theology, philosophy, ecology, and agrarian and environmental studies (see, e.g., his Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating); Kendall Vanderslice, a North Carolina baker, author, and founder of Edible Theology, which offers “curriculum, community, and communications that connect the Communion table to the kitchen table”; and Joel Salatin, who raises livestock on his Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley.

You can buy tickets to a virtual screening of the hour-long pilot, which is happening twice daily from June 3 to June 19 and includes exclusive access to a panel discussion with singer-songwriter Andrew Peterson, theologian Norman Wirzba, and director Andrew Brumme. Revenue from ticket sales will fund the production of future films, some of which are already in the works. “The funding raised will determine how far we can go and which stories we can pursue,” Brumme tells me. “We’re hopeful the virtual event will bring together enough of a supportive base of people who want to see this series made.” There’s also an option on the website to donate.

To hear more from the director, especially about the inspiration behind the series, check out the interview Drew Miller conducted with him.

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DISCUSSION PANEL: “Art Between the Sacred and the Secular,” June 6, 2022, Akademie der Künste, Berlin: Moderated by the Rev. Professor Ben Quash, this free public event (reserve tickets here) puts in conversation artist Alicja Kwade; Dr. María López-Fanjul y Díez del Corral, senior curator of the Bode Museum and the Gemäldegalerie; and Dr. Neil MacGregor, former director of the British Museum and the National Gallery, London. The questions they’ll address (see below) sound really intriguing!

Kwade, Alicja_Causal Emergence
Alicja Kwade (Polish, 1979–), Causal Emergence (December 2020), 2019. Watch hands on cardboard, framed, 175 × 175 cm.

“The abiding power of Christian motifs, ideas and styles in a host of modern and contemporary works that superficially look un- or anti-Christian indicates that visual art and Christian tradition have not become complete strangers. This invites analysis and understanding.

“How have Christian artworks and artistic traditions found new articulations, caused new departures, or provoked new subversions in the last 100 to 150 years? What forms of engagement between theology and modern and contemporary art do such developments in the relationship between art and Christianity invite and reward?

“How do viewers (Christian and non-Christian) interact with historical Christian art today, and how do modern sensibilities affect our viewing of earlier Christian artworks and artistic traditions?

“Is contemporary art an alternative to religion or can it sometimes be an ally? How do contemporary art and religion each respond to human experiences of the absurd or the tragic? What do contemporary art and the spaces in which we encounter it, tell us about the histories of both Western Christianity and Western secularisation?”

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FUNDRAISER: New Ordinary Time Album: The indie folk trio Ordinary Time is one of my favorite musical groups—I heard them in concert at a church here in Baltimore a few years ago!—so I’m really excited to see that they’re working on their sixth full-length album, their first since 2016. It will be produced by the esteemed Isaac Wardell, founder of Bifrost Arts and the Porter’s Gate. Per usual, it will comprise a mix of original and classic sacred songs, including the new “I Will Trust,” demoed in the second video below. Help fund their production costs through this Indiegogo campaign, which ends June 15. A donation of just $25 will get you an early download of the album.

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SONG: “Oh Give Thanks (Psalm 107)” by Wendell Kimbrough: Wendell Kimbrough is among today’s foremost singer-songwriters engaging with the Psalms. His adaptation of Psalm 107 [previously] is one of his most popular songs, ever since the original studio recording released in 2016. Now he’s recorded a live version with a New Orleans jazz band! It is available on most streaming and purchase platforms.

The music video was shot in February at a bar in Daphne, Alabama, with some eighty of Kimbrough’s friends and supporters, and it premiered May 13. It was his way of saying farewell to his Church of the Apostles community in Fairhope, Alabama, where he served as worship leader and artist-in-residence for eight years. He left this spring to take a new job as uptown artist-in-residence at Church of the Incarnation in Dallas.

“From the time I wrote ‘Oh Give Thanks,’ I always pictured it as a bar tune, specifically set in New Orleans,” Kimbrough says. “The image Psalm 107 conjures for me is a group of friends sitting together swapping stories of God’s deliverance and raising their glasses to celebrate his goodness.” He has noted that some people are uneasy about singing the line “We cried like drunken sailors” in church, but he points out that it’s there in the Old Testament psalm! (Recounting how God rescued a group of men from a storm at sea, the psalmist says that as the waves rose, “they reeled and staggered like drunkards / and were at their wits’ end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, / and he brought them out from their distress,” vv. 27–28).

To learn how to play the song on guitar, see Kimbrough’s video tutorial. You may also want to check out the songs of thanksgiving I compiled on Spotify.

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CHURCH ARCHITECTURE: Santa Maria Goretti Church, Mormanno, Italy: In 2013 architect Mario Cucinella won a competition held by Italy’s assembly of Catholic bishops to create the new parish church of Santa Maria Goretti in the hilltop town of Mormanno in Calabria. Because a third of the funds had to be raised locally, the project wasn’t completed until last year. Cucinella says that gave him time to win over its most important constituency: the elderly women who go to Mass every day, and who at first “were suspicious of its modernism.” [HT: My Modern Met]

Cucinella designed an elegantly minimalist concrete building with sinuous surfaces that form the shape of a four-leaf clover, a reinterpretation, Cucinella says, of the shape of Baroque churches. The enclosure has only a few openings. “On its north side, two walls part to create an entrance—while also contributing edges to a cross cut into the curves and lit by LEDs at night. On its south side, a small window is positioned to focus afternoon sunlight on a crucifix on July 6,” Maria Goretti’s birthday.

Santa Maria Goretti Church
Santa Maria Goretti Church, Mormanno, Italy, designed by Mario Cucinella Architects, completed 2021. Photo: Duccio Malagamba.
Photo: Duccio Malagamba
Maraniello, Giuseppe_Baptismal font
Baptismal font by Giuseppe Maraniello. Photo: Duccio Malagamba.

