Art beyond contemplation, more than seeing, feeling, a farther step into the proximity of spirit. What happens when we sit in the company of art in such a way that causes cooperation and community with, and in, spirit? Stepping into the arms of such an environment not only removes us from the strata of daily occupations and pre-occupations, but also places us on the rungs of Jacob’s Ladder. Surrounded by art the of place, we sit near to our true home in God’s heart.

This ‘art of the place' is exemplified in the work of artist Tobi Kahn, who believes that “to create art is natural, an act in the image of the Creator, whose materials are light and darkness, generative and reflecting luminosities, and their attendant color and shadow. Art begins in the capacity to see, a mode of knowing the world and its Maker that is indispensable to the religious and cultural expression of a people.”

He goes on to ask “how can God be made manifest in the material world? The infinite and mortal can meet in spaces designated as liminal, dwelling places that invite our spirit, made in the Image, to encounter the ineffable God in both splendor and intimacy. The media for the engagement between transcendence and immanence are the same as those with which the world itself was created: Light, horizon, breath, pattern, the holiness of distinctions.”

About abstraction, used with breathtaking effect in a Milwaukee Synagogue, Tobi writes that “it is an invitation to discover the grandeur of the world we were given, to contemplate the beginning, its first shapes and forms, to taste a return to the paradise of creation in a world that only our deeds can redeem. These works suggest the continual flowering of life radiance and darkening, elemental particles of being, earthbound and celestial vantage points.”

You can see more of Tobi Kahn’s art here. Tobi Kahn quotations are from his The Meaning of Beauty contained in whole in “Tobi Kahn: Sacred Spaces for the 21st Century” (©2009, Tobi Kahn) available here.

The Museum of Biblical Art, MOBIA recently featured the exhibition Tobi Kahn Sacred Spaces for the 21st Century. “Since his art feels equally at home in the liturgy, in the public forum, and in museums, it has special significance for individuals and institutions – like MOBIA – who seek to understand the relationship between art, religion, and ritual” (from the MOBIA segment from the CBS program “The Art of the Book,” which can be seen here).

Seen above (main): Shalom Bat chairs, new ritual objects created by Tobi Kahn for the ceremony of welcoming a baby girl into the Jewish family and naming her. The four chairs are symbolic of the four Matriarchs of the Hebrew Bible: Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca, and Leah. They will be installed in The Abraham Joshua Heschel School, and made available to the community there for welcoming and naming celebrations.

Seen above (inset): areta (variation).

On view in the homepage masthead: Congregation Emanu-El B’n, Milwaukee, Wisconsin installation, see more here.

On view at Daily Episcopalian masthead: aahpa study (detail) by Tobi Kahn. On view at Speaking to the Soul masthead: ahyan study (detail) by Tobi Kahn. The titles of the art used in these mastheads caused me to ask Tobi about their meanings. He replied “they are made up names based on language, alluding to actual Hebrew or Latin words, but are not meant to be literal. As my work is abstract based on reality, I felt the titles should reflect that as well. There is a spiritual content to the names.”

The plight of the people of Haiti has called us to generosity in the sharing of our treasure. We take stock of all we have and give what we can. But we are also called to consciousness and prayer. The Rev. George Clifford (a café contributor) in his blog Ethical Musings says this:

Prayer in the wake of a disaster is vital for three reasons. First, prayer connects people with one another. On a strictly human level, praying for an individual or a group focuses the attention of the person praying on that person or group. Continuing to intercede or give thanks for that person or group, keeps that attention – to a greater or lesser degree depending upon the intensity and frequency of prayer and competing claims – focused on that need. Prayer, if nothing else, ensures that we do not forget the needs of the disaster victims.

Prayer, however, is not merely about the psychological dynamics of the person praying. Prayer connects people with God and one another across the spatio-temporal matrix. In some way that I do not pretend to understand, prayer establishes or enhances a relationship between the one praying and the one for whom prayer is offered. Process theologians may conceptualize this happening in God's mind; Christian theologians more rooted in historic formulations may conceptualize this relationship happening through divine intervention. Proving the connection occurs let alone explaining the mechanisms by which it occurs lies well beyond the frontiers of knowledge today.

