Between: 2025

Saturday, 13 December 2025

Windows on the world (549)

London, 2025

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Dove Ellis - Love Is.

Since my last Interview Update, I have had an interview published by ArtWay with artist Neil Tye and his collaborators Randall Flinn and Bill Wade. I have also published an interview with artist, poet and writer Rupert Loydell, who has also interviewed Nick Battle and Steve Scott. As a result, I am updating this index of interviews.

I have carried out a large number of other interviews for Artlyst, ArtWay, Church Times, International Times, Seen and Unseen and Art+Christianity. They provide a wide range of fascinating insights into the approaches and practices of artists, arts professionals, clerics, curators, performers, poets and writers.

They can be found at:

Artlyst

ArtWay

Church Times

International Times

Seen and Unseen

Art+Christianity

Also see my interviews with artist Henry Shelton here and here and David Hawkins, former Bishop of Barking, here, here and here.

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Nick Drake - Place To Be.

ArtWay - The things we carry – A collaborative exhibition by Neil Tye

In my latest interview for ArtWay I talk with artist Neil Tye and his collaborators Randall Flinn and Bill Wade:

'For the last 25 years Neil Tye has been working as a physical visual theatre performer, instructor, teacher, and installation artist, and has taken his performances and teaching skills around the world ...

Tye has worked with Ad Deum, a professional modern/contemporary dance company based in Houston, Texas, directed by its founder Randall Flinn, who established the company in January 2000. The mission of Ad Deum is to create and perform excellent and vital works of dance that serve to wash over the heart and soul of humanity with relevant meaning and redemptive hope.

At Flinn’s invitation Bill Wade also became involved in a collaborative dance performance at the opening of Tye’s exhibition in Houston. Wade founded Inlet Dance Theatre in 2001 and the company embodies his belief that dance viewing, training and performing experiences may serve as tools to bring about personal growth and development. Inlet’s ensemble-based culture intentionally focuses on craftsmanship and mastery while employing a collaborative creative process in the development of new work. All of Inlet’s repertory speaks creatively about human life issues and does so in a life-giving manner. The company presents a wide aesthetic range of works that speak to what could be, rather than only what is.

I spoke to all three about their collaboration and Tye’s work.'

For more on Neil Tye click here.

My other writing for ArtWay can be found at https://www.artway.eu/authors/jonathan-evens. This includes church reports, interviews, reviews and visual meditations.

ArtWay.eu has been hailed "a jewel in the crown of work in Christianity and the arts," and having come under the custodianship of the Kirby Laing Centre, the much-loved publication has entered an exciting new chapter in its story following the launch of a new website in September 2024.

Since its founding, ArtWay has published a rich library of materials and resources for scholars, artists, art enthusiasts and congregations concerned about linking art and faith. Founded by Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker in 2009, ArtWay's significance is reflected in its designation as UNESCO digital heritage material in the Netherlands.

In 2018, I interviewed ArtWay founder Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker for Artlyst on the legacy of ArtWay itself.

In the video above, the ArtWay team recounts the history of this much-loved resource and looks ahead

to an exciting future for ArtWay.

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Ad Deum Dance Company - Be Still My Soul.

Friday, 12 December 2025

Church Times - Art review: 12 Advent Stations (Chelmsford Cathedral)

My latest exhibition review for C hurch T imes is on '12 Advent Stations' by Pansy Campbell, Mark Cazalet and Jim Leaf at Chelmsford Cathedral:

'TWELVE Advent Stations are composed of sonnets rendered calligraphically and read by actors, alongside paintings on assemblages formed by domestic utensils; they form a circular journey, the last word of each poem featuring in the first line of the next, echoing the annual repetition in the church calendar, of which Advent is the beginning; and they cover conception, John the Baptist, annunciation, Bethlehem, birth, shepherds, Magi, massacre, flight, return, Simeon and Anna, and Trinity.

These Stations — created by the artist Mark Cazalet, the calligrapher Pansy Campbell, and the poet Richard Leaf, all members of the congregation of St Martin’s, Kensal Rise, where the Stations were first shown — had their own conceptions in Leaf’s sonnets, which then found complementary expression in Cazalet’s art, Campbell’s calligraphy, and the actor’s readings.

Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here. My writing for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Artlyst are here, those for Seen & Unseen are here, and those for Art+Christianity are here.

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St Martin's Voices - O Morning Star.

Monday, 8 December 2025

Advent Meditation: The Prophets

Here's the meditation on The Prophets that I shared during Advent Night Prayer at St Andrew's Wickford this evening:

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of Bethlehem.
Of Bethlehem of Ephrathah, one of the little clans of Judah,
from whom shall come one who is to rule in Israel,
one whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.
When she who is in labour has brought forth,
then the rest of his kin shall return to the people of Israel
and he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God,
and they shall live secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth; and he shall be the one of peace.

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of a sign that the Lord himself would give.
The sign a young woman with child.
A young woman who shall bear a son.
A young woman who shall name that son, Immanuel.

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of a child.
A child born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority grows continually,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom
when he will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from his time onwards and for evermore.

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of a shoot.
A shoot to come out from the stock of Jesse,
and a branch to grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord would rest on that shoot,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight would be in the fear of the Lord.
He would not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he would judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he would strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips kill the wicked.
Righteousness would be the belt around his waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and the little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear would graze,
their young would lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child would play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all God’s holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of a star.
They saw him, but not then;
they beheld him, but not near.
They saw a star,
a star that would come out of Jacob,
and a sceptre that would rise out of Israel.

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of Egypt.
As, when Israel was a child, God loved him,
and out of Egypt he called his son.

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of the Temple.
The temple to which the Lord who is sought will suddenly come.
The messenger of the covenant in whom we delight,
the messenger is coming,
coming to be like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap;
to sit as a refiner and purifier of silver,
and to purify the descendants of Levi
and refine them like gold and silver,
until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.
Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord
as in the days of old and as in former years.

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of people,
people who walked in darkness
seeing a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shone.

The prophets dreamed.
They saw from a distance and greeted their dreams.
They died in faith without having received the promises.
We are those on whom light has shone;
those who know the story of Mary and Joseph travelling to Bethlehem,
a census requiring Jesus’ birth in Joseph’s home town.
We are those on whom light has shone;
those who know the story of the sign given
in the child Immanuel, God with us.
We are those on whom light has shone;
those who know the story of the child born for us,
the Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
We are those on whom light has shone;
those who know the story of the shoot
coming from the stock of Jesse
on whom the spirit of the Lord did rest.
We are those on whom light has shone;
those who know the story of the star,
the star that led the Magi to worship Israel’s star.
We are those on whom light has shone;
those who know the story of Egypt,
where our Saviour fled and from where he returned.
We are those on whom light has shone;
those who know the story of the Temple,
where Simeon and Anna see salvation
in the young Christ unexpectedly come.

Therefore, since we are surrounded
by so great a cloud of witnesses and prophets,
let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely,
and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,
looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,
the one from of old, from ancient days,
the son who is named Immanuel,
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,
the one on whom the spirit of the Lord rests,
the sceptre that rises out of Israel,
the one God calls his son,
the one who refines like gold and silver,
until we present offerings to the Lord in righteousness,
that our offerings will be pleasing to the Lord
as in the days of old and as in former years. Amen.

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G.F.Händel - The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Sunday, 7 December 2025

Being rooted deep within

Here's the sermon (adapted from https://biologos.org/articles/o-radix) that I shared at St Mary's Runwell and St Catherine's Wickford this morning:

The season of Advent is a time when we are particularly attentive to images of Christ gleaned from the prophetic texts of the Old Testament, in addition to those that emerged from Jesus’ earthly ministry in Palestine. As poet, priest and musician Malcolm Guite notes, “In the first centuries the Church had a beautiful custom of praying seven great prayers calling afresh on Christ to come, calling him by the mysterious titles he has in Isaiah:” O Wisdom! O Lord! O Root! O Key! O Dayspring! O King! O Emmanuel! The hymn ‘O come, O come Emmanuel’, which we are signing today, preserves the tradition and these seven ancient, prophetic names' for the Christ.

Malcolm Guite has also given his own series of sonnets to accompany this sequence of antiphons still being used in the liturgical traditions, a litany of images that provide another way to extol Christ’s virtues and identity as Saviour week by week as we wait and remember His coming in Bethlehem. Today we look at one of those poems, “O Radix” or “O Root”, as a meditation on Christ via an image from His creation.