Inside, the walls are hand-finished in plaster mixed with hemp fibers and lime, which give them a mottled, earth-toned look. The most dominant feature of the interior is the twelve-foot-deep scrim that falls from the ceiling in swirls, filtering in sunlight. Artist Giuseppe Maraniello (b. 1945) was commissioned to create the lectern, tabernacle, baptismal font, and figure of the Virgin Mary, while the simple steel and wood seating is by Mario Cucinella Design. Click on any of the three photos above to view more.

The church’s namesake, one of the youngest saints to be canonized, was stabbed to death in 1902 at age eleven while resisting a rape. She is the patron saint of purity, young women, and victims of sexual assault.

Roundup: Guite-Bell live event, Sister Corita Kent, and more

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

FREE LIVE EVENT: “Faith and the Imagination: Poetry, Song, and Inspiration with Steve Bell and Malcolm Guite,” June 4–7, 2022, Greater Seattle area: Join hundreds of Seattle artists and ministry leaders for four days of poetry, vocal performances, and conversation about the gift of the human imagination for the flourishing of our world, hosted by Cambridge’s distinguished poet Malcolm Guite and award-winning Canadian musician Steve Bell.

Sessions are free and open to the public and will not be livestreamed (and the conversations require advance registration):

  • June 4, 7–9pm: Live Concert (Seattle, WA)
  • June 5, 9:45–11am: Worship Service (Normandy Park, WA)
  • June 5, 7–9:30pm: A Conversation on: Faith and the Arts (Seattle, WA)
  • June 6, 6:30–8:30pm: A Conversation on: Faith and Technology (Bellevue, WA)
  • June 7, 7–9pm: A Conversation on: Faith and Work (Seattle, WA)

Guite and Bell have been collaborating for years. Below are two snippets of them performing together. In the first video Guite comedically performs (to rhythmic accompaniment!) a villanelle he wrote in response to something a woman who worked at the venue of one of his poetry talks exasperatedly said to him when his hurried photocopying caused a paper jam. The second video showcases a sonnet by Guite on the baptism of Christ, from his collection Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year, and the song that Bell adapted it into, released on Keening for the Dawn.

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ESSAY: “The Listening Heart: Corita Kent’s Reforming Vision” by Michael Wright: Corita Kent (1918–1986) [previously] was an American pop artist who was also, for over three decades, a nun. Michael Wright writes about how “she became interested not just in depicting scenes from the Bible but answering this: what might happen if a Christian imagination engaged the world around us through the arts? That art might look less like an illustration from a children’s Bible and more like exploring seeing the stuff of life—even a bread bag—as dialogue partners with mysteries of faith.” wonderbread is one of four works he discusses—“a playful meditation on sacred time, wonder, and communion.”

Kent, Corita_wonderbread
Corita Kent (American, 1918–1986), wonderbread, 1962. Serigraph, 25 1/2 × 30 1/2 in.

While I do think even Kent’s biblical artworks push the genre of religious art forward, I appreciate how Wright challenges Christians to give a chance to her works that are less straightforwardly religious, as these are often the most imaginative and profound. And they, too, are “deeply Christian work.” Let’s not think so narrowly about what “Christian art” must look like!

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LIVING PRAYER PERIODICAL: Pentecost 2022: One of the organizations I work for is the Daily Prayer Project [previously], which publishes seven ecumenical Christian prayer periodicals a year, structured around the liturgical calendar. I do the curation for the Gallery section, which comprises three art images with written reflections, and the editing. Our latest edition covers June 5 (the feast of Pentecost) through August 6, and it includes prayers from India, Japan, Korea, Algeria, Italy, the Choctow Nation, and more. I’m excited to feature on the cover Corita Kent’s word picture: gift of tongues! As many of her screenprints do, it integrates image and text—in this case Acts 2:1–2a, which sprawls out through the sky and onto a billowing banner, like a sail, over a crowd of people aflame with the fire of the newly descended Spirit of God.

Pentecost LPP 2022

On the website there are options for one-time purchase or group subscription, and for digital only or print and digital.

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PRAYER: “The Lord’s Prayer, Extended Dance Mix” by Nadia Bolz-Weber: In March, actor Jennifer Garner asked Lutheran pastor and author Nadia Bolz-Weber if she could offer a prayer and a benediction on her InstaLive. Bolz-Weber vamped on the traditional words of the Lord’s Prayer, the text of which you can read at the boldface link.

Such a beautiful prayer.

One of the things I appreciate about Bolz-Weber’s spiritual teaching is her avoidance of clichés. She gives fresh language to the experiences of faith and life in general and to theology, which often reawakens me to the beauty of God and of Christ’s gospel. Describing why she regularly turns to prayer, she says in the Instagram video:

When I don’t have enough—like if I don’t have enough patience, if I don’t have enough compassion for myself or other people, when I don’t have enough resources—prayer is this way in which I can remind myself that there is enough. That I have a connection to my own divine source. I have a connection to God. And in the heart of God there’s enough forgiveness when I don’t have enough. In the heart of God there’s enough compassion when I don’t have enough. And so for me, it’s about reminding myself of that connection.

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SONG: “Dry Bones” by Gregory Porter: From Gregory Porter’s 2021 album Still Rising, this song was inspired by Ezekiel 37. The official music video features dancing skeletons in yellow cowboy boots(!), animated by L’Incroyable Studio. The song’s bridge quotes the African American spiritual “Dem Bones.”

The first verse goes,

I won’t die, won’t bury, won’t sink
’Cause love is the spirit I drink
I’ll be free in the morning light
’Cause your touch is the medicine of life
There’s a dance to this beat, let’s shake
Every move—feel my body awake
There’s a sound—you and me are one
And your hope is the rhythm I drum

Roundup: Psalms and the arts, Ukrainian Easter Choir, and more

Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

BLOG POST: “An open letter to pastors (A non-mom speaks about Mother’s Day)” by Amy Young: There’s disagreement among church leaders on whether Hallmark holidays, such as Mother’s Day, should be recognized during a worship service, and if so, how. Having mothers stand (while women who are not mothers in the conventional sense remain seated) can be very othering and bring up feelings of sadness or shame. It’s also a day when people are thinking about their own mothers, which can evoke a complex range of emotions.

