ArtWay Visual Meditation: In Him All Things Hold Together

My latest Visual Meditation for ArtWay is on Canticle for Assisi by Andrew Vessey:

'This painting was the fruit of a visit to Assisi by the artist Andrew Vessey (b. 1945) and his wife. They were hosted by an artist who was then working on a ‘tavola’ of St Francis, to hang in the Franciscan Church in Assisi and match one made earlier on the life of St Clare, one of St Francis’ first followers and founder of a Franciscan order for women, The Poor Clares. Through excursions and little pilgrimages made during the stay Francis was brought to life for Vessey and his wife, enabling a vision of Christ to emerge – as had inspired St Francis at nearby San Damiano – when he began a painting intended to gather up his impressions of Assisi.

Vessey has described what happened as he painted: ‘As the painting developed something wonderful began to happen. Having painted the city steps and turrets, combining elements from above, below and around the city, its olive groves and poplar trees out on the plain, it was as if the arms and body of the crucified Christ became the perfect cohesion needed to hold everything together. The stretched out body of the crucified Christ … started to emerge through the countryside, wrapping even the hills in its embrace.’'

My review for Church Times of Andrew's recent exhibition at St Edmundsbury Cathedral can be found here.

My visual meditations include work by María Inés Aguirre, Giampaolo Babetto, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Alexander de Cadenet, Christopher Clack, Marlene Dumas, Terry Ffyffe, Jake Flood, Antoni Gaudi, Nicola Green, Maciej Hoffman, Lakwena Maciver, S. Billie Mandle, Giacomo Manzù, Sidney Nolan, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Nicola Ravenscroft, Albert Servaes, Henry Shelton, Anna Sikorska, Alan Stewart, Jan Toorop, Edmund de Waal and Sane Wadu.

My Church of the Month reports include: All Saints Parish Church, Tudeley, 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, St Michael and All Angels Berwick 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.

Blogs for ArtWay include: Congruity and controversy: exploring issues for contemporary commissions;
Photographing Religious Practice; Spirituality and/in Modern Art; and The Spirituality of the Artist-Clown.

Interviews for ArtWay include: Sophie Hacker, Peter Koenig and Belinda Scarlett. I also interviewed ArtWay founder Marleen Hengelaar Rookmaaker for Artlyst.

I have reviewed: Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace, Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe and Jazz, Blues, and Spirituals.

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. See also Modern religious art: airbrushed from art history?

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Sinead O'Connor - Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace.

ArtWay Visual Meditation: Invited to be with Jesus

My latest Visual Meditation for ArtWay is on 'The Blind Jesus (No one belongs here more than you)' by Alan Stewart:

'The Blind Jesus (No-one belongs here more than you) is an image in charcoal of the Last Supper which includes the central character of a visually impaired Jesus, surrounded by twelve people of differing ages, backgrounds and abilities. At the table, an empty chair invites the viewer to find themselves at the table.

This image has been commissioned by Celia Webster, Co-Founder of Wave (We’re All Valued Equally), as part of a project in which it seeds other images of the Last Supper that are truly for everyone. Schools, churches and community groups are being invited as part of this project to create their own Last Supper images.'

For more on The Blind Jesus (No-one belongs here more than you) see here, here and here. My interview with textile artist Belinda Scarlett can also still be read on the ArtWay site.

My visual meditations include work by María Inés Aguirre, Giampaolo Babetto, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Alexander de Cadenet, Christopher Clack, Marlene Dumas, Terry Ffyffe, Jake Flood, Antoni Gaudi, Nicola Green, Maciej Hoffman, Lakwena Maciver, S. Billie Mandle, Giacomo Manzù, Sidney Nolan, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Nicola Ravenscroft, Albert Servaes, Henry Shelton, Anna Sikorska, Jan Toorop, Edmund de Waal and Sane Wadu.

My Church of the Month reports include: All Saints Parish Church, Tudeley, 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, St Michael and All Angels Berwick 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.

Blogs for ArtWay include: Congruity and controversy: exploring issues for contemporary commissions;
Photographing Religious Practice; Spirituality and/in Modern Art; and The Spirituality of the Artist-Clown.