But first, let us hear the original O Antiphon for 19 December:

O Root of Jesse, standing
as a sign among the peoples;
before you kings will shut their mouths,
to you the nations will make their prayer:
Come and deliver us, and delay no longer

The texts from which the “root” image for Jesus derives are both from Isaiah 11 (today’s Old Testament reading), and the root image used encompasses the full flourishing of the plant, from its origins in the ground, through renewal of a seemingly-dead stump, and towards the fruitfulness of the restored vine. The most direct line naming Jesus as the root is in verse 10: “In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.”

It is this promise of the Messiah’s advent being for the rule and benefit of the gentiles that Paul picks up in chapter 15 of his letter to the Romans, as well. In both cases, though, the conflation of the “branch,” or “rod,” or “shoot,” mentioned earlier in Isaiah 11:1, with the “root” from which it springs suggests the way Jesus, though coming at a specific time in history, was at history’s beginnings and will be at its end: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,? and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.?”

For Guite, the fact that the Radix image refers to the ‘tree of Jesse, the family tree which leads to David, and ultimately to Christ as the ‘son of David,” is important, but, he says, “the title radix, goes deeper, as a good root should. It goes deep down into the ground of our being, the good soil of creation.” In other words, it gets at both the truth of Jesus’ identity as the source of our life and salvation (He is the root, the stem, the fruit), but also as the author of the world to which we (and the Scriptures, themselves) turn to find ways of talking about and imagining our own connection, our own grafting-in to that vine. It subtly suggests that recognizing ourselves as contiguous with the world—though set apart from it by God’s grace and fellowship—begins our process of being re-connected to the King and His kingdom. Conversely, when we turn our backs on the knowledge He speaks forth through His creation, or shrink back from our call to know and cultivate the world as it is, we cut ourselves off from our roots, from each other, and even from the Lord. That we so often satisfy ourselves with the latter is one more reason to lament in this season of waiting, as we call to the coming Messiah, “Come, O Radix, come!”

O Radix

All of us sprung from one deep-hidden seed,
Rose from a root invisible to all.
We knew the virtues once of every weed,
But, severed from the roots of ritual,
We surf the surface of a wide-screen world
And find no virtue in the virtual.
We shrivel on the edges of a wood
Whose heart we once inhabited in love,
Now we have need of you, forgotten Root
The stock and stem of every living thing
Whom once we worshiped in the sacred grove,
For now is winter, now is withering
Unless we let you root us deep within,
Under the ground of being, graft us in.

Thinking about roots more specifically and “naturally” is worthwhile, too, as being attuned to functions as well as forms helps us reflect on the several ways in which Christ enables us to be connected to Him and each other. Spend time walking along a river, for instance, looking carefully at the trees that grow along its banks and you will discover that their roots have two principal functions: to take in nourishment from the water and to anchor the tree securely in place; on one hand, to seek out something that is supremely mysterious, mobile, and literally fluid, and, on the other hand, to take hold of something solid, secure and immovable. Indeed, they are complementary roles, for a tree fully exposed to the power of moving water is as likely to be washed away as to flourish—it must have a stronghold to stand in the presence of the flood. Likewise, to “take root” in the Scriptures and in the Lord Himself is thus to be always reaching out, yearning for more of His Spirit, even as we stay firmly planted in the strength and security of His steadfast embrace.

When he says that the spirit of the Lord would rest on that shoot, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, Isaiah is showing us a Messiah who is rooted in the story of Israel and in God, through his Spirit. Like Jesus, we also need to be rooted in him and see his kingdom grow in us and in our world. This Advent, let us make it our desire to be more deeply rooted in Christ and to see his kingdom take root in our community. Amen.

For more on the O Antiphons and Guite's sonnets - click here.

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Steve Bell - O come, O come Emmanuel (with Malcolm Guite).

Saturday, 6 December 2025

Windows on the world (548)

Chelmsford, 2025

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Nick Cave - Joy.

Thursday, 4 December 2025

Fear not, for I am with you: An exhibition of religious paintings by David Sowerby

'Fear not, for I am with you: An exhibition of religious paintings by David Sowerby'
9 January – 3 April 2026
St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN

View the exhibition and hear David speak about his work at ‘Unveiled’, the arts & performance evening at St Andrew’s Wickford, Friday 9 January, 7.00 pm.