Amy Young believes there is a way to honor mothers in church without alienating others, as well as to acknowledge the breadth of experiences associated with mothering. She has drafted a pastoral address that I find so wise and compassionate. Some women are estranged from their children. Some have experienced miscarriage or abortion. Some have had failed adoptions, or failed IVF treatments. Some placed a child for adoption. Some have been surrogate mothers. Some are foster mothers, or are the primary guardian of a relative’s child. Some are spiritual moms. Some women want to be mothers but have no partner or have had trouble conceiving. Some were abused by their mothers. Some have lost mothers. Some never met their mother. Young puts her arms around all these people who are potentially in the pews on Mother’s Day, making room for the complexity of the day—which does include celebration!

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VIDEO: “United with Beauty: The Psalms, the Arts, and the Human Experience” by Mallory Johnson: Mallory Johnson graduated last weekend with a bachelor’s in music and worship (concentration: voice) from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. (In the fall she will be starting an MDiv program at Beeson Divinity School.) All the seniors in the Samford School of the Arts are required to complete a capstone project tailored to their individual interests and career goals. As Johnson’s interests center on theology, history, and the arts, she created a twenty-minute video rooted in the Psalms that integrates music, poetry, short excerpts of fiction, visual art, and quotes from van Gogh, Tchaikovsky, Goethe, Luther, and others, resulting in a contemplative multimedia experience.

I resonate so much with Johnson’s approach of bringing together works from different artistic disciplines to interpret one another and to invite the viewer into worship. Her curation is stellar! To cite just one example, the contemporary choral work Stars by Ēriks Ešenvalds plays as we see, among other images, an Aboriginal dot painting of the constellations Orion and Canis and a nighttime landscape by realist painter Józef Chełmoński. Another: John Adams’s double piano composition “Hallelujah Junction” is brought into conversation with Psalm 150 and a painting by Jewish artist Richard Bee of David dancing before the ark.

Józef Chełmoński (Polish, 1849–1914), Starry Night, 1888. Oil on canvas, 22 13/16 × 28 3/4 in. (58 × 73 cm). National Museum in Kraków, Poland.

The video opens with the theme of awe and wonder—expanses of sky and sea and field; the beauty and vastness of God mirrored in the natural world—and then moves to lament—of the prospering of the wicked; of exhaustion, anxiety, and other forms of mental or spiritual anguish and their causes; of personal sin—and finally ends with an assurance of grace and with exultation. Johnson shows how the longings of modern people overlap with those of the biblical psalmists. Here’s her description:

In his famous work titled Confessions, St. Augustine writes this: “Yet to praise you, God, is the desire of every human.” Is this true? What does this look like?

During my time at Samford, I have felt my heart and mind overflow with love for the arts. As a Christian, they have played a devotional role in my life. I find such joy in seeing connections between music, art, and literature that may seem unrelated on the surface. I believe that all humans have a longing for the goodness of God and we find “echoes” of Him everywhere, and most beautifully in artistic expression.

I wanted to show others how I understand the world as a Christian artist. This project is a journey through the Psalms, using art to reinforce the idea that the Psalms capture the full universal human experience. Across time and space, we have all felt the same things and we have all had the same deep longing for “something higher.”

I hope you can allow this project to wash over you. Make time to watch it alone or with someone you love, distraction-free. Turn the lights out, light a candle, watch it on a big screen with the volume up loud. Be cozy under a blanket with a cup of coffee, or grab a journal and write down anything that sticks out to you! It is my earnest desire that you will be moved by the artistic expression of humanity, and that you may realize that God has always been the goodness you most deeply desire.

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SONGS:

>> “Broken Healers” by Elise Massa: Singer-songwriter Elise Massa is the assistant director of music and worship arts at Church of the Ascension in Pittsburgh. A meditation on Christ as Wounded Healer, this song from her 2014 album of demos, We Are All Rough Drafts, was inspired by an Eastertide sermon.

Here’s the final stanza (the full lyrics are at the Bandcamp link):

Broken healers are we all
In a living world, decayed
With broken speech we stutter, “Glory”
As broken fingers mend what’s frayed
Holy Spirit, come, anoint us
As you anointed Christ the King
Who wore the crown of the oppressed
Who bears the scars of suffering

>> “Agnus Dei” by Michael W. Smith, performed by the Ukrainian Easter Choir: This is one of the few CCM songs I listened to as a young teen (Third Day’s version from a WOW CD!) that I’m still really fond of. In this video that premiered April 17, an eighty-person choir conducted by Sergiy Yakobchuk was assembled from multiple churches in Ukraine to perform for an Easter service in Lviv organized by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Michael W. Smith’s “Agnus Dei” is one of three songs they sang, in both English and Ukrainian. The name of the soloist is not given. Many of the vocalists in the choir have been displaced from their homes by the current war with Russia. One of them says, “With the war, celebrating the Resurrection means for us now life above death, good above evil.”

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PRAYER EXERCISE: “Visio Divina: A 20-Minute Guided Prayer Reflection for the Crisis in Ukraine”: Visio divina, Latin for “divine seeing,” is a spiritual practice of engaging prayerfully with an image, usually an artwork—allowing the visual to invite you into communion with God. On March 17 Vivianne David led a virtual visio divina exercise with Natalya Rusetska’s Crucifixion, hosted by Renovaré. I caught up with the video afterward and found it a very meaningful experience. As the painting is by a Ukrainian artist and represents Christ’s passion, the war in Ukraine is a natural connection point.