As artists, we find the means and occasions to pray in, by, and through the work we do. It is in the smoothing of paper and the mixing of paint, it is in the whisper of stone or wood shavings, and it is in the recycling of found items. It is in the beginning and completion of creation. This process we refer to in various ways: “art is a sweet unconscious prayer” says James A. Mangum; Barbara Desrosiers says: “allowing divine energy to flow, baring your soul before God as you work is prayer in a pure form;” and for David Orth it is: “…not talking, not listening. What it is, is Dwelling. In this Dwelling, everything is welcome, and nothing goes back out the same.”

However we acknowledge the connection between prayer and our work as artists, it is undeniably a mission of spirit and beauty. We partner with the collective consciousness of the Divine, and in this participation we act as both receivers and transmitters.

We join all of the physical and spiritual caregivers in Haiti, we offer the prayer of new creation as we go into the various places of our work and pray in and through our art.

Shown above: Still Mind by Shin-hee Chin. Seen on the home page masthead, 89 and 90 from Shin-hee Chin’s Psalms series. Seen on the Daily Episcopalian masthead, 81, and on the Speaking To The Soul masthead, 91, both from Chin’s Psalms series. About her work she says: “On the level of technique and material, I appropriate and valorize craft techniques such as stitching, random wrapping, and binding. The techniques have an important meaning for me both as a compositional device and as an obsessional activity. In experimenting with a variety of ‘domestic’ media such as clothes, threads, and paper, my hands participate in the process of the intricate linking of the irregular pattern of threads that form vein, skin, and scar. In fact, one can see the process through the complexly interwoven and intricately entangled threads covering the work.” Read more here. Shin-hee Chin is Assistant Professor, Art and Design Department, Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas and a member of The Artists Registry @ ECVA.

Reaching for Her Mère
By The Rev. F. M. “Buddy” Stallings

I had to make myself watch the continuing reports from Haiti this weekend. Beginning to think that we have seen enough and moving on, while perfectly understandable, is perilous not only to the victims of the earthquake but to us as well. Crying “overload” because it hurts to watch will not well serve our souls. Before ending the evening, I watched an exchange between a doctor and a beautiful little ten year-old girl, who was being told that amputating her leg was the only way she could live. As her mother and she began to understand the English words translated into French, both began to cry, the little girl increasingly inconsolable, reaching for her Mère.

One reporter observed that Haiti would become a country of amputees. At that word I had had enough. Having worked in the third world years ago, I recall what life for an amputee, for any seriously handicapped person, is like. No picnic anywhere, in places like Haiti it is a guarantee of a life of misery, even more misery than usual. Amazingly and somewhat disturbingly, I went to sleep.

What are we to do? Pray? Well, of course. But truly that is just not enough. In fact, the most beautifully written petition in the Prayers of the People is by itself pretty lame. Feeling the impotency of “just” praying, I had a conversation with a friend about going to Haiti to help. A lovely but ridiculous impulse, I’d be largely useless in a country that needs medical attention and rebuilding, neither being exactly in my skill set. I need to stay home, pray, and send money. And the check I wrote yesterday isn’t nearly enough.

“Weeping may endure for the night but joy comes in the morning.” The psalmist's words pricked my consciousness as I awoke today. But regardless the hour, it is not yet truly morning in Haiti and may not be for many, many days to come. For the night’s weeping there to be transformed into the joy of morning, we need to give and to give as generously as we can. My vehicle of choice, and the one I feel safest recommending is Episcopal Relief and Development. Go to ERD’s website, read of their work and make a donation.

The Rev. F. M. “Buddy” Stallings is Vicar of St. Bartholomew’s Church, New York, NY. Read his weekly Vicar’s Message HERE.

On view at the home page and above: Mother and Child by J. J. Luberisse, seen at ART Works for Haiti.

As the world responds to the 7.0 earthquake that struck southern Haiti on January 12, 2010, the Art Blog contributes these resources about Haitian artists and their art.