St Andrew’s is usually open: Sat 9am-12.30pm; Sun 9.30am-12 noon; Mon 2-3.45pm; Tue 1-4.30pm; Wed 10am-12 noon; Fri 10am-1pm. https://wickfordandrunwellparish.org.uk/whats-on.html

David Sowerby
Born 24th October 1954
Studied Foundation at Middlesbrough Art College
BA (hons) Art and Design at The Central School of Art (London)

I worked as a freelance illustrator and teacher throughout my life and eventually retired as a Principal Lecturer at The University of the Arts London.

I now support a range of charities, both local and national, via my mutual interest and fascination with art and creativity.

An earlier exhibition was just prior to the first lockdown which was held at The Transition, Chelmsford, with proceeds going towards The British Heart Foundation raised just over £6,000.

I continue to support local and national charities, contributing a large percentage of any sales to such charitable organisations and causes.

My work can be viewed on my Facebook pages, search for David Sowerby with more available to view at Sowerbycreations (Facebook again)

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Rev Simpkins - John Henry's Prayer.

Rupert Loydell: Guest posts and interview (5)

This series of guest posts by and an interview with Rupert Loydell adds to the material about Jesus Rock, CCM and spirituality in rock music which has been published here previously. See the first post in this series for a listing of previous posts on these themes - click here - for the second post, which is an interview with musician Nick Battle, click here, the third post is an interview with Rupert Loydell - click here. The fourth post in the series was a new interview by Rupert with Nick Battle - click here.

This final post in the series is an interview by Rupert with Steve Scott. I worked with Steve, through commission4mission, to organize some of the different `Run with the Fire’ art exhibitions and events held in and around London, during the Olympic summer of 2012. You can learn more about `Run With The Fire’ by clicking here, here, and here. My own dialogues with Steve can be read here, here, here, here, and here.

Steve Scott is a British mixed-media artist, writer, lecturer, and performer. Upon completing art school in the mid-1970s, Steve moved to the United States at the request of a small record label and began recording songs. He now has ten albums of original work released on several small independent labels. The work ranges from rock music to more experimental poetry and spoken word, performed over electronic loop based compositions.

Dynamic conversations in a dynamic field: an interview with Steve Scott

Solid Rock records – now being managed by Charles Normal, brother of Jesus Rock pioneer Larry Norman – recently announced a Kickstarter campaign to issue two unreleased 'lost' albums from Steve Scott. Over the years Moving Pictures and Close Ups have become almost mythical in a few CCM collectors' minds and the move has generated some ripples of surprise and delight. I've known Steve Scott since the 1980s, when Steve Fairnie introduced him to me in a muddy field at Greenbelt and am as delighted as anyone to finally hear these albums. It also provided an excuse for this interview.

Rupert Loydell: Hi Steve. I'm hoping we can use this planned release of two early albums of yours as a springboard for an interview that goes wide and long about your music, writing and the spiritual in music. I hope that's ok?

Steve Scott: Yes, thanks….. I’ll try and be informative.

RL: OK, so Moving Pictures was the initial album you were working on at the time. Before we dive into these new albums can I take you back in time to the 70s and 80s and suggest we discuss what was going on back then?

My own short and condensed version of things is that Jesus Music happens in the States as part of a religious awakening associated with the hippies, and musicians like Larry Norman and Liberation Suite come over to the UK (where there were already a (very) few Christian rock bands such as Out of Darkness touring amongst church coffee shop folksters) and help Jesus Music happen over here.

I'd probably point to Parchment and Malcolm & Alwyn as two of the most successful UK acts, whose record deals included secular distribution for a while, but they were enough spark a few UK Christian record labels such as Key Records to start up, and for the USA labels to start UK branches and distribution. They were soon full of would-be rockers and singer-songwriters keen to evangelise and build a church concert circuit up, but the UK simply wasn't big enough or religious enough to do so. It also got somewhat entangled with censorious right wing politics courtesy of Mary Whitehouse and co. in the guise of the Festival of Light. But Christian rock also managed to pretty much miss out on punk and post-punk, although there were a few bands such as Moral Support, Giantkiller and the Bill Mason Band who made some New Wave music. That early moment of musical success and optimistic possibility also catalysed projects such as the Greenbelt Arts Festival to start up.

