Between: magazines

Showing posts with label magazines. Show all posts

Saturday, 5 November 2022

Poem - The language of angels

My latest poem to be published by Stride Magazine is available from today. Entitled 'The language of angels,' it was written for Nicola Ravenscroft's series of 'in the language of angels' images.

For more on Stride click here, to read my other poems published by Stride, click here, here, here, and here, and to read a review written for Stride of two poetry collections, one by Mario Petrucci and the other by David Miller, click here.

Stride magazine was founded in 1982. Since then it has had various incarnations, most recently in an online edition since the late 20th century. You can visit its earlier incarnation at http://stridemagazine.co.uk.

I have read the poetry featured in Stride and, in particular, the work of its editor Rupert Loydell over many years and was very pleased that Rupert gave a poetry reading when I was at St Stephen Walbrook.

Rupert Loydell is a poet, painter, editor and publisher, and senior lecturer in English with creative writing at Falmouth University. He is interested in the relationship of visual art and language, collaborative writing, sequences and series, as well as post-confessional narrative, experimental music and creative non-fiction.

He has edited Stride magazine for over 30 years, and was managing editor of Stride Books for 28 years. His poetry books include Wildlife and Ballads of the Alone (both published by Shearsman), and The Fantasy Kid (for children).

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John Tavener - Eternity's Sunrise.

Monday, 13 June 2022

Never Again: Artistic Peace Projects

My latest article is for Epiphany, the magazine of Epiphanyart, an ecumenical society of Christian artists in Britain formed over 70 years ago and affiliated to the international movement Société Internationale des Artistes Chrétiens (SIAC) which supports national Christian arts events in many countries.

Epiphanyart aims: 1.To bring the work of Christian artists to the notice of churches and the public; 2. To provide opportunities for mutual support and encouragement to its members; 3. To provide a resource for exhibition organisers and others to contact and commission artists via its website; and 4. To serve as a focus for all forms of creativity.

This edition of Epiphany features: Kreg Yingst, an American print maker; Helen Armstrong on commissions at St George's Hove; poetry by Janet Wilkes; and Peter Osbourne on Lincoln Cathedral.

Among the many artists forced to flee Nazi Germany were the sculptor Ernst Müller-Blensdorf and Ervin Bossányi. In my article, I give an account of two war-time artists who made their way to Britain and ended up making an important contribution to the cultural life of the country through their art:

"The focus on peace promotion that we find in the work of Blensdorf and Bossányi was characteristic of other émigré artists in this period, a concern shared more widely still within society at the time. ‘Never again’ was a common expression after 1945, symbolizing a universal desire to avoid another world war, a desire that was clearly expressed in 1945 through the establishment of the United Nations. The stories and works of these two demonstrate that artists can make a significant contribution to the cause of peace. In these days of increased conflict within Europe, we would do well to revive our awareness of such artists and find inspiration in their search for peace."

For more on Blensdorf click here and on Bossányi here.

Join Epiphanyart to receive the Epiphany magazine.

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Henryk Gorecki - Symphony No.3.

Sunday, 5 June 2022

Art and faith: Decades of engagement - 1980s

This is Part 10 in a series of posts which aim to demonstrate the breadth of engagement there has been between the Arts and religion within the modern period and into our contemporary experience. The idea is to provide a brief introduction to the artists and initiatives that were prominent in each decade to enable further research. Inevitably, these lists will be partial as there is much that I don’t know and the lists reflect my interests and biases. As such, the primary, but not exclusive, focus is on artists that have engaged with the Christian tradition.

The introduction and the remainder of the series can be found at: Introduction, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s.