The murals that once filled the walls of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Port-au-Prince Haiti captivated visitors and locals. The cathedral-sized images depicted scenes from the life of Christ and the Holy Family accented with a Haitian landscape. Grandmere Mimi has the story at her 'Wounded Bird' blog, where she writes of the piles of rubble that now lay beneath the once vibrant visual proclamations of faith. (The editor thanks Ann Fontaine and Nick Kniseley for this tip.)

Slides and further images of the Holy Trinity Cathedral murals are found at this link here. (The editor thanks Episcopal Cafe Senior Journalist Ann Fontaine for this tip.)

From The Rev. Lauren R. Stanley TEC Appointed Missionary in Haiti, an entire collection of Haitian street art for sale, viewable on her Facebook album And Lauren's website for Haiti is here.

"Before the hurricane and the earthquake, Haitian artists were very very needy. Our little business has not been able to keep them above water,"said Boris Kravitz over the telephone with me this afternoon. "We buy art directly from the artists. My wife is Haitian, and we sell the artists' work through our shop and our website, Haitian Art Company." He and his wife, Mary, operate their small business in Key West, Florida. "Now, after the earthquake, we have no word of the circumstances of their property or the people."

The web site Art Works For Haiti states "We began our work in 1999 when we visited Haiti to buy art from many old friends and new galleries. We held our first art sale at Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Newcastle, Maine in December of that year. The money we raised, together with funds appropriated by the Outreach Committee of St. Andrew’s Church, was sent to a Haitian Episcopal priest in Gros Morne, northwest Haiti, for teachers’ salaries, children’s school uniforms and school lunches in the village of Figaro. We have been raising funds for Haiti ever since through our art sales. In 2002, the Episcopal Diocese of Maine entered into a companion relationship with the Diocese of Haiti for five years and extended that relationship in 2007 for another five years. To help support the partnership and non-partnership activities that have grown out of that relationship, we have extended our art sales to many other Episcopal parishes in Maine. The proceeds have helped enable these churches to assist partner parishes in northwest Haiti and also to contribute to such non-partnership projects as St. Vincent’s School for the Handicapped, the Children’s Nutrition Fund and Maison de Naissance." (The editor thanks John Chilton and Vicki Black for this tip.)

Webster University (St Louis, Mo, USA) has several links to Haitian art and artists, including published images of Haitian art books and a list of Haitian painters compiled by Bob Corbett. (The editor thanks Donald Schell for this tip.)

Steel drum and metal art is a particular field for collectors. (The editor thanks Jean Fitzpatrick from PastoralCounseling.net for this tip.)

Bryant University (Smithfield, RI) has a Haitian Art Collection, with accompanying text online from Gladys Kinoian Lujan. A thumbnail view of the collection is here. (The editor thanks Ann Fontaine for this tip.)

Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) is The Episcopal Church organization that can and is responding to the immediate and ongoing relief needs of Haiti.

Carol Barnwell, Communications Director of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas (Houston), shares with The Art Blog the ECW and ECW's work with woman Batik artists of Haiti.

The Wall Street Journal article about Georges Nader Sr and the loss of the world's largest repository of Haitian art is here.

On View:Mural of the Baptism of Jesus, wall painting from Holy Trinity Cathedral, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Courtesy of John D, Grandmere Mimi at Wounded Bird, Ann Fontaine at SeaShellSeller, and Nick Knisely at Entangled States.

Speaking Shalom with Creation
by C. Robin Janning

The members of The Artists Registry @ ECVA have become a breathing, blooming, and burgeoning community. These artists come to us not from a single narrow pool, but rather from the widest oceans with nets dripping potential and possibility.

Right now in our community we have emerging artists and long-time professionals. We have traditional artists, contemporary artists, photographers, sculptors, quirky assemblage artists, and more. They all work here quite companionably and allow themselves to be intersecting lights of art in an organic whole-life that moves on widely diverging paths of faith.