I appreciate David’s wise guidance, which includes these reminders:

  • Stay with the image, regardless of whether or not you ​“feel” something happening right away. There is something beautiful about faithfully waiting with that space, having dedicated it to God as a time of prayer.
  • Notice what draws your attention, what invites you into the image—let that become a space for conversation with Christ.
  • Notice what sort of emotions arise as you stay with the image. How does it awaken desire? Let these emotions lead you back to continued dialogue with God.

This kind of quiet, focused looking with an openness to encounter is something I encourage on the blog. Any of David’s three tips above I would also suggest for any art image I post—a corrective to hasty scrolling habits. Stick around for the last four minutes of the video to see dozens and dozens of impressions from participants, which may reveal new aspects of the painting to you.

Roundup: “Jesus Is Alive” (Japanese version), art competition, and more

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

SONGS:

>> “Jesus Is Alive” by Ron Kenoly, performed in Japanese by Ruah Worship: Ruah Worship is a vocal ensemble made up of four siblings from Japan: (from left to right in video) Joshua Mine, Julia Mine, Erika Grace Izawa (née Mine), and Marian Mine. Here they sing an a cappella arrangement of a Ron Kenoly song, translated into Japanese by Hiromi Yamamoto and Kazuo Sano. Click on the “CC” (closed captioning) button for English subtitles. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

Their harmonies are wonderful! And they have lots of great videos on their YouTube channel, a mix of original songs and songs translated from other languages or written in Japanese. For another Easter-themed song they’ve recorded, see “Because He Lives.”

>> “I Went to the Garden” by Sam Hargreaves: Written in a bluegrass style from Mary Magdalene’s perspective, this song was released this year as part of the Resurrection People resource from the UK organization Engage Worship, where you can find downloadable videos (songs, webinars), sheet music, and church service outlines that include prayers, all-age ideas, readings, poems, sermon outlines, responses, and more. Sam Hargreaves is on lead vocals and acoustic guitar, Timo Scharnowski is on backing vocals and percussion, and David Hyde is on banjo and slide guitar.

Another song from the Resurrection People pack—one that made me laugh!—is “Peter’s Slowcoach Blues.”

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ART COMMENTARY: The Sherborne Missal: On this episode of the BBC Radio 4 program Moving Pictures, host Cathy Fitzgerald talks with art historians Alixe Bovey, Kathleen Doyle, Eleanor Jackson, and Paul Binski and scribe and illuminator Patricia Lovett about a page from the medieval illuminated Sherborne Missal that introduces the Mass for Easter Sunday. Made for the Benedictine abbey of St. Mary’s in Sherborne, Dorset, around 1400, this Christian service book amazingly survived the pillaging of the English Reformation intact.

Sherborne Missal (Easter Mass)
Illuminated folio introducing the Mass for Easter Sunday, from the Sherborne Missal, Dorset, England, ca. 1399–1407. British Library, London, Add Ms 74236, page 216. Click on image to zoom in.

At the top is the historiated initial “R” for Ressurexit, with Christ emerging from his tomb. An elaborate border around the page contains scenes from the Old Testament, portraits of prophets, a bestiary-inspired scene, angels, birds, plants, fantastical knights, and two wodewoses (wild men) engaging in a bizarre confrontation. Such imagination! Learn why a daddy lion breathing on his cubs signified resurrection to the medieval mind, and in what sense Samson and Jonah are “types” of Christ.

“The thing to grasp about medieval art,” Binski says, “is that they don’t have the same categories and boundaries that we do. We have quite defined boundaries around what’s comic and what’s tragic, and what’s serious and what’s lightweight. In the Middle Ages, serious things and playful things accompanied one another; they were all part of the same thing.”

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CALL FOR ENTRIES: Chaiya Art Awards 2022/23: Submissions are now open—UK residents only—for this biannual competition on spiritually inflected visual art, this time on the theme of “Awe and Wonder.” In addition to the usual exhibition space for the longlisted finalists at London’s gallery@oxo, Chaiya has secured a second venue, the Bargehouse, which will allow for larger-scale artworks and installations. The top prize is ₤10,000. Deadline: August 31, 2022.

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CIVA TRAVELING EXHIBITION: Heads, Faces, and Spiritual Encounter: Drawn from the collection of Edward and Diane Knippers and available for rental, this exhibition comprises forty-some artworks that all focus on the human face. There are works by modern heavyweights like Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Georges Rouault, and Eric Gill, along with a few seventeenth-century portraits, African masks, and works by contemporary artists of faith. I saw the exhibition in Austin, Texas, in November and was really moved. Click on the link to browse the art and to inquire about rental.

Heads, Faces, and Spiritual Encounter

Roundup: Crucifixion and Holocaust, Indonesian Christian art, and more

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

VISUAL MEDITATION: “Golgotha, Auschwitz, and the Problem of Evil” by Victoria Emily Jones: Last month for ArtWay I was asked to write about Emma Elliott’s Reconciliation, a sculpted marble arm that bears both a nail wound of Christ from his crucifixion and the number tattoo of Holocaust survivor Eliezer Goldwyn (1922–2017).

Elliott, Emma_Reconciliation
Emma Elliott (British, 1983–), Reconciliation, 2016. Carrara marble, 20 × 110 × 25 cm.

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ESSAY: “The church’s reception of Jewish crucifixion imagery after the Holocaust” by Andrew Williams, AGON 48 (Winter 2015): Can Jews create Christian art? “I seek to revisit this question by examining the ways in which Jewish artists have made reference to the central symbol of the Christian faith, the crucifixion, and consider the ethical and theological horizons they open up for the church. . . . Given its place as a symbol of oppression within Judaism, and in particular its integration with the swastika during the years of Nazi power, its widespread adoption within a Jewish artistic vocabulary is remarkable.” Williams discusses “how the resulting christological imagery has been freighted with meaning connected with collective suffering, personal grief and divine abandonment.”

