Upcoming activities and ministry (3)

commission4mission, an exhibition designed to encourage the commissioning of contemporary Christian art opened in the Crypt Gallery at St Martin-in-the-Fields yesterday.

Fifteen commission4mission artists are showing works in a variety of media, including concept drawings, fused glass, paintings, reliefs and textiles. The exhibition also includes examples of some completed commissions and information about the commissioning process. It aims to demonstrate some of the ways commissioned art can be used to enhance a place of worship and add another dimension to a church’s mission. Some of the work is for sale, and enquiries are invited. The exhibition continues each day until 17 July. Open 10.00am - 8.00pm (Sundays, 11.00am - 6.00pm).

To see views of the exhibition click here and for photographs from the private view click here.

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McIntosh Ross - All My Trust I Place In You.

Upcoming events and ministry

I have a busy but varied few days coming up taking further several different strands of ministry.

On Sunday morning I'll be preaching at St Paul's Harlow on epiphanies and the Emmaus story as part of ongoing work that commission4mission is undertaking together with the parish of St Paul's Harlow and St Mary's Parndon. This is designed to develop temporary and possibly permanent artworks in the parish and will also involve a Study Day on 'The value of public art' on Saturday 19th September at St Paul's Harlow.

Sunday afternoon brings our annual ecumenical Praise in the Park event; communal hymn singing led by a Salvation Army band at the newly refurbished bandstand in Seven Kings Park.

Monday sees the start of commission4mission's exhibition at the Crypt Gallery in St Martin-in-the-Fields, include the private view between 6.00 and 8.00pm that evening. Sixteen commission4mission artists will show 40 works in a variety of media, including concept drawings, fused glass, paintings, reliefs and textiles. I will be showing three pieces: the first combines a poem and image; the second is a page from the prospective book of Stations of the Cross images and meditations that Henry Shelton and I have compiled; while the third will be one of my most recent paintings, but having done some new work today I am currently unsure which piece to show.

Finally, on Tuesday I will be speaking on the Big Society in Redbridge from a faith perspective at the Big Society Mapping Event which I have been involved in organising together with the local authority. The event has developed out of meetings between the ecumenical borough deans and the local authority and will be held at Holy Trinity Barkingside from 10.30am. The event's aim is to gain an overview of the types of services and facilities that faith groups in the borough currently provide and how faith groups and the Council can work together to develop new opportunities.

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Peter Case - Beyond The Blues.

commission4mission exhibitions

commission4mission has two exhibitions planned for July. The first will be at the Crypt Gallery, St Martin-the-Fields, from 4th - 17th July, 10.00am - 8.00pm and will include a wide range of artists showing work in a variety of media including concept drawings, fused glass, paintings and reliefs. The exhibition will also include information about completed commissions and the commissioning process. Exhibiting artists currently include: Adam Boulter, Harvey Bradley, Colin Burns, Ally Clarke, Ann Creasey, Valerie Dean, Mark Lewis, Viki Isherwood-Metzler, Nadiya Pavliv-Tokarska, Caroline Richardson, Janet Roberts, Henry Shelton, Sergiy Shkanov, Peter Webb, and myself. A Private View will be held on Monday 4th July from 6.00 - 8.00pm. RSVP to jonathan.evens@btinternet.com, if you would like to attend.

Our second exhibition will be held at Holy Trinity and St Augustine of Hippo Leytonstone from 14th - 20th July (10.00am - 1.00pm and 4.00 – 7.00pm) as part of the Leytonstone Festival and the Barking Episcopal Area Art Festival. This exhibition will include work by Colin Burns, Mark Lewis, Henry Shelton, Joy Rousell Stone and myself. On Wednesday 20th July at 7.30pm, Dr Graham Gould will speak on Scenes from the life of St Augustine, a concrete frieze by the sculptor Stephen Sykes at Holy Trinity and St Augustine, Mark Lewis will speak on the Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area and commission4mission's AGM will be held.
 
I will also be having a solo show at All Saints West Ham during the West Ham Festival and beyond (17th June - 20th July). This show will include my Broken journey, fragmented story installation and selections from my Windows on the world and Gants Hill Art Project photographic series. 

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Peter Case - Dream About You.

Dialogue with my Maker

Painter, Sarah Kelly Paine, drew on her illustration roots and her passion for colour, patterns, the beauty of creation and the great wealth of stories from the Bible for her exhibition Dialogue with my Maker which has just finished at St Martin in the Fields.

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Leon Russell - Stranger In A Strange Land.

The Manifestation - Falling Phoebe

In 2002 Richard Layzell, for a commission from the firstsite gallery in Colchester, invented a group of four artists and made their work for them. After the exhibition closed, Layzell found himself missing the method and ease of producing work that he had discovered as one of these invented artists: Tania Koswycz. He decided to continue fabricating work as Tania finding that the internal dialogue that he engaged in as a result was germane to the creative process and could be dramatized through published dialogues and collaborative installations.

The Manifestation is a touring collaboration between Layzell and Koswycz and, in its most recent form as The Manifestation – Falling Phoebe (a firstsite commission installed at St Martin’s Colchester), represents a return to the town for which Layzell first imagined Koswycz.

