'I have just completed an altar cloth for St Philip and St James Leckhampton, Cheltenham. This was worked on four sides and included a set of vestments in the four liturgical colours. Awareness of climate change was the basis for this work. The intense vibrant band of turquoise light that encircles Planet Earth as seen from space fills me with awe. As climate change is affecting every corner of this planet it seemed appropriate to set each of the four panels within the infinite dark of space and to evoke the four elements: Water, Air, Fire, Earth. Water shows the currents of the oceans. Air the dawn of a new day, jetstream, a feather. Fire, refining fire that both destroys and brings new life. Earth is framed by a rainbow. The focus is in the central image of the adult’s hand holding soil in which a seedling has sprouted. This is offered to a little child whose hands are eager to receive it. May the beauty and the wonder of creation of this precious world we inhabit be here for generations to come.'
My visual meditations include work by María Inés Aguirre, Giampaolo Babetto, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Alexander de Cadenet, Christopher Clack, Marlene Dumas, Terry Ffyffe, Jake Flood, Antoni Gaudi, Nicola Green, Maciej Hoffman, Lakwena Maciver, S. Billie Mandle, Giacomo Manzù, Sidney Nolan, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Nicola Ravenscroft, Albert Servaes, Henry Shelton, Anna Sikorska, Jan Toorop, Edmund de Waal and Sane Wadu.
My Church of the Month reports include: All Saints Parish Church, Tudeley, Aylesford Priory, Canterbury Cathedral, Chapel of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Hem, Chelmsford Cathedral, Churches in Little Walsingham, Coventry Cathedral, Église de Saint-Paul à Grange-Canal, Eton College Chapel, Lumen, Metz Cathedral, Notre Dame du Léman, Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce, Plateau d’Assy,Romont, Sint Martinuskerk Latem, St Aidan of Lindisfarne, St Alban Romford, St. Andrew Bobola Polish RC Church, St. Margaret’s Church, Ditchling, and Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, St Mary the Virgin, Downe, St Michael and All Angels Berwick and St Paul Goodmayes, as well as earlier reports of visits to sites associated with Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Antoni Gaudi and Henri Matisse.
Blogs for ArtWay include: Congruity and controversy: exploring issues for contemporary commissions;
Photographing Religious Practice; Spirituality and/in Modern Art; and The Spirituality of the Artist-Clown.
Interviews for ArtWay include: Sophie Hacker and Peter Koenig. I also interviewed ArtWay founder Marleen Hengelaar Rookmaaker for Artlyst.
I have reviewed: Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace, Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe and Jazz, Blues, and Spirituals.
Other of my writings for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Church Times can be found here. Those for Artlyst are here and those for Art+Christianity are here. See also Modern religious art: airbrushed from art history?
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