So CCM in the UK drifted into worship music, helped by the likes of Graham Kendrick and the Charismatic branch of the church. Last time I was in a Christian bookstore – several years ago; I don't even know if they exist now – the music racks were full of choirs and clean-faced singers offering variations of uplifting songs that had nothing to do with popular music. CCM never could cope with the likes of Randy Matthews and his soulful rebellion early on, Mark Heard's thoughtfulness, or Steve Taylor later subverting from within, questioning and caricaturing certain assumptions and ideas.

However, back in the day, in part thanks to the likes of After the Fire and Fish Co./Writz/Famous Names, there were Christians who decided to simply be musicians, just as some chose to become plumbers or shopkeepers. In retrospect I think these bands were more important and adventurous than we gave them credit for at the time, and along with societal changes, for the last few decades music of all genres has been open to discussions of spirituality, faith & doubt, religion and belief (just don't mention Christianity or church!), courtesy of U2, Van Morrison, Mike Scott and the Waterboys, Bob Dylan and loads of rappers, rockers, singers and Uncle Tom Cobley and all... It also allowed for experimental bands such as the Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus to get signed, and for independent record labels such as Sticky Music to exist.

So, back in the 70s, Steve Scott is studying film in London but somehow ends up going to the States to make a record with Larry Norman. What was going on? How did you fit into the UK scene and then the US one?

SS: Well your overall summary of the 60s/70s situation might be correct... I don’t know. I was very much on the fringes of all that and not paying a huge amount of attention to it. I was at art school and trying to absorb all these modern/postmodern ideas and figure out where I, as a young Christian, could plug in… A couple in my (first) Church had come back from a weekend retreat or seminar or something dropping names like Francis Schaeffer and Hans Rookmaaker – this was late 60s I think – so I became aware that there was some emerging response to the culture of the day over and above simple `avoidance’. I’d heard a few Christian `beat’ groups that predated US influenced Jesus Rock music, although they weren't for me… But I was at a 1970 Youth For Christ (I think… or was it IVF?) weekend in Torquay where I met Andy Piercey and Iain Smail, who later became Andy and Ishmael, as well as Steve Fairnie and his pal Steve Rowles down from Bristol, who were later Fish Co, Writz, Technos and much else. The music for the weekend was a singing Trio called Soul Truth (Bev Sage et al) and one of the speakers was a pre Arts Centre Group Nigel Goodwin.

I got to the very early ACG meetings in Kensington although even then I hoped and wanted to stretch around or beyond the Schaeffer/Rookmaaker angle on arts and culture, valuable though it was in starting the conversation. I crossed paths with Steve Turner at a poetry workshop in Earls Court, then encountered him reading at a bigger Christian event in London; and through the ACG crossed paths with all sorts such as poet/broadcaster Stewart Henderson and filmmaker Norman Stone. The music? Some of it yes. If Nutshell came and played our local church’s coffeeshop I’d hear that. I was at the RAH for Graham Kendrick’s singer songwriter concert and I encountered a bit more at Greenbelt. When I was at art school in Croydon I lived for a while quite close to a `Jesus People’ type commune called `The Jesus Family’, led by Jim and Susan Palosaari. They had rock bands like Sheep as part of their community and were somewhat involved with that first Greenbelt Festival. They were also involved in a mixed media musical called Lonesome Stone that I saw in North London.

By then I was pals with Randy Stonehill and Larry, thanks to an initial introduction to Randy by Steve Turner. I’d initially seen Randy play a concert at a church close to where I was at college and was impressed. So, ACG, Greenbelt, Lonesome Stone and formative friendships and auspicious introductions, as well as 60s/70s art school, rather than simply doing poetry readings (something I’d done since 1968 on). It’s the songs that interested Larry, with megathanks to Randy for sharing a cassette of them with his friend. It was out of all this that the move to record in USA came about, although I still didn't know what kind of artist I wanted to be! Poet? Filmmaker? It was all a bit of a mess.

Sorry for the tangled narrative. I'm afraid it does not get any better!

