Here's my reflection from last night's Bread for the World at
St Martin-in-the-Fields, which took the
'Leaves for Healing' exhibition as its theme:
Ezekiel 47 is a vision of a transformed desert landscape with transformation beginning in the temple; a place where God’s presence was very real, an intersecting point of heaven and earth.
God’s presence in the Temple is the source of new life, seen as water flowing out and into the landscape, transforming the barren, empty desert into incredibly fertile land. Geographically Jerusalem (the location of the temple) is on very high ground and the Dead Sea is below sea level, meaning water can only flow into it. The water becomes stagnant and unsuitable for drinking or watering plants. So the vision here of life giving water, flowing into stagnant waters, turning it into fresh water and generating swarms of life, would have fired the imaginations of those who first heard these words.
The description of trees and fruit and flowing rivers evokes the creation story and suggests God is renewing and recreating the land, fulfilling his original creation purpose. Both sides of the river produce all kinds of trees for food and remarkably these trees are so fertile they produce fruit every month because of the incredible life flowing from the temple. The passage finishes with a wonderful vision of the fruit from these trees being food and the leaves used for healing.
This vision of life being released into the dry desert of Ezekiel’s time has fired the imaginations of the artists and craftspeople’s group at St Martin’s and encouraged us to imagine this life flowing into our 21st century context. The result has been the ‘Leaves for Healing’ exhibition in the foyer of the Crypt which began in Lent with Part 1 of the exhibition and is continuing now in Eastertide with Part 2 of the exhibition. Having the exhibition in two halves has enabled us to reflect the transition in the passage from wilderness to fertile land and to explore that transition in relation to Lent and Eastertide.
Some of the artists in the group took the opportunity this passage provides to begin the exhibition with an artwork that reflected wilderness and then transform that same artwork to reflect change, fertility and growth. Among the works that do so are pieces by Lois Bentley, Ruth Hutchison, Jonathan Kearney, Ali Lyon and Sarah Sikorski.
Lois created personal photographic collages on triangular pieces of sheet steel. In the first half of the exhibition she hung the three triangular steel sheets strung out in a line alongside each other with the points of each triangle facing down. In this configuration, which she called ‘Three hanging,’ they reminded us of the three crosses on Calvary, the central triangle showing imagery related to its title, ‘Bruised’. For the second part of the exhibition Lois has re-shaped and re-organised the piece. It is now called ‘Re-United’ and the principal change is that she has hung the middle triangle point upwards to indicate that Jesus’ work on the cross is finished and the Trinity are restored to their coherent whole. She says that she was inspired to do this by Jesus asking Peter for the third time - do you love me?
Ruth Hutchison’s first piece was called ‘Grieving for my Garden’ and reflected the sense of loss Ruth felt at no longer having ‘a beautiful garden with lots of everything including barbeques, family gatherings and places just to sit quietly, listen to trees blowing in the wind while the blackbird sings.’ Her garden had been a context for her creativity. Now art has become the outlet for her creativity. Following her passion for recycling, all her art materials are recycled from skips, charity shops and from friends, keeping in line with the theme of ‘your rubbish is my treasure’. Using these recycled materials her piece in the second part of the exhibition is entitled ‘The Barbeque’ and expresses in a different form the pleasure that she once found in the barbeques held in her garden. Her art enables her to express grief at her loss and also to express past pleasures in new forms.
Jonathan Kearney has prepared an abstract piece printed in colours that evoke the differing emotions of Lent and Eastertide. The first piece is sombre colours was called ‘Anticipation,’ while the second with more vibrant colouring is entitled ‘New Week.’
Ali Lyon’s piece is called ‘Down in the River to Pray’ and is made of hand-dyed fabric in deepening shades of blue, with some salt embellishment. Her piece follows the image of deepening water, the trees on the banks, and the salty water. The shores of plain green were unadorned for Lent and now, for Eastertide, are blossoming with a variety of hand-stitched leaves.
This is such a marvellously evocative passage using so much natural imagery – water, rivers, sea, swamps, marshes, fish, trees, fruit, leaves etc. – that our artists have been able to explore its imagery from a variety of very different perspectives. I’ve just given a taster tonight; an introduction that doesn’t refer to the majority of the pieces or the artists. Clearly, the best way to appreciate the exhibition is to view it yourself and to take time with each of the pieces in turn. The second best way to appreciate is to hear from the artists themselves and so Sarah Sikorski is now going to show us the two pieces she made for the exhibition and tell us a little about them.
Sarah told us briefly about screenprinting and the beauty of using repetition in imagery. The title of Sarah's Lenten piece,
When the river empties into the Sea, the water there becomes fresh, is from Ezekiel 47 v 8. The theme of the work is pollution of the seas with plastic. The design is inspired by Tapa bark cloth made by indigenous peoples of the Pacific islands, in particular Tonga. Ancient rock paintings of fish from caves in the Northern Territories of Australia were another influence, as was the patterns found in the plastics in the oceans, and on our beaches. The Lenten question considered by the piece is about our need for fresh living water. Her current piece, Leaves for Healing, uses repeated imagery of leaves and incorporates the phrase: 'Every month the leaves with bear, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.'
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