In tribute then to Layzell and Koswycz this review continues as a dialogue with a co-reviewer Tania Kostain, who is fictitious.

TK. This it, then? Music stands, TVs, tables and a film! Is this what you dragged me here to see?

JE. It’s artfully arranged, Tania, you must admit. The music stands are the outer edge of a circle that is completed by the curved wooden panel at the rear and the circular tables, their plates and mirrors echo the circle that is the whole installation.

TK. It all looks pretty random to me. So someone’s come up with a particular arrangement for all these different things but so what? What about the film? That’s not part of the circle and it just shows a man collecting leaves and scattering them again.

JE. Maybe the film is intended as an introduction to the installation. In the film disparate objects are gathered up and scattered again just as these has happened with the different objects in this installation.

TK. But you said these objects were artfully arranged which means they’ve not just been scattered, so there must be some purpose in the way they’ve been put together. What’s going on? Do the sheets on the music stands explain it?

JE. Well, they contain a dialogue between the two artists who collaborated on this installation, one of which is a figment of the other’s installation.

TK. You mean, he talks to himself! That’s the first sign of madness, isn’t it?

JE. But don’t we all have an interior conversation going on all the time? You’ve seen dramatizations or visualizations, for example, of angels and demons on people’s shoulders voicing their conflicting thoughts. Isn’t that to do with bringing our internal dialogue into the open?

TK. So, the idea is that we can read the sort of chat he has with himself on the inside when he’s making art. If we can read that talk then we can join in too. I like a good chat myself. So what’re they talking about?

JE. Part of their dialogue deals with an ancestor of the artist who lived in Colchester and married at St Martins.

TK. But that’s where we are, isn’t it? In St Martins?

JE. Well, yes. But they married at St Martins-in-the-Field in London, not this St Martins. So there’s a connection but it’s not exact.

TK. But that’s it, isn’t it? That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? You’ve got all these different objects and the point of the exercise is to find the clues to work out the connections between all the different things – some are personal and some are just cause that’s the way they were put together – but everything is connected in some way. It’s cool; connections and conversation. I can buy that!

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Noah And The Whale - Rocks and Daggers.

Church renewal

East Window at St Martin-in-the-Fields

(designed by Shirazeh Houshiary, in collaboration with architect Pip Horne)

The latest edition of RA, the Royal Academy of Arts magazine, features two Church renewal projects that have been overseen by its members.

The first is the well-known and highly successful renewal of St Martin-in-the-Fields by Eric Parry RA. It was in January 2006 that St Martin's embarked on the £36 million building project to restore and transform the church and surrounding buildings, and create a new sequence of beautiful, practical and inspirational spaces to serve the community, visitors and those in need. Due for completion at the end of 2008 the project is progressing well, with the restoration of the church almost complete and the new underground spaces open to the public.

Natural light now floods into the church bringing it closer to James Gibbs’s original, much-imitated Baroque design. The glorious decorative plasterwork of the ceiling has been restored; the pulpit relocated close to its original place, to improve the sightlines for congregation and audiences; and the chancel reordered to allow greater flexibility for worship and concerts. The finishing touch for the church itself is the installation of a new East Window, designed by artist Shirazeh Houshiary and architect Pip Horne, to replace the window installed following World War II bomb damage. Other significant new features are a glass-walled entrance pavilion and a remodelling of the crypt to include a new parish hall, rehearsal and office space, shop, and an enlarged cafe.

The second is the sculptor Anthony Caro who, over a period of several years, has been working on a major series of sculptures and architectural features to form part of the restoration of a chapel at Bourbourg in Northern France, about 12 miles east of Calais.

The Chapel of Light is situated in the choir of the Church of St Jean Baptiste. During World War II, a damaged English aircraft crash-landed on the roof of the church in order to avoid the houses in the town, and set it on fire. The church itself was restored, but the choir was separated by a wall from the body of the church and left in ruins until ten years ago. Caro was commissioned by the French Ministry for Culture and Communication to make a sculptural installation that would bring new life to the redundant choir.

Specifically for the project he has designed and built two huge internal oak towers each about 18 feet high. These towers are to be used for musical performances and allow vertical exploration of the church space. Caro has also made a concrete baptismal pool and a spectacular series of steel, wood and terracotta sculptures to fill a series of niches in the walls of the apex to the choir. Various other sculptures complete the east and west naves, linked through a doorway to a large exterior sculpture in corten steel. The sculptures follow the themes of The Creation (relating to the baptismal font) culminating in Adam and Eve.

Caro recognises that this monumental project is an exceptional opportunity for an artist. He stated, 'The light in the church is wonderful and it is such a privilege as an artist to be given a whole space to work with'. Not since Matisse's Chapel in Vence has another artist been given this opportunity."

The Church will be inaugurated on Saturday 11 October 2008 during a weekend of events to include the openings of the three exhibitions in Calais, Dunkerque and Gravelines.

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Gustav Holst - On This Day Earth Shall Ring (Personet Hodie).