Sophie Hacker's The Calling window dedicated

Great to see that Sophie Hacker's 'The Calling' stained glass window at Romsey Abbey commemorating Florence Nightingale has finally been dedicated after significant delays due to lockdown.

Sophie told me the story of the window in interviews for ArtWay and Church Times. We also filmed a short interview for HeartEdge at the same time. In the HeartEdge interview Sophie explores her understandings of imaging the invisible.

Sophie Hacker specialises in Church Art, including stained glass windows, vestments and re-ordering liturgical space. Since 2006 she has been Arts and Exhibitions Consultant for Winchester Cathedral, with particular responsibility for curating. Recent commissions include collaborations with musicians and poets, and numerous ecclesiastical projects.

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Wovenhand - 8 of 9.

The Calling Window: ArtWay Interview with Sophie Hacker

I have had an interview with Sophie Hacker published by ArtWay. In our conversation we discussed the background to her commission for The Calling Window at Romsey Abbey, the development of the design, the techniques she has learnt from Tom Denny and the impact that the Covid-19 lockdown has had on the project:

'To be an artist is not a job, but a way of looking at the world. It is a great privilege to be invited to create a piece of public art. For me that includes an imperative to explore a public commission through 360 degrees. I try to understand how a commission might be mis-read, as well as read. There are already a number of public art works celebrating Nightingale’s nursing career, but I felt inspired to focus on how that career came about. The theme of vocation is very important to me. I’ve explored it from a personal perspective in my own artistic practice. So having the opportunity to express ‘calling’ through an image about another person’s vocation has been a real gift. We are all ‘called’ away from what we know to 'something beyond’. For some the path is brightly lit and clear. For others the way seems shrouded and impenetrable. The experience of ‘lockdown’ has brought this truth more sharply into focus.'

An additional interview with Sophie undertaken for HeartEdge explores her understandings of imaging the invisible.

My visual meditations for ArtWay include work by María Inés Aguirre, Giampaolo Babetto, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Alexander de Cadenet, Christopher Clack, Marlene Dumas, Terry Ffyffe, Antoni Gaudi, Nicola Green, Maciej Hoffman, S. Billie Mandle, Giacomo Manzù, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Albert Servaes, Henry Shelton and Anna Sikorska.

My Church of the Month reports include: 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, 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.

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.

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U2 - I Will Follow.

The Calling Window, by Sophie Hacker for Romsey Abbey

My latest article for Church Times is about The Calling Window, by Sophie Hacker for Romsey Abbey:

'Beginning her research into Nightingale’s life, she visited the Florence Nightingale Museum — designed, through a series of pods, to explore the key moments in Nightingale’s life — where she discovered that the first of these events involved a call from God...

The calling story was experienced as a gift from God because Hacker is very interested in the concept of calling. She has made paintings of the Annunciation, and “that sense of being summoned, being called away from what you know to something beyond your understanding, really does compel me.” She reflects, too, that “In this lockdown period, that sense of being called away from the familiar is quite a deep yearning.”

Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here.

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Al Green - Chariots Of Fire.