Graham Greene’s Monsignor Quixote (1982), Shūsaku Endō’s The Samurai (1980) and Scandal (1986), David Lodge’s How Far Can You Go? (1980), Walker Percy’s The Second Coming (1980) and The Thanatos Syndrome (1987), Czeslaw Milosz’ The Issa Valley: A Novel (1981), Morris West’s The Clowns of God (1981), Alice Thomas Ellis’ The 27th Kingdom (1982), Tasos Leivaditis’ The Blind Man with the Lamp (1983) Morley Callaghan’s Our Lady of the Snows (1985), Julien Green’s God’s Fool: The Life and Times of Francis of Assisi (1985), Brian Moore’s Black Robe: A Novel (1985), Torgny Lindgren’s Light (1987), J.F. Powers’ Wheat That Springeth Green (1988), Muriel Spark’s A Far Cry from Kensington (1988), and Nicholas Mosley’s Catastrophe Practice (1989) are published.
U2 sign with Island Records and release their debut album, Boy in 1980. Subsequent work such as their first UK number-one album, War (1983), and the singles "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Pride (In the Name of Love)" help establish their reputation as a politically, spiritually and socially conscious group. By the mid-1980s, they become renowned globally for their live act, highlighted by their performance at Live Aid in 1985. Their fifth album, The Joshua Tree (1987), makes them international superstars and is their greatest critical and commercial success, topping music charts around the world.
The Call forms in Santa Cruz, California in 1980 and release nine studio albums over the next two decades before disbanding in 2000. Their 1986 song, "I Still Believe (Great Design)", is covered by Tim Cappello and included in the 1987 film The Lost Boys. The band also achieves significant success with "Let the Day Begin" in 1989 which reaches No. 1 on the Billboard U.S. Mainstream Rock chart and is later used as a campaign theme song for Al Gore's 2000 Presidential Campaign.
In 1980, T. Bone Burnett releases his first post–Alpha Band solo album, Truth Decay, a roots rock album described by the Rolling Stone Record Guide as "mystic Christian blues". In 1982, his Trap Door EP yielded the FM radio hit "I Wish You Could Have Seen Her Dance". His 1983 album Proof Through the Night, whose song "When the Night Falls" got some FM airplay, and his 1987 album The Talking Animals were more in the vein of 1980s new wave music, while his self-titled 1986 album was an album of acoustic country music.
The Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to Czesław Miłosz in 1980 and to William Golding in 1983.
Temenos, a ‘Review devoted to the Arts of the Imagination’, is founded in 1981 by Professor Keith Critchlow (architect and geometer; d. 2020), Brian Keeble (publisher and writer), Kathleen Raine (poet and literary scholar; d. 2003) and Philip Sherrard (theologian and Hellenist; d. 1995).
In 1981, Yoki Aebischer Emile co-founded the Museum of Stained Glass in Romont, which is now the Vitromusée.
Julie and Buddy Miller marry in 1981. They first meet in 1976 in Austin when Buddy auditions for and plays in a band with Julie. They sing and play on each other's solo projects and record three duet albums. Many other artists record songs composed by Julie. ‘Fuelled by a spiritual quest that's both powerful and inspiring, Buddy and Julie Miller have created a musical style that stems from their unique combination of blue-eyed soul, sweet country charm, and rock & roll energy.’
American folk punk band Violent Femmes are discovered by James Honeyman-Scott (of the Pretenders) on August 23, 1981, when the band was busking on a street corner in front of the Oriental Theatre, the Milwaukee venue that the Pretenders would be playing later that night. Chrissie Hynde invited them to play a brief acoustic set after the opening act. After their debut album Violent Femmes, the band released Hallowed Ground, which moved the group toward a country music sound and introduced Christian themes. Violent Femmes become one of the most successful rock bands of the 1980s and release ten studio albums over the course of their career.
In 1983, a font of polished polyphant stone and beaten copper by John Skelton is installed at Chichester Cathedral.
In 1983, the Sign of the Cross exhibition organised by Janusz Bogucki takes place in the church of God's Mercy in Warsaw.
In 1983, Archimandrite Zenon begins work on the St Daniel Monastery in Moscow.
In 1983, Jyoti Sahi sets up the Indian School of Art for Peace, with the idea of relating art to Indian spirituality.