Interviews for ArtWay include: Sophie Hacker, Peter Koenig and Belinda Scarlett. I also interviewed ArtWay founder Marleen Hengelaar Rookmaaker for Artlyst.

I have reviewed: Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace, Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe and Jazz, Blues, and Spirituals.

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. See also Modern religious art: airbrushed from art history?

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Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water.

ArtWay: Come, Lord Jesus, Come Advent Devotional

This week's Visual meditation for ArtWay is written by Victoria Emily Jones and originally appeared in 2016 in the self-published Advent devotional booklet Come, Lord Jesus, Come, available for free download from ArtandTheology.org. The meditation focuses on 'Procession' by one of Ecuador’s most famous artists, Eduardo Kingman who was committed to exposing the poverty and toil of indigenous populations in his native country and abroad.

'Come, Lord Jesus, Come' is an Advent devotional (booklet & slideshow) by Victoria based on an Advent meditation written by myself. Each line of the meditation focuses on one aspect of Christ’s coming. To promote deeper reflection on all these aspects, Victoria has selected twenty-four art images to lead the way in stoking our imaginations and to provide entry points into prayer. She has taken special care to present art from around the world and, where possible, by modern or contemporary artists so that we will be stretched beyond the familiar imagery of the season.

Victoria writes: 'Art is a great way to open yourself up to the mysteries of God, to sit in the pocket of them as you gaze and ponder. “Blessed are your eyes because they see,” Jesus said. Theologians in their own right, artists are committed to helping us see what was and what is and what could be. Here I’ve taken special care to select images by artists from around the world, not just the West, and ones that go beyond the familiar fare. You’ll see, for example, the Holy Spirit depositing the divine seed into Mary’s womb; Mary with a baby bump, and then with midwives; an outback birth with kangaroos, emus, and lizards in attendance; Jesus as a Filipino slum dweller; and Quaker history married to Isaiah’s vision of the Peaceable Kingdom.'

Through 'Come, Lord Jesus, Come' you are invited to consider what it meant for Jesus to be born of woman—coming as seed and fetus and birthed son; the poverty Jesus shared with children around the world; culturally specific bodies of Christ, like a dancing body and a yogic body; how we are called to bear God into the world today; and more.

Victoria writes: 'Advent takes us back and brings us forward. In preparing us to celebrate Christ’s first coming, it places us alongside the ancient prophets, who awaited with aching intensity the fulfilled promise of a messiah, and Joseph and Mary, whose pregnancy made the expectation all the more palpable; it also strengthens our longing for Christ’s second coming, when he will return to fully and finally establish his kingdom on earth ... May God bless you this Advent season as you ponder the amazing truth of the Incarnation.'

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Malcolm Guite - O Emmanuel.

ArtWay - Sidney Nolan: Angel over Ely

My latest Visual Meditation for ArtWay focuses on 'Angel over Ely' by Sidney Nolan:

'Sidney Nolan was one of Australia's best-known artists from the 20th century, his reputation resting primarily on paintings of Australian landscapes and legends from Australian history, most famously Ned Kelly, the bushranger and outlaw. However, his work is also among the most diverse in modern art, with images in a wide variety of mediums as he worked quickly in series and regularly innovated in his use of materials.

Angel over Ely was painted using ink and enamel on glass and is one of over 130 such paintings Nolan produced between 1948 and 1951. Nolan painted this image after a visit to Ely Cathedral in England during the winter of 1950–51, while staying with his wife Cynthia’s sister in Cambridge. The image represents the moment when religious symbolism returned to his repertoire, inspired by the thought of angels over the cathedral and a subsequent trip to Italy. The subject of floating or flying angels then recurs constantly in his magnificent religious series of 1951/52 set against an Australian outback landscape.

Nolan wrote to fellow artist Albert Tucker in 1951 saying: "Our trip to Europe forced a few vigorous conclusions on me. The outstanding one being that the painters who moved me most (El Greco & Giotto) seemed men primarily of faith."'

For more on Sidney Nolan see my preview for Artlyst of Sidney Nolan: Colour of the Sky – Auschwitz Paintings and Sidney Nolan's Africa, my interview with Andrew Turley.