I can believe, when I see this, that art is a model for ways in which we can communicate the light that resides in each of us. And when light calls to light …well, that is the antidote to fear.

Art is much more than “hey, look at my light.” I think it must be more like “wow, look there is light and it is everywhere.” Being a member of The Artists Registry @ ECVA means more than being in an exhibit that might encourage the purchase of art. ECVA artists, by standing in this community, support the importance of doing the work of excavating, shaping, and showing light. They are a joined in the communal vocation of bringing light.

Lama Surya Das, in his book Awakening to the Sacred, states that “Almost inevitably a spiritual search becomes a search for divine or sacred light.” Our own Presiding Bishop speaking about Ubuntu, wondered if we would “in the coming days” be “speaking shalom to creation.” I wonder if, as artists, we might just be “speaking shalom with creation.”

C. Robin Janning is a leader at the contemporary intersections of faith and the visual arts. As a painter, Janning's abstract works explore the meeting places of the seen and the unseen. As an arts administrator and writer, Janning focuses on expanding the role of art in the life of community. She is Editor in Chief of Image and Spirit, Registrar of The Artists Registry @ ECVA and Editor of The Art Blog at Episcopal Cafe. Janning's paintings may be viewed online at Gramercy Galleria and Oranges and Sardines.

On View: Theotokos. Icon, tempera on panel, ~ 22cm h x 15 cm w. 20th c. Written by Igumen Ioana Zhiltsov, a hieromonk in residence at The Holy Dormition Pskov Caves Monastery, Russia. Private collection. The Pskov Caves have sheltered monastics and hermits for more than five centuries. Igumen Ioana Zhiltsov, with Ken Kaisch, brought Turning the Heart to God by Saint Theolphan the Recluse into the English language. From the classic Russian book, The Path to Salvation, Turning the Heart to God is arguably the most profound work on repentance in all of Christendom. Available from Conciliar Press, here.

The human family longs for connection, for embrace, for meaning. God made us that way and invites us to broker the distance between us with more than words—with embodied love and practices of compassion and justice. ~Mary Haddad

Excerpted from Holiness and the Feminine Spirit The Art of Janet McKenzie; Susan Perry, editor. 28 full-color paintings by award-winning artist Janet McKenzie with accompanying reflections by leading women writers. Orbis Books 2009 Used with permission.

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About the writer, Mary Haddad
The Rev. Canon Mary Haddad was ordained to the priesthood of The Episcopal Church in 2001. In January 2007 she was called to the position of Canon Pastor of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. The Vestry of All Saints Episcopal Church Beverly Hills has called Haddad to serve as Interim Pastor commencing January 2010.
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About the book, Holiness and the Feminine Spirit
Holiness and the Feminine Spirit The Art of Janet McKenzie by Susan Perry. 28 full-color paintings by award-winning artist Janet McKenzie with accompanying reflections by leading women writers. Orbis Books 2009 Download a PDF.

This beautiful book explores how holiness can empower women and how empowered women work to bring about the reign of God. The paintings of Janet McKenzie and the accompanying reflections follow the life of Jesus through the women who gave him birth and carried his message to the world. The form and color of the images astound and the words of the text inspire!

The 28 contributors include well-known writers such as Joyce Rupp, Joan Chittister, and Diane Butler Bass, theologian Elizabeth A. Johnson, art critic Sr. Wendy Beckett, best-selling novelist Ann Patchett, social activist and writer Helen Prejean, feminist Chung Hyun Kyung, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the American Episcopal Church, and many others.

________

About the artist, Janet McKenzie
Artist Janet McKenzie has committed her life's work to creating inclusive art celebrating women. Ms. McKenzie's image of Jesus, “Jesus of the People”, was selected winner of the National Catholic Reporter's "Jesus 2000” competition, by judge Sister Wendy Beckett. She lives and works in Vermont. Seen above, Epiphany by Janet McKenzie.

Annunciation - Part 2
by Mary Haddad.
Excerpted from Holiness and the Feminine Spirit The Art of Janet McKenzie; Susan Perry, editor. 28 full-color paintings by award-winning artist Janet McKenzie with accompanying reflections by leading women writers. Orbis Books 2009 Used with permission.