In 1983, Christian Art in Asia by Masao Takenaka is published by the World Council of Churches.
Collections of writings by Marie-Alain Couturier are published: Art sacré (Houston: Menil Foundation/Herscher, 1983) and La Verité blessée (Paris: Plon, 1984).
Geoffrey Hill devotes a long poem to Charles Péguy in 1984. The Mystery of the Charity of Charles Péguy evokes the title of Péguy’s most famous poem Le Mystère de la Charité de Jeanne d’Arc (1909). Hill also writes an enthusiastic appreciation of Péguy, whom he regards as a kindred spirit.
Arvo Pärt's music comes to public attention in the West largely thanks to Manfred Eicher who records several of Pärt's compositions for ECM Records, starting in 1984.
In 1984, 'Baptism' by Patrick Procktor is installed at Chichester Cathedral.
In 1984, Apocalypse – The Light in the Darkness exhibition is organised by Janusz Bogucki.
In 1985, a tapestry by Ursula Benker-Schirmir is installed in the retro-choir at Chichester Cathedral.
In 1985, Jerzy Nowosielski revealed his full fascination with icon paintings through the publication of "Wokół ikony" / "Around the Icon".
In 1986, John Muafangelo creates his print New Archbishop Desmond Tutu Enthroned.
In 1986, William Hawkins paints Last Supper #6.
Peter Case begins his solo career with a self-titled album released in 1986 on Geffen Records. Produced by T-Bone Burnett and Mitchell Froom, the record includes three songs co-written by Burnett and one by Victoria Williams (his then wife). In 1989, Case releases a second solo album, The Man With the Blue Post-Modern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Guitar. While not a major commercial success, the album is a favourite of critics and other musicians. Later songs include Drunkard's Harmony’, an exhilarating expression of seeing Jesus and ‘The Words in Red’, ‘the words that Jesus told’ which are ‘Worth the wait in the world of gold’.
In 1987, Peter Fuller founds Modern Painters.
In 1987, Andy Warhol’s final exhibition during his lifetime, Warhol—Il Cenacolo, features twenty-two of his Last Supper works and is staged in the refectory of Milan’s Palazzo delle Stelline, which then housed the bank Credito Valtellinese.
On 4 June 1987 Dominique de Menil opens the Menil Collection building in Houston. Inside is one of the largest and most important private collections assembled in the 20th century, comprising more than 10,000 objects: Paleolithic bone carvings, Cycladic idols, Byzantine relics, African totems, and Oceanic effigies, as well as modernist masterpieces from Cézanne, Picasso, Braque, Magritte, Ernst, Calder, Rothko, Rauschenberg, Warhol, and Johns.
In 1987, John and Jane Dillenberger publish ‘On Art and Architecture’ in which the range of Paul Tillich’s views on art and architecture is more fully covered than in othervolumes.
Having signed to Megaforce Records in 1987, King's X release twelve studio albums, two official live albums, and several independent releases. They break into the mainstream with their first six albums, including their only top 100 charting albums Faith Hope Love (1990) and Dogman (1994). The band is pivotal in the early development of progressive metal, with lyrics largely based on the members' struggles with religion and self-acceptance.
Described as being ‘Part front-porch soothsayer, part quirky bayou princess, and part eternal child’, Josh Kun says ‘Victoria Williams writes songs of indescribable originality that embrace the earthly and the divine with wit, charm, and understated vision’. Her albums, beginning with 1987’s Happy Come Home, are like little else in the world of popular music moving, as they do, through folk, country, gospel, and rock. Yet it took an MS diagnosis and 1993’s all-star fundraising album, Sweet Relief, to really make the wider world aware of William’s extraordinary talents.
In 1988, 'Virgin and Child' by John Skelton is installed at Chichester Cathedral.
In 1988, Archimandrite Zenon works on the St Seraphim side-chapel of the Trinity Cathedral Church of Pskov.
In 1988, Images of Religion in Australian Art by Rosemary Crumlin and The Living Tree: Art and the Sacred by John Lane are published.
In 1988, The Secret Rapture by David Hare is performed.
In 1989, Labyrinth – The Underground Space exhibition is organised by Janusz Bogucki.
In 1989, New York City’s Limited Editions Club commissions Jacob Lawrence to illustrate the first chapters of Genesis from the King James Version of the Bible.
Image Journal is founded by Gregory Wolfe and Harold Fickett in 1989.