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

My Church of the Month reports include: All Saints Parish Church, Tudeley, 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, St Michael and All Angels Berwick 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.

Blogs for ArtWay include: Congruity and controversy: exploring issues for contemporary commissions;
Photographing Religious Practice; Spirituality and/in Modern Art; and The Spirituality of the Artist-Clown.

Interviews for ArtWay include: Sophie Hacker and Peter Koenig. I also interviewed ArtWay founder Marleen Hengelaar Rookmaaker for Artlyst.

I have reviewed: Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace, Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe and Jazz, Blues, and Spirituals.

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. See also
Modern religious art: airbrushed from art history?

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Love - Orange Skies.

ArtWay Visual Meditation: Look and Listen

My latest Visual Meditation for ArtWay focuses on 'Bless This Our Daily Bread' by Kenyan artist Sane Wadu:

'The very first painting that Wadu made in gouache on paper was Bless This Our Daily Bread in 1984. This depicts Christ blessing bread and fish, probably at the feeding of the five thousand, against the backdrop of a huge eye and ear which frame the central Christ figure. Jesus said to his disciples that the reason he spoke to them in parables was that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ ... He then commended his disciples saying, ‘But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear’ (Matthew 13:13-16).

Sane Wadu experienced a similar lack of understanding in relation to his art from his local community and from gallerists when starting out as an artist. This work and his change of name are a challenge to look closer in order to see the transformation of idea into image that occurs within his work and which is paralleled by Christ’s blessing and sharing of the bread. Wadu’s art and his work through the Ngecha movement have provided support and sustenance to generations of artists in Nairobi. By doing so, he has practised throughout his career what he depicted in his very first painting..'

For more on Sane Wadu see my review for Artlyst of Michael Armitage:Paradise Edict.

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

My Church of the Month reports include: All Saints Parish Church, Tudeley, 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, St Michael and All Angels Berwick 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.

Blogs for ArtWay include: Congruity and controversy: exploring issues for contemporary commissions;
Photographing Religious Practice; Spirituality and/in Modern Art; and The Spirituality of the Artist-Clown.

Interviews for ArtWay include: Sophie Hacker and Peter Koenig. I also interviewed ArtWay founder Marleen Hengelaar Rookmaaker for Artlyst.

I have reviewed: Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace, Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe, and Jazz, Blues, and Spirituals.

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. See also
Modern religious art: airbrushed from art history?

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Ladysmith Black Mambazo - Unomathemba.

ArtWay Visual Meditation - Jan Toorop: Apostles Window

My latest Visual Meditation for ArtWay focuses on the Apostles Window at the Titus Brandsma Memorial Church in Nijmegen and popular reproductions such as Pietà by Jan Toorop:

'For both the Apostles Window and his popular reproductions such as Pietà, Toorop moved beyond the arabesques of his Symbolist works to take his linearity in a more geometric and monumentalized stylistic direction. Kees Veelenturf in writing about the Apostles Window notes the extent to which artists of that time had been searching for a universal grammar of form, emanating from a wish to make genuine ‘Christian’ art...

Both works feature in the exhibition ‘Toorop: Between Faith and Hope’ (until October 24, 2021) at Museum Villa Mondriaan in Winterswijk. A unique feature of the exhibition has been the collecting of stories from the owners of prints by Toorop. These enable us to understand the impact of his work on the faithful. Around 1930 Toorop was one of the most reproduced artists of his time.'

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

My Church of the Month reports include: All Saints Parish Church, Tudeley, 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, St Michael and All Angels Berwick 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.

Blogs for ArtWay include: Congruity and controversy: exploring issues for contemporary commissions;
Photographing Religious Practice; Spirituality and/in Modern Art; and The Spirituality of the Artist-Clown.

Interviews for ArtWay include: Sophie Hacker and Peter Koenig. I also interviewed ArtWay founder Marleen Hengelaar Rookmaaker for Artlyst.

I have reviewed: Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace, Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe, and Jazz, Blues, and Spirituals.

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. See also 
Modern religious art: airbrushed from art history? 

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Al Green - People Get Ready.