By whatever means—we cannot know—Mary knew how to recognize an angel when she saw one. Maybe she’d seen one before. But something within her—call it faith, call it trust, call it risk, call it her ticket out of Galilee—something within her said, “Go for broke.” In a world where young girls like her had no say in anything, Mary now had all the say in the world. This is no small thing for someone who was more possession than person in her patriarchal world. Hope was in the air in her world. As mother of Jesus of the people, Mary is mother of all possibilities, poised to take her story on the road.
~Mary Haddad
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About the writer, Mary Haddad
The Rev. Canon Mary Haddad was ordained to the priesthood of The Episcopal Church in 2001. In January 2007 she was called to the position of Canon Pastor of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. The Vestry of All Saints Episcopal Church Beverly Hills has called Haddad to serve as Interim Pastor commencing January 2010.
________

About the book, Holiness and the Feminine Spirit
Holiness and the Feminine Spirit The Art of Janet McKenzie by Susan Perry. 28 full-color paintings by award-winning artist Janet McKenzie with accompanying reflections by leading women writers. Orbis Books 2009 Download a PDF.

This beautiful book explores how holiness can empower women and how empowered women work to bring about the reign of God. The paintings of Janet McKenzie and the accompanying reflections follow the life of Jesus through the women who gave him birth and carried his message to the world. The form and color of the images astound and the words of the text inspire!

The 28 contributors include well-known writers such as Joyce Rupp, Joan Chittister, and Diane Butler Bass, theologian Elizabeth A. Johnson, art critic Sr. Wendy Beckett, best-selling novelist Ann Patchett, social activist and writer Helen Prejean, feminist Chung Hyun Kyung, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the American Episcopal Church, and many others.

________

About the artist, Janet McKenzie
Artist Janet McKenzie has committed her life's work to creating inclusive art celebrating women. Ms. McKenzie's image of Jesus, “Jesus of the People”, was selected winner of the National Catholic Reporter's "Jesus 2000” competition, by judge Sister Wendy Beckett. She lives and works in Vermont. Seen above, Sacred Madonna and Child by Janet McKenzie.

Annunciation
by Mary Haddad.
Excerpted from Holiness and the Feminine Spirit The Art of Janet McKenzie; Susan Perry, editor. 28 full-color paintings by award-winning artist Janet McKenzie with accompanying reflections by leading women writers. Orbis Books 2009 Used with permission.

I have a book with the one-word title Annunciation, which contains over a hundred images of this story, of the otherworldly angel Gabriel appearing to an unsuspecting Mary in this world. The book is a survey of the images used to depict this one-word story—annunciation—–from a fifth-century mosaic to a late twentieth-century painting. Sometimes I flip through the pictures like a deck of cards and what I notice, almost without exception, is the considerable physical distance between Gabriel and Mary: distance between the divine and the human. Whether measured in inches or feet, there is a distance, an empty space between them; they never touch. In one amusing image from a fourteenth-century altarpiece, the distance is spelled out in a word balloon beamed like light from the lips of the angel Gabriel: Ave gratis plena dominus tecum (Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you). Mary recoils and if she had a word balloon to go along with the expression on her face, it might say, “Get lost.”

I find in this physical distance between the angel and the girl a paradoxical metaphor for the overarching role of women in the telling of our story about God coming near and dwelling among us. On the one hand, there is the unwitting importance and centrality of Mary, theotokos, the God-bearer, whose consent was a pretty big deal in making this story happen. On the other hand, there is the unconscionable marginalization of women by the institutional church, the oldest boys’ club of them all. They put Mary on a pedestal and made her a perpetual virgin; in other words, perpetually untouchable, safely out of reach, and cut off from positions of power and leadership in the world that God so loves.
~Mary Haddad
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About the writer, Mary Haddad
The Rev. Canon Mary Haddad was ordained to the priesthood of The Episcopal Church in 2001. In January 2007 she was called to the position of Canon Pastor of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. The Vestry of All Saints Episcopal Church Beverly Hills has called Haddad to serve as Interim Pastor commencing January 2010.
________

About the book, Holiness and the Feminine Spirit
Holiness and the Feminine Spirit The Art of Janet McKenzie by Susan Perry. 28 full-color paintings by award-winning artist Janet McKenzie with accompanying reflections by leading women writers. Orbis Books 2009 Download a PDF.