Levy, Emmanuel_Crucifixion
Emmanuel Levy (British, 1900–1986), Crucifixion, 1942. Oil on canvas, 102 × 78 cm. Ben Uri Gallery, London.

Jacob Epstein, Marc Chagall, Emmanuel Levy, RB Kitaj, Mauricio Lassansky, Abraham Rattner, Samuel Bak, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Adi Nes, and Seymour Lipton are among the artists engaged in this illustrated essay. The author provides an extensive bibliography if you’d like to learn more. I also want to remind you of the excellent exhibition catalog essay “Behold the Man: Jesus in Israeli Art” that I shared back in 2017.

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UPCOMING VIRTUAL EVENT: Studio Talk with Indonesian Artist Wisnu Sasongko, April 28, 2022, 8:30 a.m. ET: Organized by the Overseas Ministries Study Center at Princeton Theological Seminary, where Sasongko [previously] served as artist in residence in 2004–5. Cost: $15. Read the artist’s bio and see a sampling of his work at https://omsc.ptsem.edu/artist-sasongko/. There’s also a catalog of his paintings you can buy.

Sasongko, Wisnu_Gethsemane
Wisnu Sasongko (Indonesian, 1975–), Last Night in Gethsemane, 2005. Acrylic on canvas, 48 × 34 in.

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ESSAY: “The Christian Art Scene in Yogyakarta” by Volker Küster: Published June 27, 2012, by Protestantse Theologische Universiteit (Protestant Theological University) in Kampen, Netherlands, this essay spotlights five Indonesian artists whose work culturally contextualizes the Christian story: Bagong Kussudiardja [previously], Hendarto, Hari Santosa, Dopo Yeihan, and Wisnu Sasongko. Küster provides biographical information on the artists, including their religious backgrounds (most are converts from Islam), and discusses three paintings by each, all of which are reproduced in full color.

Want to read more by Volker Küster? His chapter on “Visual Arts in World Christianity” in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to World Christianity is excellent, and some of it is available in the Google Books preview. See also his book The Many Faces of Jesus Christ: Intercultural Christology (Orbis, 2001).

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ART VIDEO: “Caravaggio’s Taking of Christ” (Great Art Explained): In 2020 art writer and gallerist James Payne launched the YouTube video series Great Art Explained, consisting of fifteen-minute videos that each explore a single historically significant artwork. Here’s one he did on an extraordinary painting of Caravaggio’s from the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland, which shows Judas’s betrayal of Christ in Gethsemane.

Roundup: Georges Rouault, “The Exultant Leper,” and more

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LECTURE: “Georges Rouault and the Art of Sacred Engagement” by Fr. Terrence Dempsey, SJ: “From his earliest works, Georges Rouault [1871–1958] selected subjects that combined a strong religious conviction together with a concern for suffering humanity. This lecture by MOCRA Director Terrence Dempsey, S.J., offers an overview of Rouault’s work, including his paintings, prints, and stained glass. Dempsey presents Rouault as an artist who, from his early work through his mature work, remained concerned about the disadvantaged, the outsiders, and the victims of war, and who linked all of these people to the suffering of Christ. In this way, Rouault’s engagement with the world was not so much political (although one can find political tones in his work) as it was sacred. It involved the totality of who we are—corporeal and spiritual.”

Rouault is a favorite artist of mine. I got to see his entire Miserere et Guerre (“Have mercy,” a quotation from Psalm 51, and “War”) series of etchings in person a few years ago, and it’s phenomenal. Every Christian needs to know this series. I recommend a copy of This Anguished World of Shadows: George Rouault’s Miserere et Guerre for all bookshelves.

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ART VIDEO: “The Story About the Painting Called The Exultant Leper”: Wilder Adkins shared this video with me of his uncle Les Smith interpreting a painting he owns before his congregation last summer at Trinity Episcopal Church in Martinsburg, West Virginia. He commissioned it from artist Brian Whelan, to depict the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers from Luke 17:11–19. Sadly, Smith passed away last month.

Whelan, Brian_The Exultant Leper
Brian Whelan (Irish, 1957–), The Exultant Leper, 2021. Mixed media on canvas. Private collection.

Smith said he requested the title “The Exultant Leper” and asked that it appear on the painting itself. “I am the exultant leper,” he says, pointing to the figure at the bottom right. “I am the guy who better always be at the feet of Jesus giving thanks.”

While I have certainly seen and shared plenty of academic presentations on art (such as the one on Rouault above), there is something so special about hearing ordinary folks (that is, nonspecialists) share with others art that is personally meaningful to them—and more than that, in this case, that they helped bring to fruition. Smith’s enthusiasm was such that even his neighborhood trash collectors have been invited into his home to enjoy the piece! I love that he took the step of supporting a living artist by commissioning an original artwork, and that he integrated that art into his home life, displaying it above his mantle, where he would see it daily and be reminded of his own story of transformation through Christ.

(P.S. Last fall on Instagram and Facebook I shared a standout painting of Whelan’s from the 8th Catholic Arts Biennial at the Verostko Center for the Arts at Saint Vincent’s College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania: https://www.instagram.com/p/CVS6tlagy8s/; https://www.facebook.com/artandtheology/posts/1582166995476777.)

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CROSS-DISCIPLINARY VIDEO PRESENTATION: “Psalms in Dialogue: (Be)Holding the Broken Pieces”: I shared Duke’s first “Psalms in Dialogue” in October 2020. Here’s their second offering in the same vein. “In this online presentation [which premiered October 2, 2021], Duke University Chapel and the Duke Chapel Choir will welcome visual artist Makoto Fujimura, theologian Dr. Ellen Davis, Tap Legacy Foundation co-founder Andrew Nemr, Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet, and dancer Paiter van Yperen for an evening of creativity and conversation inspired by the biblical Psalms. In the program, artists, musicians, theologians, singers, and dancers will present performances and works inspired by five Psalms: 46, 88, 90, 91, and 92.” I particularly enjoyed the teen ballet number choreographed by Elisa Schroth to Karl Jenkins’s “Healing Light: A Celtic Prayer” at 52:18 (lyrics below).