ArtWay Visual Meditation - Jake Flood: Reflection

My latest Visual Meditation for ArtWay is on Jake Flood's 'Reflection' from the Chaiya Art Awards 2021 winners exhibition:

'Flood’s image sets the square edged weir at the centre creating a space that is empty and dark. The apophatic tradition in Christianity maintains that the place of emptiness – both personally and through the renunciation of images – is the place of encounter with God. As several Psalms suggest darkness can be a covering for God and, also, our closest friend.

Fringing the central space are reflections of the Cathedral’s stained glass which lie beyond the sculpture, but which the water’s stillness enables us to glimpse. Although the centre of the image is empty and monochrome, Flood’s image shares with us the surrounding diversity of colour. We cannot fully see the stained glass or read its story but can see sufficient to appreciate its richness.'

My exhibition review for Church Times can be found at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2021/21-may/books-arts/visual-arts/chaiya-art-awards-god-is-at-gallery-oxo. See my article for Artlyst sharing reflections on the experience of having been a judge for the Chaiya Art Awards 2021. The reflection I shared on the Chaiya Art Awards 2021 in a Bread for the World service at St Martin-in-the-Fields can be found here. My Artlyst interview of Chaiya Art Awards founder Katrina Moss can be read here and my ArtWay visual meditation on the winning entry in the 2018 Awards is here.

My other 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, Lakwena Maciver, S. Billie Mandle, Giacomo Manzù, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Nicola Ravenscroft, Albert Servaes, Henry Shelton, Anna Sikorska and Edmund de Waal.

My Church of the Month reports for ArtWay are: 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, St Michael and All Angels Berwick, 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.

Interviews for ArtWay include: Sophie Hacker and Peter Koenig. I also interviewed ArtWay founder Marleen Hengelaar Rookmaaker for Artlyst. My blogs for ArtWay include: Photographing Religious Practice and Contemporary Commissions. I have also reviewed: Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace, Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe, and Jazz, Blues, and Spirituals.

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

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Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - Hand Of God.

Chaiya Art Awards: ‘God is . . .’ at Gallery@OXO

My latest review for Church Times is of Chaiya Art Awards 2021 winners exhibition at Gallery@OXO:

'The Chaiya Art Awards, with roots in Christianity but open to people of all faiths and none, is asking who or what God is, and continuing an age-old conversation in a modern setting with contemporary eyes. It is asking big questions while looking for inspiration from the wealth of the UK’s creatives. What have they found?

Glimpses of unvarnished reality which become moments of revelation are the pearls of great price or treasures buried to which artists attend; and that alertness to epiphany can clearly be discerned in much of the work included here.'

“God is . . .” runs at Gallery@OXO, Bargehouse Street, London SE1 9PH from 14 to 23 May 2021, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. every day (till 4 p.m. on last day). It can also be viewed online at chaiyaartawards.co.uk. The 2021 Award winners can be found by clicking here.

My Artlyst interview of Chaiya Art Awards founder Katrina Moss can be read here and my ArtWay visual meditation on the winning entry in the 2018 Awards is here. 

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

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Emmylou Harris - Sweet Old World.

Artlyst - Lakwena Maciver: Review-Interview Hastings Contemporary

My latest piece for Artlyst is an interview with Lakwena about her work and her current exhibition at Hastings Contemporary:

'I would say most of my work is very much about wanting to speak. Words are an essential part of that. I don’t always know what I want to say, and praying, writing, listening to music, it’s when I do those things that I start to work out what I want to say, the ideas flow... I’ll pray about and meditate on an idea; then I’ll work out how to make it come to life, and throughout I’m praying that the work will bless people.'

My Visual Meditation for ArtWay on Lakwena's work - Rainbow Colours of Hope - can be read here. 