RL: So you're in Los Angeles with the Solid Rock crew of musicians working on Moving Pictures. Were you happy with the overall sound and musical direction? What was Larry like to work with in the studio?

SS: Great experience. Up 'til then it was me and a nylon string guitar, now it was a full-on rock band of some of the best arrangers and players I’d ever heard. In London I’d seen Larry working on Larry tracks, some of which I think were for Only Visiting This Planet, which was amazing in itself. And now to be in a Los Angeles studio having him produce and arrange my music? Stellar! And have the likes of Mark Heard and Tom Howard play on it? Brilliant! Would all this turn into something that would be self sustaining while letting me go to galleries, film screenings and poetry readings? That was the big idea.

RL: At some point your album release didn't happen. Word Records, who Solid Rock had a distribution deal with, thought your album was too rebellious and 'different', and there were record company problems – personal, financial and administrative – that eventually led to the end of Solid Rock and you walking away and moving north to the Bay Area (San Francisco) and Sacramento.

SS: Well, I’ve no real idea what Word thought. `Rebellious’ seems unlikely. They might have heard a bit and thought `nah/pass’ for any number of reasons, from boredom on. As you say, things began to get complex and unravel on a number of different levels and eventually I walked away from the project and ended up working with an arts friendly church in Northern California, Warehouse Christian Ministries (Louis and Mary Neeley). Whole other story, as they say, not least because a: One of the results of their arts friendly focus was Exit Records, 77s, Vector, Charlie Peacock and moi (plus luminous others) and b: moving to Northern California put me close to Berkeley and the beginnings of a whole other bunch of significant friendships with David and Susan Fetcho, Sharon Gallagher, Right On/Radix magazine etc… Radix was where I’d start to publish essays on the arts, and I’d first encountered some back issues of Right On at my second Greenbelt in 1975.

RL: When I interviewed Greg Thornbury, the biographer of Larry Norman, for Punk & Post-Punk journal, he suggested that there were several issues with regard to Solid Rock:

The talent bench in Christian music was fairly short.
The best artists (i.e. Randy Stonehill, Daniel Amos, Mark Heard, Steve Scott) wanted to get secular record contracts, but just weren’t successful in doing so. And that’s what they thought Larry could do for them.
When Larry’s expectations and standards were too high, or when Larry couldn’t manage to get their records to market in a timely fashion, they went to other Christian record labels who had lower artistic requirements and could get records out more expeditiously. I totally get that. It was a compromise.
Most of those artists signed with Solid Rock to get the advantage of having the Street Level booking agency thrown in, because as we all know, most artists make the real money on the road performing and selling merchandise. When Street Level split off from Solid Rock – the appeal of Solid Rock lessened.

Is that how you felt or now feel? Or was there something else going on?

SS: I never pursued a deal in the Christian marketplace, and not really in the secular one either. The closest I came to 'secular’ was with Exit Records and I never really thought in terms of pursuing a `secular’ rock star career. Good grief.

RL: So you pretty quickly released an album, Love in the Western World, on Exit Records, which I understand was set up by musicians based at the Warehouse Church. Is that right? The 77s and Charlie Peacock were there, yes? Jimmy Abegg?

SS: The arts thing at Warehouse blossomed into a multimedia/theater/poetry/painting organisation called Sangre Productions. They ended up recording a sampler album of many of the musicians now involved, including me, and they used my song `Come Back Soon' as the title track. (This involved negotiations with Larry.) The Sangre thing at Warehouse morphed into Exit Records and in 1981 or so I began work with the Scratch band (the 77s) and others on new material.

With Western World I got to record a bunch of songs I'd written really quickly as opposed to the more elaborate Moving Pictures project. All this, along with my position as an associate staff member with the church, provided very interesting ways of connecting with aspects of the art and faith conversations starting to unfold in other churches, at some academic institutions, and in other parts of the world. So I got to travel to places like India, Thailand and Bali where my eyes and ears were opened and my mind blown! All this in turn fed back into the music I was writing, be that songs or poetry and spoken word performance.

RL: Love in the Western World also included the spoken word piece 'This Sad Music' that sowed the seeds for your later albums that combined poetry and the spoken word. You have already mentioned writing poetry, and I know you, Dave Fetcho and Clif Ross had a poetry pamphlet out at one point and were into William Everson (née Brother Antonius)'s poems.