Deep peace of the running wave to you
Deep peace of the flowing air to you
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you

Amen

Deep peace of the shining stars to you
Deep peace of the gentle night to you
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you

Amen

Deep peace of Christ, the light of the world, to you
Deep peace of Christ to you
Deep peace of Christ, the light of the world, to you

Amen

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SONGS:

>> “Fill My Cup” by Thad Cockrell, feat. The New Respects: This song appears on Cockrell’s album If in Case You Feel the Same (2020); an older version is on Alone Together (2016) under the title “Walking to a City.”

>> “Victory of Christ” by Cory Dauber: Cory Dauber is a member of the Deeper Well Gospel Collective, a group of musicians and songwriters in the Portland, Oregon, area who are connected to Door of Hope church. Last year Dauber released his second full-length album, May All Times Go to You. This song appears on his debut album, Turn into a Mountain (2016).

Roundup: Facing up to our faults, “How Prayer Works,” and more

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Sundays are not counted toward the forty days of Lent (as they are feast days, not fast days), so I’m taking a break from my usual Lenten format today and for the next four Sundays to offer some supplemental content, such as a roundup of video, article, podcast, and event links, or a poem. Tomorrow I’ll resume with “Day 5” of the music-art pairings.

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DANCE VIDEO: “Lord, Forgive Me,” choreographed by Keone Madrid: A short dance number to a penitential song by hip-hop/R&B artist Mali Music, choreographed by Keone Madrid. The dancers embody stumbling, floundering, aching, weakness, shame, and pleading, as well as openness, humility, surrender, and peace—various postures/feelings associated with the act of confession. Starting at 42 seconds in, a succession of individuals stand or kneel in relative stillness at the right side of the frame, as if receiving the forgiveness they seek, while their dancing form is visible in the mirror.  

Keone, the man in the maroon shirt in the opening shot of the video, is one-half of the choreo, dancing, and directing duo Keone and Mari [previously], whose other recent work includes choreographing the adorable (!) 2021 Disney animated short Us Again (see trailer). Storytelling is at the root of their work, with themes including marriage, family, faith, and struggle.

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NEW SONG: “No More Hiding” by Ben Thomas: For the past few years singer-songwriter and spiritual teacher Ben Thomas has been writing what he calls “Mantrasongs,” songs “infused with intention” that are meant to get stuck in our head and connect us more fully to ourselves, others, and the Divine. Inspired by Fr. Richard Rohr’s book Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, this January Thomas started releasing a series of Mantrasongs on YouTube based on the Twelve Steps of Recovery, a tool developed in 1938 for Alcoholics Anonymous. “The 12 Steps of Recovery aren’t just for those addicted to substances,” Thomas writes. “They’re for all of us learning how to create lives of health and wholeness, free of the addictive patterns of thinking, seeing, and being that keep us living at a fraction of our capacity.”

“No More Hiding” is the fifth song in Thomas’s Twelve Steps series. It corresponds to step 5 of the twelve-step program: “Admit to God, to yourself, and to another human being the exact nature of your wrongs.” Christians would call this process “confessing our sins.” It can be a scary thing to do. It requires tremendous vulnerability and honesty. But oh, what freedom comes from confession! He sings here with Jenny Miller. The preceding songs in the series are:

  1. “A New Level of Let Go” (Admit that you are powerless over your addiction—that your life has become unmanageable.)
  2. “Make Me Whole Again” (Believe that a Power greater than yourself can restore you to sanity.)
  3. “To Know What Is” (Make a decision to turn your will and your life over to the care of God.)
  4. “Freedom in the Light” (Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself.)

Look out for a new Mantrasong each week. You can receive free song downloads from Ben Thomas by becoming a Patreon supporter.

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VIRTUAL EVENT: “Writing on Music, Meaning, and the Ineffable,” March 24, 2022, 6 p.m. ET: It’s been said that writing about music (or visual art, for that matter) is as pointless and impossible as dancing about architecture. Music and art need only be experienced; studied analysis or explanation lessens their impact and is reductive. While I can see the reasoning behind this assertion, and I often debate whether to comment on specific pieces that I post here versus let the art do its work without my intervention, I do (obviously!) feel that there is value in writing about the arts, and music writer Joel Heng Hartse does too. In this virtual launch event for his new book Dancing about Architecture Is a Reasonable Thing to Do, Hartse will be joined in conversation with poet Mischa Willett and musician John Van Deusen about art, faith, and criticism. Organized by Image journal.

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POETRY UNBOUND PODCAST EPISODES:

Poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama hosts these wonderful fifteen-minute immersive readings of contemporary poems selected from diverse sources. Here are two from last season that I particularly appreciated.

>> “How Prayer Works” by Kaveh Akbar: Kaveh Akbar is an Iranian American Muslim poet and scholar. In this narrative prose poem of his, two brothers, seven years apart, turn to face east in their small shared room when their prayer is interrupted by a surprising noise, setting off an eruption of laughter. “This poem holds the idea of prayer, which can often be an abstract one, with the physical sensation of what’s right in front of you, what’s happening, who’s right in front of you, how are you being with each other, what’s going on, how can you be drawn towards each other—and that that itself is the answer to prayer.”

>> “The Only Cab Service of Farmington, Maine” by Aria Abner: “This is a poem, really, that’s an exploration of place and all of the emotion and pain and beauty that can be gathered into memory of place,” Ó Tuama says. “A poem about conversation and about how you reach the edge of conversation.” Poet Aria Abner was born in Germany to Afghan parents but has lived in the United States since age eighteen. She writes about being picked up in a cab by a man who served in Afghanistan in the US Marines, and how he tries to connect with her through that geographic commonality but to little avail. “She is feeling estranged by the ways foreigners are speaking about a place that she’s from but hasn’t been able to grow up in.”