My other Artlyst pieces are:

Interviews:

• Nicola Ravenscroft - Sculpture With A Peaceful Stillness
• Artist Hannah Rose Thomas – Tears of Gold – Interview
• Marcus Lyon: Human Atlas Explorations
• Elizabeth Kwant Interview
• Helaine Blumenfeld: Undulating Structures
• National Gallery Explores ‘Sin’ In New Exhibition – Interview Dr Joost Joustra Curator
• Betty Spackman: Posthumanism Debates
• Christopher Clack: Connecting The Material And Immaterial
• Peter Howson Artlyst Interview
• Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker On The Legacy Of ArtWay
• Alastair Gordon A Testament To His Faith
• Katrina Moss Chaiya Art Awards Interview: Where is God in our 21st century world?
• Apocalypse Now: Michael Takeo Magruder Interviewed
• Jonathan Anderson: Religious Inspirations Behind Modernism
• Caravan – An Interview With Rev Paul Gordon Chandler On Arts Peacebuilding
• Art Awakening Humanity Alexander de Cadenet Interviewed
• Michael Pendry New Installation Lights Up St Martin In The Fields
• Mark Dean Projects Stations of the Cross Videos On Henry Moore Altar

Articles:

• Made in USA Ed Ruscha An American Perspective
• Robert Smithson: The Archetypal Nature Of Things
• If Jesus Is A Man Of Colour Why Did We Make Him Aryan?
• Cosmic Patches And Quilts Five Exhibitions
• Everyday Heroes: Southbank Exhibition Celebrates Low-paid Key Workers
• Entwining Spiritualism And Art – Three Shows
• Of Church And The Visual Arts
• Has The Word Master Reached Its Sell-By Date?
• The People Behind Community Is Kindness Billboard Campaign
• André Daughtry: Art, Rebellion And Racial Justice
• Salisbury Cathedral 800 Years Of Art And Spirit
• Home Alone Together Twenty Five Artists
• Botanical Mind Online: Art, Mysticism and the Cosmic Tree
• Salvador Dalí The Enigma of Faith
• Art And Faith A Time For Seeing
• Andy Warhol: Catholicism His Work, Faith And Legacy
• Kiki Smith: Embodied Art
• Art and Christianity Awards A Positive New Millennium Legacy
• Arnulf Rainer: 90th Birthday Exhibition Celebrated At Albertina Museum
• A Belonging Project And Exiles Loss and Displacement
• Robert Polidori: Fra Angelico Opus Operantis
• Art, Faith, Church Patronage and Modernity
• Contemplating the Spiritual in Contemporary Art
• Mat Collishaw Challenges Faith Perspectives With Ushaw Installation
• Waterloo Festival Launches At St. John’s Waterloo
• John Bellany Alan Davie Spiritual Joy and Magic
• RIFT Unites 17 Art and Science MA Graduates At Central St Martins
• Visionary Cities: Michael Takeo Magruder – British Library
• Van Gogh’s Religious Journey Around London
• William Congdon Holy Sites And The Kettle’s Yard Connection
• Mark Dean Premieres Pastiche Mass At Banqueting Hall Chelsea College of Arts
• John Kirby: The Torment
• Underlying The Civilised Facade
• Curating Spiritual Sensibilities In Changing Times
• Homeless Highlighted: New Beau Exhibition At St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Ken Currie: Protest Defeat And Victory
• Bosco Sodi: A Moment Of Genesis
• Bill Viola And The Art Of Contemplation
• Art In Churches 2018: Spiritual Combinations Explored
• Sister Wendy Beckett – A Reminiscence
• Guido Guidi: Per Strada Flowers Gallery London
• Peter Howson: The play is over – Flowers Gallery
• Camille Henrot: Scientific History And Creation Story Mash Up
• Nicola Green Explores Recent And Contemporary Religious Leaders – St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Art And The Consequences Of War Explored In Two Exhibitions
• Helaine Blumenfeld Translating Her Vision
• Sam Ivin: Physically Scratched Portraits Of Asylum Seekers Exhibited
• Sacred Noise: Explores Religion, Faith And Divinity
• Bill Viola: Quiet Contemplative Video Installation St Cuthbert’s Church Edinburgh
• The ground-breaking work of Sister Corita Kent
• Picasso To Souza: The Crucifixion Imagery Rarely Exhibited
• Michael Takeo Magruder: De / coding the Apocalypse – Panacea Museum
• Giorgio Griffa: The Golden Ratio And Inexplicable Knowledge
• Arabella Dorman Unveils New Installation At St James Church Piccadilly
• Can Art Transform Society?
• Art Awakening Humanity Conference Report
• Central St Martins in the Fields Design Then And Now
• The Sacramental And Liturgical Nature Of Conceptual Art
• Polish Art In Britain Centenary Marked At London’s Ben Uri Gallery
• Refugee Artists Learning from The Lives Of Others
• The Religious Impulses Of Robert Rauschenberg
• The Christian Science Connection Within The British Modern Art Movement
• Artists Rebranding The Christmas Tree Tradition
• Art Impacted - A Radical Response To Radicalisation
• The Art of St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Was Caravaggio A Good Christian?