SS: Yes, my interest in spoken word was reignited by one of the tracks we included on Western World album and also the poetry readings and writing workshops I was taking part in both at the church and also with my friends in Berkeley. Yes to William Everson, and a whole bunch of others. In SF I got to see Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Duncan and Tomas Tranströmer give readings. I also spent a lot of time at City Lights Bookstore.

RL: So you have released several albums that involve field recordings, tape loops and ambient music with spoken word recordings, combining all sorts of interests, trips and ideas. Tell me about all that. I know you played Larry the original version of Gavin Bryars' 'Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet' to Larry! Was Bryars a big influence? (And what did Larry think of the music?)

SS: Yes, as above. I had an interest in arts, missions, arts cultural pluralism and what some were describing as an overall shift to the culturally pluralistic, multitraditioned `majority world church’. This provided a larger framework for me to reflect on my/our own artistic/cultural narratives, including the modern/postmodern ones of the First World.

Traveling, meeting artists, making field recordings and integrating them into my own performances, my own reading on cultural pluralism and multiple modernities, and observing some of these things beginning to impact some Christian thinking and practice in an increasingly connected world, all influenced me, along with Gavin Bryars! I don't know what Larry thought about Bryars though.

RL: You seem to have pretty much settled into being a cult artist, involved in international dialogue and discussions about the arts' place in society and faith. I know you have written a couple of books about this, and you have also talked over the years about the sustained use of an idea or metaphor. Can you, briefly, summaries your ideas about all this? Have we moved on at all from Calvin Seerveld's and Hans Rookmaker's ideas?

SS: Well, as I suggested above, the conversation was changing, even back in the Postmodern seventies although I was not sure that `we’ were keeping up… My practice since that time along with all the travel suggests to me that there are multiple art histories (not just the Western one), as well as dynamically changing models of how to exhibit art. Everything from the internet to the international bienniale has impacted the hows and wheres of art display, and there are many changes in the global economy that have impact on social and cultural development. Then there are retrievals from and reframing exercises of `our’ art history that puts that art in a brand new light. The Pre-Raphaelites, for example…

So it’s a dynamic conversation in a dynamic field. Are we up for that conversation? I think a writer and artist like Makoto Fujimura certainly is.

RL: Let's go back to these Solid Rock albums! Why are they being released now? Is it demand from fans, a tidying up exercise or simply Charles Normal's enthusiasm for the project? I know you have previously sidestepped questions about Christian versus secular record labels and talked about simply being happy to have your music released and your books published, but is there an element of Jesus Music archaeology going on here? Nostalgia, even?

SS: I hope there’s a sufficient demand. I keep hearing about this recording project from those that want to know `when?’ I like the songs and think Larry did a great job of capturing and amplifying their potential, and there are great people playing on the tracks. Nostalgia? Certainly, but not just looking back, looking forward to hearing these songs today.

RL: And what's actually been done to or with the original recordings? I know Charles has added some guitar and remixed it – anything else?

SS: The original analogue tracks were retrieved, separated and digitized. The digital tracks were mixed, polished, shined up… Charles adding some gloss and maybe a bit of layered support in one or two instances.

RL: Are we going to see a live rock tour on the back of this?

SS: Not by me!!

RL: And if not, what are your future plans at the moment?

SS: More writing in different forms. I’m pulling together my selected and new poems for a small US publisher. More poetry recordings. Always. Also, I’ve recorded and mixed/mastered an EPs worth of new songs in a local studio for an eventual album project.

Other books? It would be great to pull the more recent published arts essays (last 20 years) and do another volume supplemental to the first two books on the arts and multiculturalism (Crying for a Vision and Like a House on Fire). We’ll see…

RL: Great! Thanks for taking the time to do this Steve and for all your ideas, friendship and discussions over the last 40+ years!

SS: Thank you for a chance to air out my head! Hopefully it untangles into something usable.

•

Steve Scott can be contacted via the cryingforavision website

His most recent albums (on Harding Street Assembly Lab) are Cross My Heat and The Way of the Sevenfold Secret.

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Steve Scott - This Sad Music.