Roundup: The Soil and The Seed Project, Transfiguration art, and more

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For the first time, this year I plan on publishing short daily posts for the entirety of Lent and for the Octave of Easter, pairing a visual artwork with a piece of music along the seasons’ themes (for an example of this format, see here)—just an FYI of what to expect. I also have several poems lined up. And you might want to check out the Art & Theology Lent Playlist and Holy Week Playlist on Spotify (introduced here and here respectively), which I’ve expanded since last year. I’m very pleased with the Holy Week Playlist in particular.

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NEW RESOURCE FOR HOME LITURGIES: The Soil and The Seed Project: Directed by Seth Thomas Crissman of The Walking Roots Band [previously] and with the contributions of a team of artists, writers, and musicians, “The Soil and The Seed Project nurtures faith through music, art, and Little Liturgies for daily and weekly use in the home. These resources help establish new rhythms of faith as together we turn towards Jesus, believing and celebrating the Good News of God’s Love for the whole world.” The project launched in November 2021 with its Advent/Christmas/Epiphany collection. When the project is complete it will consist of four volumes of music (forty-plus songs total—all original, save for a couple of reimagined hymns) and four liturgical booklets that include responsive scripture-based readings, reflection prompts, suggested practices, and an original artwork.

The Lent/Easter/Pentecost collection releases February 25, but as a special treat, Crissman is allowing Art & Theology readers a “first listen” with this private link (it will turn public on Friday). Here’s one of the songs, “I Want to Know Christ,” a setting of Philippians 3:10–11 by Harrisonburg, Virginia–based songwriter and jail chaplain Jason Wagner, followed by a Little Liturgies sample:

Little Liturgies, Lent Week 1

Thanks to a community of generous donors, The Soil and The Seed Project gives away all its content for free, including shipping, to anyone who is interested (individuals, couples, families, churches, etc.); request a copy of the latest music collection and liturgies here. CDs and printed booklets are available only while supplies last (1500 copies have been pressed/printed for this collection), but digital copies of course remain available without limit.

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CONVERSATIONS AT CALVIN: Below are two videos (of many!) from the 2022 Calvin Symposium on Worship, which took place earlier this month.

>> “Modern-Day Prophets: How Artists and Activists Expand Public Worship” with Nikki Toyama-Szeto: A writer, speaker, and activist on issues of justice, leadership, race, and gender, Nikki Toyama-Szeto is the executive director of Christians for Social Action and a leading voice for Missio Alliance. Here she is interviewed by preacher and professor Noel Snyder. They discuss the generativity of imagination, and its invitation to displacement; the connection between corporate worship and public witness; the movement of the Holy Spirit outside church walls; “political” and “pastoral” as classifications that differ from group to group; embracing messiness; and what pastors can learn from artists and activists.

A few quotes from Toyama-Szeto that stood out to me:

  • “Part of what we’re trying to do at Christians for Social Action is stir the Christian imagination for what a fuller followership of Jesus looks like in a more just society. The word ‘imagination,’ and I would say specifically Christian imagination, I think of as the dream that God dreams for his people and his creation. What does it mean to be oriented toward the dream that God is dreaming? Another word for it is shalom—the full flourishing of all his creation and all his people. And if you look at the gap between where we are today and what that dream is, that gap is imagination. How is it that we get from here, the broken world we see . . . how do we press in and lean into the dreams that God dreams for his people and for his world?”
  • “For me, I have found artists and prophets—those who are agitating for justice—are ones who help dislodge me from everyday things I take for granted, and those assumptions, and they help me to dream new and bigger dreams.”
  • “The pursuit of justice is the declaration of God’s character in the public square.”

Here are links to a few of the names and books she references: Sadao Watanabe, A Book of Uncommon Prayer, Andre Henry [previously], The Many.

>> “Christians and Cultural Difference,” with Pennylyn Dykstra-Pruim and David I. Smith: María Cornou interviews Calvin University professors Pennylyn Dykstra-Pruim and David I. Smith, authors of Christians and Cultural Difference (2016).

Smith shares his frustration that often the only Christians who endeavor to learn other languages and develop cultural intelligence and appreciation are those who are preparing to be missionaries in a foreign country, and they do it only for the purpose of missional effectiveness.

If you take one piece of theology [i.e., evangelism] and try and make that the bit that’s about cultural difference, that puts distortions into the conversation. . . . You might want to think about mission, but you might also want to think about what it means to be made in the image of God. Does that mean everyone’s the same, or does it mean everyone has responsibility for shaping culture and we might all do it in different ways, and you have to make space for that? We might need to think about the cross. We might need to think about God’s embrace of us and how we embrace each other. We might need to think about love of neighbor. We might need to think about the body of Christ and the makeup of the early church. . . . You might have to visit a whole bunch of different theological places to get a composite picture rather than saying this is the doctrine that somehow solves cultural difference for us.

I was also struck by Smith’s discussion of how cultural difference can help us read the scriptures in a new way (see 19:38ff.). He gives an example from In the Land of Blue Burqas, where Kate McCord, an American, describes her experience reading the Bible with Muslim women from Afghanistan, and particularly how they taught her a very different interpretation of John 4, the story of Jesus’s encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. Wow.

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VISUAL COMMENTARY ON SCRIPTURE: The Transfiguration: In churches that follow the Revised Common Lectionary, this Sunday, the last Sunday in the Epiphany season, is Transfiguration Sunday, giving us a vision with which to enter Lent. (Other traditions celebrate Jesus’s transfiguration on August 6.) In this video from the Visual Commentary on Scripture project, art historian Jennifer Sliwka and theologian Ben Quash discuss this New Testament event through three visual artworks: a fifteenth-century icon by Theophanes the Greek, which shows the “uncreated light” revealed to Peter, James, and John on Mount Tabor; a fresco by Fra Angelico from the wall of a friar’s cell in Florence, where Jesus’s pose foreshadows his suffering on the cross; and a contemporary light installation by the seminary-educated American artist Dan Flavin, comprising fluorescent light tubes in the shape of a mandorla. Brilliant!