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Candi Staton - You Got The Love.

ArtWay Visual Meditation: 'With the Heart of a Child' by Nicola Ravenscroft

My latest visual meditation for ArtWay is a meditation on With the Heart of a Child, a sculpture installation by Nicola Ravenscroft:

'Nicola Ravenscroft intuitively understands these truths and, as a maternal sculptor, creates children that through their connection to nature grant us a vision of the peaceable kingdom toward which they wish to lead us. Her sculpture installation With the Heart of a Child sees seven life-size bronze children, one from every continent on earth, simply dressed in soft silk tulle, hesitate in time, leaning forward, hopeful, poised to dive, eyes closed, dreaming into their future, anticipating things unseen.

Nicola writes that “as an artist, I am visionary, sculptor, mother to many, and grandmother to even more.” She adds that she breathes life into life taking “clay, dirt and stardust, shaped and twisted torn smoothed and broken lost, found and moulded wax and singing molten bronze through white-hot crucible-refining fire, Earth’s own core breathing life into revealing-truth, a giving-birth to energy.” The result is this installation of eco-earthling-warrior-mudcubs – children intimately connected to the earth – reminding us of our duty of care to life, to love, to planet earth.'

In December 2020 I had an interview with Nicola Ravenscroft published in Artlyst. The interview can be read by clicking here. I also used Nicola's installation as an illustration for my sermon at Midnight Mass in 2020. Click here to read that sermon.

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, Lakwena Maciver, S. Billie Mandle, Giacomo Manzù, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Albert Servaes, Henry Shelton, Anna Sikorska and Edmund de Waal.

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, St Michael and All Angels Berwick, 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.

Interviews for ArtWay include: Sophie Hacker and Peter Koenig. I also interviewed ArtWay founder Marleen Hengelaar Rookmaaker for Artlyst.

I have reviewed: Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace, Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe, and Jazz, Blues, and Spirituals.

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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Raphael Ravenscroft - "... and a little child shall lead ..." Isaiah 11:6. 

ArtWay Visual Meditation: some winter pots by Edmund de Waal

My latest visual meditation for ArtWay is a meditation on some winter pots by Edmund de Waal:

"Alone and silent in his studio he made bowls, open dishes and lidded jars needing a return to touching, holding, marking and moving soft clay. The black vessels show the flux of glaze. The white dishes have been fired without glaze so that each mark is present. He has explained that: ‘Some of these pots are broken and patched on their rims with folded lead and gold; others are mended with gold lacquer. Some hold shards of porcelain.’

His inspiration came from two old Chinese bowls from the Song dynasty that he has in his studio. One patched on the rim with iron, the other with a beautiful thin golden thread running from the rim, repaired using the Japanese art of kintsugi. Kintsugi, which means ‘golden joinery’, is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. The idea is that by embracing flaws and imperfections, one creates an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art. De Waal notes that, ‘Kintsugi is not an art of erasure – the invisible mend, the erasing of a mistake – but rather a way of marking loss.’"

In December 2020 I published a review in the Church Times of de Waal's library of exile, see https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2020/18-december/books-arts/visual-arts/visual-arts-edmund-de-waal-library-of-exile.

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, Lakwena Maciver, 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, St Michael and All Angels Berwick, 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.

Interviews for ArtWay include: Sophie Hacker and Peter Koenig. I also interviewed ArtWay founder Marleen Hengelaar Rookmaaker for Artlyst.

I have reviewed: Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace, Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe, and Jazz, Blues, and Spirituals.

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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Maria McKee - Life Is Sweet.