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Victoria Williams - Holy Spirit.

Sunday, 21 June 2020

Poems for Amethyst Review and Stride magazine

My poem 'Are/Are Not' has just been published by Amethyst Review. This is the first of two poems that Amethyst Review will be publishing, the second appearing on 13 July.

I have also been pleased to have three poems accepted by Stride magazine. All these poems concern other poets beginning with the artist-poet David Jones ('Window into the divine', 1 June), continuing with Dylan Thomas ('Dylan Thomas was more at home with Blake and Vaughan than Marx and Proust', 2 June) and ending on 27 June with Jack Clemo. The third of these poems features in a Stride series entitled 'Talking to the Dead' which began on 17 June and can be read by clicking here.

Amethyst Review is a new publication for readers and writers who are interested in creative exploration of spirituality and the sacred. Readers and writers of all religions and none are most welcome. All work published engages in some way with spirituality or the sacred in a spirit of thoughtful and respectful inquiry, rather than proselytizing.

The Editor-in-chief is Sarah Law – poet (mainly), tutor, occasional critic, sometime fiction writer. She has published five poetry collections, the latest of which is Ink’s Wish. She set up Amethyst Review feeling the lack of a UK-based platform for the sharing and readership of new literary writing that engages in some way with spirituality and the sacred.

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Dylan Thomas - Fern Hill.

Thursday, 27 December 2018

Sister Wendy Beckett RIP

My latest piece for Artlyst is an appreciation of the life and writing of Sister Wendy Beckett who has died aged 88:

'I first encountered Sister Wendy Beckett in the pages of ‘Modern Painters’, the art magazine founded by the art critic Peter Fuller which ‘celebrated the critical imagination; stood up for aesthetic values and had a particular focus on British art.’

An early piece would have been a review of an exhibition by Norman Adams in which she suggested that a mystical sense of oneness was making itself visible in his work. In ‘The Way of the Cross and the Paradise Garden’ she noted a radiance of joy conveyed by ‘angels somersaulting through a dazzle of colour bars, crosses of light, that proclaims the marvellous oneness of the Death of Christ and His Rising.’

My other Artlyst articles and interviews are:

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The Civil Wars - I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.

Friday, 24 January 2014

Hearts on Fire reports and photographs

Reports and photographs from ArtServe's Hearts on Fire conference, where Peter Banks and I spoke about The Secret Chord, can be found on ArtServe's website and in the current edition of their magazine.

Other features included in the magazine are a profile of Abby Guinness, the genesis of Jean Lamb's wooden sculpture of Christ the King, Rob Newton's visit to the Church of South India, and the winning entries in the Jack Clemo Poetry Award.

Click here for my posts on the conference.

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Abby Guinness - The Word of the Wives.

Thursday, 20 August 2009

Glimpes of Clarity

"Sometimes we find ourselves on the edge, falling uncontrollably through life, punctured by a cannonball sized hole of despair, overwhelmed by emotion, facing the perhaps impossible task of trying to pick up the pieces and put ourselves back together from a pile of shattered fragments."

Glimpses of Clarity was a recent exhibition by George Triggs at the Art Academy which features in the current edition of art of england. Broken is the piece that provide the cover photo for this edition of the magazine and about which the above quote pertains.

Triggs has written of this work:

“Broken goes about examining the fragility, isolation and silent determination of our existence. It captures the seemingly impossible task of picking up the pieces and putting ourselves back together after a complete emotional implosion. This life-size figure is in fractured pieces slumped on a stool. It is trying to rebuild itself, examining the deterioration of its own existence, examining what it means to be broken, questioning whether it can return to life anew, questioning whether the cracks and experiences stay below the surface and whether some pieces of itself are gone forever. Broken was created in solid clay, then cast as a hollow shell, which I then literally shattered into pieces and reassembled. Looking at all the pieces, it seemed like an impossible task, which made it both more exciting, exhausting and inspiring. The process was a huge emotional and thought-provoking journey for me which I feel transfers to the work.”

Photos of the work can be found here and here.

T.S. Eliot writes, at the end of The Waste Land, of shoring fragments against his ruin and that equates to Triggs' sculpture but both, I think, also capture a sense of the inspiration and revelation which comes as this shoring of fragments against our ruin takes place. Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective presents a similar vision and one that I have linked to Jesus' restoration of Peter following his denial (John 21. 15-19).

Leonard Cohen in Anthem highlights the sense in which we all are cracked and broken within our lives and that, it is actually through our cracked natures that light comes into our lives and the world:

"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."