This beautiful book explores how holiness can empower women and how empowered women work to bring about the reign of God. The paintings of Janet McKenzie and the accompanying reflections follow the life of Jesus through the women who gave him birth and carried his message to the world. The form and color of the images astound and the words of the text inspire!

The 28 contributors include well-known writers such as Joyce Rupp, Joan Chittister, and Diane Butler Bass, theologian Elizabeth A. Johnson, art critic Sr. Wendy Beckett, best-selling novelist Ann Patchett, social activist and writer Helen Prejean, feminist Chung Hyun Kyung, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the American Episcopal Church, and many others.

________

About the artist, Janet McKenzie
Artist Janet McKenzie has committed her life's work to creating inclusive art celebrating women. Ms. McKenzie's image of Jesus, “Jesus of the People”, was selected winner of the National Catholic Reporter's "Jesus 2000” competition, by judge Sister Wendy Beckett. She lives and works in Vermont. Seen above, Annunciation by Janet McKenzie.

When art critic Christopher Knight said "The most challenging art always makes demands on our cozy assumptions," he was commenting on The Central Garden at The Getty Center Los Angeles, designed by artist Robert Irwin. Knight made his point well - the definition of art, or actually Art (capital 'A'), is so broad that it may (it must?) include Muhlenbergia rigens, Colocasia esculenta, and Dalechampia dioscoreifolia.

The Central Garden at the Getty further opens up our definition of art when artist Irwin describes his Getty commission as "a sculpture in the form of a garden aspiring to be art." Irwin was fully aware that in this work he was attempting to breach existing boundaries of 'Art.' And he labored through anyway, facing critics and commissioners with equal disinterest while tending to his primary task - the work of the artist. The result speaks for itself. The Getty's Central Garden succeeds in its mimesis of the sensible world, providing its audience with passive invitation into the insensible realities that mark art's finish.

When the angels of the Lord come to visit Abraham to tell him of Sarah's motherhood, Abraham is sitting in the opening of his tent. As the angels tell the old man that his elderly wife will bear a son, the Genesis story tells us that she too is sitting in this same opening of the tent, this same point of passage between the personal and the communal. I propose that this metaphoric place of entrance is shared by artists, architects, theologians and priests - all are united in that through their work they create entrance, they attempt to breach existing definitions and boundaries. They aspire to build openings within openings.

On View : various pieces from 'Full of Grace', the current exhibition at ECVA. Seen above, Here I Am, by Ferris Cook. Gold leaf and acrylic on wood. "But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I."

Full of Grace
An Exhibition for Advent 2009
Moses Hoskins, Curator
Diane Walker, ECVA Exhibitions Director
C. Robin Janning, ECVA Communication Director, Exhibit Design

at ECVA

Featuring the work of Dick Adams, Roger M. Beattie, Edward Beckett, Kathy Bozzuti-Jones, Betty Clarke, Ferris Cook, Marilyn Dale, Gerard Di Falco, Phoebe Farris, Terrence Fine, Chuck + Peg Hoffman, Margaret A. W. Ingram, C. Robin Janning, Roberta Karstetter, Mary Melikian, Mary Jane Miller, Joseph Neiman, Elizabeth Porter, Robin Rule, Suzanne Schleck, Rara Schlitt, Howard Schroeder, Amy Bright Unfried, and Vanessa Wells.

View the exhibition online here.

On View: Bubbles by Kathy Bozzuti-Jones. Learn more about artist Kathy Bozzuti-Jones in her artist profile at The Artist Registry @ ECVA.

On the Homepage: work by Kathy Bozzuti-Jones, Betty Clarke and Marilyn Dale.