Tuesday, 2 December 2025

Advent Reflection: Seven Great O Antiphons

The Advent reflection I shared today with the Basildon Chapter was based on Malcolm Guite's Advent Antiphon sonnets and Steve Bell's use of them on Keening for the Dawn:

'We are at the beginning of a holy season in which we connect again with our ‘inconsolable longing’, as C.S. Lewis called it, our yearning for the One who is to come and is also, mysteriously, the One who has come already, come as child, come as fellow-sufferer, come as Saviour, and yet whose coming, already achieved, we hold at bay from ourselves, so that we have to learn afresh each year, even each day, how to let him come to us again.

In the first centuries the Church had a beautiful custom of praying seven great prayers calling afresh on Christ to come, calling him by the mysterious titles he has in Isaiah,' calling to him; O Emmanuel (God With Us) ; O Sapientia (Wisdom); O Radix (Root); O Oriens (Daystar); O Clavis (Key); O Adonai (Great Lord); and O Rex Gentium (Desire of Nations).

'These antiphons were sung before and after the Magniﬁcat at Vespers, according to the Roman use, on the seven days preceding Christmas Eve (17–23 December). They are addressed to God, calling for him to come as teacher and deliverer, with a tapestry of scriptural titles and pictures that describe his saving work in Christ. In the medieval rite of Salisbury Cathedral that was widely followed in England before the Reformation, the antiphons began on 16 December and there was an additional antiphon (‘O Virgin of virgins’) on 23 December; this is reﬂected in the Calendar of The Book of Common Prayer, where 16 December is designated O Sapientia (O Wisdom).'

'Until a few years ago, I didn’t know what these “Great O Antiphons” were; although I was well acquainted with the song (O come, O come Emmanuel) that preserves the tradition and these seven ancient, prophetic names' for the Christ.

The person who made me aware of these Advent Antiphons was the priest-poet Malcolm Guite, who has 'responded to these seven Antiphons with seven sonnets, re-voicing them for our own age now, but preserving the heart of each, which is a prayer for Christ’s Advent for his coming, now in us, and at the end of time, in and for all.'

Click here to read Malcolm Guite's sonnet O Sapientia.

'The last of the Seven Great O Antiphons, which was sung on either side of the Magnificat, is O Emmanuel, O God with us. This is the antiphon from which our lovely Advent hymn takes its name. It was also this final antiphon which revealed the secret message embedded subtly into the whole antiphon sequence. In each of these antiphons we call on Christ to come to us, to come as Light as Key, as King, as God-with-us. Now, singing this Antiphon standing on the brink of Christmas Eve, looking back at the illuminated capital letters for each of the seven titles of Christ we would see an answer to our pleas : ERO CRAS, the latin words meaning ‘Tomorrow I will come!”

O Emmanuel
O Rex
O Oriens

O Clavis
O Radix
O Adonai
O Sapientia'

Malcolm Guite in his final sonnet 'tries to look back across the other titles of Christ, but also to look forward, beyond Christmas, to the new birth for humanity and for the whole cosmos, which is promised in the birth of God in our midst.'

Click here to read Malcolm Guite's sonnet O Emmanuel.

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Steve Bell - O Come, O Come Emmanuel.

Artlyst - The Art Diary December 2025

My December Art Diary for Artlyst highlights books and exhibitions exploring themes of national art – both British and Sudanese. I have also included several other art books that may be of interest as gifts at Christmas. Then I turn to exhibitions in ecclesiastical settings, along with others that feature Edmund de Waal, Paula Rego, and Sean Scully. Books also feature in a range of linked ways in several of these exhibitions, too:

'The ambitious and entrepreneurial Turner had a rapid rise to prominence. At the same time, Constable was equally determined to forge his own path as an artist but faced a longer, more arduous rise to acclaim. Though from different worlds, both artists were united in their desire to transform landscape painting for the better. Turner painted blazing sunsets and sublime scenes from his travels. At the same time, Constable often returned to depictions of a handful of beloved places, striving for freshness and authenticity in his portrayal of nature. As they vied for success through these very different yet equally bold approaches, the stage was set for a heady rivalry in the competitive world of landscape art. As Grosvenor notes in his book, their achievements established a form of British art that drew on earlier religious inspirations, exploring these within a spirit of place and the illumination of divine light.'

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

Monthly diary articles -

Articles/Reviews -

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Steve Scott - Different Kind Of Light.