In 1982 I lost one of my sisters. Processing that grief became an insurmountable burden. By 1994 my faith seemed stretched beyond capacity. I found myself drawn to cathedrals, and especially their ceilings. There, with my camera, I found a peace that I could find nowhere else. The simple action of looking up drew my spirit higher.

Stone and shadows became my refuge. Soaring Gothic was born in 1995 out of this period of struggle and opened new path for me in my artwork.

In 1998 my father died. Again, I was weighed down with the power of death and life. Now there were no cathedrals for me to visit. I had to turn to God and the solitude of my own soul. Remembering the promise of the ceilings, infinite space and a peaceful universe full of God’s promise, I turned once again to my pastels. Each mark became for me the repetition of a mantra, balm for my wounded soul. The lines and colors became the shadowy movement of light on cathedral walls. That same peace I found in a cathedral returned with each mark upon the paper, and Journey of the Soul II emerged.

2002 brought the death of my mother, and a year later the death of my second sister. As I drew upon my source of photographs, Cathedral of the Interior appeared. With it came the realization that there is no division between heaven and earth. My loved ones aren’t gone; they have only stepped behind the veil and will be there with my Lord when it is time for me to enter the greatest cathedral of all. The presence of the Holy has become part and parcel of my working atmosphere. It is to God, through my paints, my camera, and my computer, that I turn for solace. He has never failed to appear and to sooth my soul and enrich my life with the gift of image.

by Barbara Desrosiers

On View: Cathedral of the Interior, Digital Collage, 2003, 10" x 8". As seen in Art and Faith - A Spiritual Journey at Episcopal Church and Visual Arts.

The Frescoes of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Wilkesboro, NC
"A unique opportunity came to St. Paul’s in 2002 when the parish and the Cultural Arts Council for Wilkes County joined together to have Ben Long paint two frescos in the Commons area at the church. Ben Long, a native of North Carolina, is internationally known for his work in the ancient art of fresco painting. Long works in the traditional technique used by the great Renaissance painters. The fresco is a long tedious process of applying three layers to the wall. The first layer is a base coat of plaster. Next is a finer coat of plaster to which a red outline transferred from a drawing is applied. The final layer of plaster is applied in small sections so that water-based pigments can be applied before the plaster dries. By using this process the painting becomes part of the wall." Text by Danny Hardison.

On View: Paul in Prison , one of a pair of frescoes by Ben Long. Read the story, and watch the video, here.

In the United States this week we celebrate Father's Day, an occasion to honor those who have come before us, founded our own beginnings, given us a leg up, and even confounded our own notions of what is reasonable and just.

The art and architecture of Canterbury Cathedral finds its place on this occasion. Canterbury came before before the Episcopal Church, founded our own beginnings, gave us a leg up, and even confounds our notions of what is reasonable and just. The art and architecture of Canterbury are best viewed on site, with an informed guide and comfortable lodgings, something we call a 'Pilgrimage.'

On view : Presentation Design Drawing of the Baptismal Font for Canterbury Cathedral

Artist: John Christmas (1599-1654)
circa 1638-1639
Pen & ink & watercolour on vellum
The Canterbury baptismal font was commissioned by John Warner, Dean of Lichfield, on the eve of his promotion to the Bishopric of Rochester. This drawing, which has been signed by John Warner, was probably designed for presentation to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury to impress them with his proposed munificence. The size of the drawing and its meticulous execution confirm that it was a commission of great importance.
-from The Art Fund

Embraced Once Again
"My father and I always had a strong and loving relationship. But when I was in my late twenties, my mother died and my father remarried. Our life changed dramatically." To read more of artist Ruth Councell's writing about The Father's Embrace, visit Art and Faith - A Spiritual Journey, at Episcopal Church and Visual Arts.

From a series of stained glass windows at Nativity Episcopal Church in Bloomfield Township, Michigan. Stained glass by Margaret Cavanaugh.

On View: Day 4, separation of the seas and the creation of animals, is designed with various shades of blue and green glass. A shell imbedded in the glass represents emerging animal life.

Read more in ECVA Congregational Arts, here.

The crypts in Rev. Wilfredo Benitez-Rivera' photograph shelter the bones and bodies of a monastery's beloved. They mark holy places and stand guard over the relics of holy lives. Relics were once so central to Christian liturgy that our altars were built with a special opening, secreted in the center and covered with a stone or plaque, that would house the bone of a martyr or saint, or a fragment from a building where miracles were recorded.

Some today still keep true to the practice of honoring holy lives, though I'd say it is high time for a revival. Who is the beloved in your diocese? In the Diocese of California I think of our mothers and fathers who raise their children to be strong and humane citizens while surrounded by violence, educational challenges and unemployment. In this diocese I think of the elderly who raise their grandchildren and their neighbors grandchildren because drugs, AIDS and despair have claimed so many parents. Who are the martyrs in your town? Whose holy bones would you place in a crypt?

On View: Places of Silence V, photograph by the Rev. Wilfredo Benitez-Rivera. From the ECVA Visual Prelude Gracious Spirit, available here.

Stillness You Can See
Photographs show us what isn't there as well as what is. The expanse of sky is something, but it is also nothing, an emptiness spilling out of the frame endlessly. It is a fiction, even its blue, that we imagine is there for us, a fragile canopy, who knows how it stays there. What defines this sky is another emptiness, the flats, the marshgrass where nothing is moving, not even the wind.

Stillness you can see, there and not there.

I have spent time in spaces like this one on immobile days of summer that have turned off the sound. A day as silent as a photograph. But someone has been here--and the caption tells us that someone is often here, doing church business, but without the caption the photograph is only a sign of unnamed presence and absence. I prefer not knowing. What has been left behind is a book, a mug for coffee or tea. I assume the book is a Bible, even without the caption. A reader has sat here facing the empty landscape, torn between what is in front of her physically and before her metaphysically, the already-not-yet of Biblical time in which we can read from the first moment to the last without leaving our chair.

The image is all presence, spirit, made more immediate by the certainty that someone was here. Jesus appears on the lake shore after resurrection, here and not here, sitting quietly and then gone. But not gone. And so it is with all of us. Why has she left, the one who was here? Where has she gone? Will she come back? Absence can be a coffee break; it can be death. In this moment, confronting the void, we cannot know. -Ken Arnold

On View: "Church Office, Beaver Alaska", a photograph by The Rev. Scott Fisher, Fairbanks Alaska

Ken Arnold is a writer living in Portland, Oregon. You can read more of his work here.