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  Painting by Faith: An Artist Residency
By Tanja Butler continued
 
     
 

Easter

“From the house of the Lord we bless you. God is God. He has bathed us in light. Hang colored banners above the altar! Oh, my God, I lift your praise.”  —Psalm 118:27

 

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Easter Hangings
By Tanja Butler

   

The Easter panels, four acrylic paintings on canvas eight feet high, presented a different challenge. Painting at that scale was a new experience for me. In my small studio I could not see the entire piece from a distance. This became an exercise in painting by faith, as I prayed with the placement of every brush stroke and color change, trusting that the pieces would fall into place correctly. Ruth Riley helped me install the panels on the morning before the Easter Vigil, and it was with trepidation that I walked to the back of the sanctuary to view the pieces for the first time. What a relief it was to see that the lines, values and colors that “felt right” during prayer, but looked incoherent during the painting process, had created a legible and unified image.

Each panel presented a different aspect of the celebration: “The Angel at the Tomb,” “Christ’s Victory Over the Gates of Hell and Death,” “Christ Appearing to Mary in the Garden,” and “The Angel Guarding the Entrance to Paradise,” who has laid aside his flaming sword and is now inviting us to enter. Responses on the part of the congregation were varied, with enthusiastic compliments directed toward me, and some misgivings expressed to Fr. Liias. “There’s too much to look at,” was a repeated critique. As the weeks of the Easter season continued, however, many of those who initially found the imagery too complex or distracting appreciated its ability to unfold over time.

Celebration and Reflection: What Did We Learn?

“God, your God, has been blessing you in your harvest, and in all the works of your hands, and your joy will be complete.” —Deuteronomy 16:15

The five months of residency culminated in my joining in a glorious outburst of artistic activity on Pentecost Sunday. Ruth Riley’s installation, “A Visual Presence” consisting of over sixty colored silk banners, covered the ceiling of the sanctuary. Mime artists led by Laurie Anslono dramatized the visions of Ezekiel, and children and teenagers danced with silk streamers through a river of life (constructed of blue masking tape by artists George Wingate and Anne Pelikan) flowing from the altar, down the main aisle of the sanctuary, and out the front door. “These artistic offerings are gifts to the church from the Holy Spirit,” Maud Warren, a parishioner, said to me afterward, as she expressed her desire that more congregations be enabled to receive artistic expressions of God’s creative presence.

What have we learned together at Christ Church? The following observations are offered with the prayer that they may encourage similar ventures in sponsoring artist-residencies within other church communities.

Five months is only enough time to get started in exploring the potential of an artist working within a community. A year seems optimal, giving the artist time to develop working relationships and a creative momentum. Church members also need time to adjust to the presence of new work and explore possibilities for their own participation.

A written proposal clarifies expectations for all involved.

Support from the clergy is critical. Fr. Liias’ invitation to join the clergy’s weekly Bible study assured me that I was welcomed and affirmed as an integral part of the church’s ministry.  It also allowed me, as I was planning the work, to respond to the clergy’s concerns and insights.

Working in coordination with existing organizations (e.g., liturgical arts groups, altar guilds, children’s ministries, retreat workshops) offers support and community participation. The purpose of the artist residency is not to highlight the independent activity of an individual, but to enable an artist to serve the community by responding to the vision and concerns of existing ministries.

The artist’s activities should be highly visible during the residency period. A public commissioning, organized prayer support, written and verbal announcements during Sunday services, bulletin inserts and articles in the church newsletter are all helpful ways of integrating the residency into church life. References to the images within the sermon are highly effective in affirming the work and clarifying its purpose. People are more comfortable with new visual elements when the theological reasoning is presented to them.

Patience is required, particularly for an artist used to independent activity and self-determined time schedules. It takes time to develop work for a community setting, with stages of approval, organization, funding, and fabrication slowing down the creative process. The rewards of communal involvement, however, considerably outweigh the inevitable frustrations.

Interaction is a key to effectiveness; community involvement in planning, executing, and responding to the work fulfills the nature of liturgical art, liturgy being “a work of the people.”

Responses to the work should be directed to the leadership, who can evaluate and sift the comments before communicating the critique to the artist.

A dynamic tension exists in creating art for community. The artist must maintain both faithfulness to her original vision and responsiveness to the needs and personality of the community. Paraphrasing a description by Nicholas Wolterstorff, Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School, of his church’s collaboration with an architect, “Between the artist and the community there must be mutual love, trust, forbearance, openness to new possibilities, honoring and not demeaning one another. The artist makes herself very vulnerable, getting feed-back from non-artists. The community is also very vulnerable, as it may be stretched beyond what is comfortable or predictable. It is therefore important that the artist and community support each other.”

Conclusion

A word of thanks is in order to the clergy team at Christ Church: the Rev. Jürgen Liias, the Rev. Martha Giltinan, the Rev. Dean Borgman, the Rev. Roger Wootton, and Pastoral Minister Bart Stevens, for their enthusiastic support, interest, and insights as they fearlessly encouraged artistic experimentation and adventurous exploration. The congregation took its cues from the clergy. The church’s positive reception of new work in their midst was in large part a response to the clergy’s commitment to this ministry.

I also want to thank the generous hospitality of the parishioners of Christ Church for their gracious support and kind expressions of thanks for the work of this residency. This opportunity to serve God in his church using my artistic gifts was a source of great joy. The translation from the isolated studio to the center of community is a profoundly moving experience of God’s ministry of reconciliation, a call from alienation to communion. For this I am most grateful.

BE BOLD. BE ORIGINAL. BE DYNAMIC. BE FAITHFUL. BE UNAFRAID. Amen.

(Passage in my prayer journal, written in capital letters as an exhortation and a directive.)
   
Tanja Butler
tanja.butler@gordon.edu

View “Rules for the Icon Painter”

 
     
 

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©2005 The Episcopal Church and Visual Arts