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CIVA TRAVELING EXHIBITION: Again + Again, curated by Ginger Henry Geyer with Asher Imtiaz: “A photography exhibition that invites recurring and fresh contemplation of the ordinary and extraordinary through the seasons of the Christian liturgical calendar,” sponsored by Christians in the Visual Arts. The show will be on view at Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis from February 26 to March 26 and is available for rental in North America after that. I saw it at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin in November at the CIVA biennial and was impressed! It is accompanied by a beautifully designed catalog that pairs each photograph with a poem, several of which were written specifically for the exhibition and which respond directly to a given photo.

Winters, Michael_Mount Tabor, June 2017
Michael Winters, Mount Tabor, June 2017, 2017. Inkjet print with holes punched out in white wood frame, 19 × 13 in.

One of my favorite art selections is Mount Tabor, June 2017 by Michael Winters, the director of arts and culture at Sojourn Church Midtown in Louisville, Kentucky. “Mount Tabor . . . is where the transfiguration of Christ is thought to have occurred,” Winters writes. “I stood viewing that scene in 2017. It looked so normal. I’m not sure why I felt compelled to punch holes in this photograph, but I think it’s because I wanted to be able to see through this ‘normal’ landscape to the glory of the transfigured Christ—which is to say, I wanted to see reality.”

Browse all the Again + Again photographs on the CIVA website. Longtime followers of the blog will recognize some of the photos from Greg Halvorsen Schreck’s Via Dolorosa series that I featured back in 2016.

Roundup: Steve Prince, Harriet Powers, and more

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LECTURE: “PRESENCE: Illuminating Black History, Faith, and Culture” by Steve A. Prince: Printmaker, sculptor, draftsman, and “art evangelist” Steve Prince is the director of engagement and distinguished artist in residence at the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia—and a personal friend of mine! In this lunchtime presentation organized last fall by Upper House, a center for Christian gathering and learning in Madison, Wisconsin, he discusses his body of work, which is influenced by his New Orleans background and is full of symbols and of figures from African American history. Bessie Mitchell and the Trenton Six, Mamie Till, the Little Rock Nine, Henrietta Lacks, the Greensboro Four, Amadou Diallo, John Coltrane, Harriet Jacobs, and Sarah Collins Rudolph are just a few of the people he references. He discusses the role of the arts in lament, healing, renewal, and celebration, framing the whole talk in terms of the first and second lines of the New Orleans jazz funeral—metaphors, he says, of life on earth (“the dirge”) and life in the hereafter.

Bird in Hand: Second Line for Michigan
Steve Prince (American, 1968–), Bird in Hand: Second Line for Michigan, 2012. Graphite drawing, 9 × 20 ft.

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ABOUT HARRIET POWERS:

Harriet Powers (1837–1910) was an African American quilter from Georgia who used traditional appliqué techniques to record Bible stories, local legends, and astronomical events. Her two extant quilts, referred to as the Bible Quilt and the Pictorial Quilt, are considered among the finest examples of nineteenth-century Southern quilting. They really are extraordinary.

Powers, Harriet_Bible Quilt
Harriet Powers (American, 1837–1910), Bible Quilt, ca. 1886. Cotton plain weave, pieced, appliqued, embroidered, and quilted, 75 × 89 in. (191 × 227 cm). National Museum of American History, Washington, DC.
Powers, Harriet_Pictorial Quilt
Harriet Powers (American, 1837–1910), Pictorial Quilt, 1895–98. Cotton plain weave, pieced, appliqued, embroidered, and quilted, 68 7/8 × 105 in. (175 × 266.7 cm). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

>> Sewing Stories: Harriet Powers’ Journey from Slave to Artist, written by Barbara Herkert and illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton: I received this children’s picture-book biography about Powers as a Christmas gift last year, and I love it so much. I recommend it for people of all ages! For easy reference, a photo of each of Powers’s quilts is reproduced on the front and back endpapers. Listen to a complete reading by Alicia McDaniel of Art for the Creative Soul in the video below.

>> “Celebrating Harriet Powers and Quilt Stories,” a conversation at the MFA: Powers’s two quilts were brought together for the first time ever in Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories, an exhibition at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts that ran from October 10, 2021, to January 17, 2022. Curator Jennifer Swope moderated a virtual discussion about Harriet Powers and her legacy with artist Bisa Butler; quilt historian, artist, and author Kyra E. Hicks; Dr. Carolyn L. Mazloomi, artist, educator, and founder of the Women of Color Quilters Network; and Dr. Tiya Miles, a public and academic historian.

A breakdown of the individual squares on Powers’s quilts happens at 14:44–22:16, and conversation continues about Powers specifically until about the one-hour mark. Notably, when asked about the importance of the quilts, Hicks says, “They’re important because you have a woman who is testifying of her love for God 135 years after those quilts left her home. She continues to testify. When you think about all the people . . . I just think she’s a storyteller, but she’s a storyteller with a purpose, and I admire her for that.” The second hour is about story-quilting today—where a new generation of quilt-makers is taking the art form in the twenty-first century—and touches on functional use of quilts versus display.

For more on Harriet Powers, see this five-minute video produced by the MFA, narrated by Dr. Miles.

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SONGS:

>> “Blessed Assurance”: A Black gospel arrangement of a classic Fanny Crosby hymn, performed by the Portsmouth Gospel Choir from the University of Portsmouth in the UK.

>> “Parachute” by Arielle Howell and Moses Hooper: A song of surrender. Filmed in 2016, this was the first music video made under the aegis of Under the Belltower, a Biola University initiative (no longer active) that brought together student musicians, composers, and filmmakers to make art in community and showcase that work with an end product.