This echoes 2 Corinthians 4: 6-12 in which Paul writes of our lives as being like cracked clay pots with the light of Christ shining through the cracks or fractures in our lives. I have reflected on this insight in the meditation below:

unregarded

Birthplace,
least among the clans of Judea.
Home town,
a place from which no good was known to come.
In appearance,
without beauty or majesty, undesired.
In life,
despised and rejected, unrecognised and unesteemed.
In death,
made nothing.
His followers,
not wise, not influential, not noble – fools!

The light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the bodies and form of human beings.
Light shining
through the gaps and cracks of clay pots.
Light shining
in the unexpected places, despised faces, hidden spaces.
Light shining
in the poor, the mourners, the meek, the hungry.
Light shining
in the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers.
Light shining
in the persecuted, the insulted, the falsely accused.
Light shining
in the lowly, the despised, the nonentities.
Light shining
in weakness and fear and trembling.
Light shining
in the foolish followers of the King of Fools.

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Leonard Cohen - Anthem.

Friday, 19 December 2008

A Christian embrace of contemporary art

I've been visiting galleries today on my day off beginning at England & Co to see Remembering Albert Herbert. It was interesting to see early etchings of London in a similar style to but without mythic power and psychological density of the Biblical etchings. Also interesting was the extent to which towards the end of his life the Biblical references fell away and Herbert focussed on relational imagery drawn from youth and early parenthood.

While at England & Co I was also intrigued by two collage constructions with found text from Chris Kenny. Kenny produces, as England & Co's website states, an unexpected kind of poetry with his three-dimensional ‘drawings’ and constructions made from twigs, fragments of maps and strips of found text. Objects or phrases of the same type are mounted on pins and organised in a way that suggests an intention to rationalise the differences between them. The constructions I saw featured fragments of text arranged to form squares or circles and either telling a partial story or making word associations. Being mounted on pins they cast shadows mirroring the squares or circles created by the found text. There is therefore a visual and lingual patterning formed from fragments and yet one that is partial, ephemeral and fragile.

England & Co also regularly feature Outsider Art and while I was in Notting Hill I picked up a copy of the Raw Vision Outsider Art Sourcebook. Produced by the people behind Raw Vision magazine this is a useful introduction to Outsider artists, environments, collections, galleries, publications, and websites.

Walking from Bond Street to Saville Row to see the Garry Fabian Miller exhibition at James Hyman Fine Art, I passed the Halcyon Gallery which is currently showing Bob Dylan's Drawn Blank series. Dylan's art is interesting more for what it reveals or doesn't reveal about him but while there I also saw some lithographs by Marc Chagall and sculptures by Lorenzo Quinn.

Quinn's symbolic sculptures reminded me of the work of Juginder Lamba and Ana Maria Pacheco but with a smoother felicity which is reflected in his choice of materials and which at times displays a sentimentality and lack of originality in his imagery; clasped hands symbolising love and an open hand holding a figure symbolising the hand of God.

What I found most interesting about discovering Quinn's work in this way, was that here was yet another successful artist exhibiting in a central London gallery and enjoying major commissions while exploring significant religious themes in his work. Many such artists seem almost totally ignored by large sections of the Christian Church and yet are successfully raising questions of faith and meaning in so-called 'secular' settings. Their work should be celebrated yet is often ignored.

Time Passage is the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of photographs by Fabian Miller ever staged in London and includes some of his most acclaimed photographic series. Fabian Miller explores the elements of light, time and colour in camera-less images produced in his darkroom. His images are created by a long process of exposing light directly onto photographic paper through organic materials and substances. He uses this approach to create luminous windows of colour that range from abstract expressionist stripes and rectangles to contemplative evocations of landscapes.

The gallery blurb notes the spirituality of Fabian Miller's work and again we are encountering an artist with links to Christianity. He was co-curator of The Journey, a search for the role of contemporary art in religious and spiritual life, exhibited at Lincoln Cathedral and chose to work specifically with cruciform imagery in his Petworth series. This is not to imply that there is anything didactic in Fabian Miller's work. His spirituality emerges through a wonderful and wondering engagement with the interaction of light and nature.

Back at home and reading the Church Times I was pleased to see that Hertford stns and the Advent Art Installation both featured in Glyn Paflin's review of the Arts for 2008. Also waiting for me was a review copy of God in the Gallery which aims to explore a Christian embrace of Modern Art. Now that I like the sound of!

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Edmund Rubbra - Fukagawa (Deep River).