Monday 20 August 2012

Newsletter No. 13 – August 2012

Steve Scott performing at the Launch Night for the 'Run with the Fire' exhibition

Running with the Fire – events, exhibitions & coverage

California, Devonport, Leicester, London and Streatham. ArtServe, ArtWay, Church & Art Network, Down The Line and Transpositions. These are just some of the places and publications where Run with the Fire, the arts project for the 2012 Olympic year organised by CANA, commission4mission and Veritasse, has featured to date.

c4m organised a Run with the Fire exhibition at London’s Strand Gallery for the Pentecost Festival.  Original work by 17 c4m and invited artists complemented the Run with the Fire digital exhibition (featuring the work of 25 international artists) to create a stimulating and exciting show with an eclectic mix of styles and media which explored the broad theme of running life's race with passion and spirit.

The exhibition also included a day of art talks (by Jonathan Evens, Mark Lewis, Glenn Lowcock and Steve Scott), an art demonstration by Harvey Bradley and a packed Launch Night performance evening featuring Colin Burns, Jonathan Evens, Malcolm Guite, Tamsin Kendrick and Steve Scott.


Tamsin Kendrick performed vibrant, earthy poems based on the parable of the Prodigal Son and Psalm 139, Steve Scott shared work in progress based on incidents from John's Gospel, Colin Burns played three pieces from his debut CD Emerald&Gold, Jonathan Evens read his Run with the Fire poem and a Mark of the Cross meditation, while Malcolm Guite made a great job of linking themes from the artworks and other performances with poems from his sonnet sequence for the Church Year and from his CD Dancing through the fire.

Oak Hills Church in Folsom, California has shown the Run with the Fire digital exhibition at their Art&Soul Gallery throughout the Olympic period. Oak Hills wrote that they were "pleased to be a part of this international event [showing] the amazing works of Christian artists from around the world." The digital exhibition also featured at the Inflame exhibition organised by Love Streatham for this year’s Streatham Festival and at Colours of Life, an assembly for the Diocese of Leicester held at Samworth Enterprise Academy.

Run with the Fire has also stimulated a community art exhibition with creative workshops project organised by Army of Artists. Joy Lawrence wrote in the ‘Plymouth Herald’ of this project – “This is my kind of art: beautiful, touching, stunning, understandable ... If you want to be inspired, encouraged, uplifted, dare I say – touched by the presence of God, take a visit to the Run With The Fire Exhibition at St Aubyn's in Devonport.”

Articles about the Run with the Fire project have featured in the publications of ArtServe, ArtWay, Church & Art Network, Down The Line, and Transpositions. In these pieces Steve Scott of CANA has said that an event like “Run with the Fire” creates opportunities to build partnering relationships, while using a “current event” (like the Olympics) as a platform for engaging and working with artists and communities. When we combine [the digital exhibition] with an opportunity for local or regional response in the form of an accompanying exhibit of artwork, we are building bridges between cultures using the latest technology and creating space for local artistic response. An exhibit like this not only opens the door for mission but also represents, via the arts and cultural diversity, something of the expressive and learning life of a healthy church.

Copies of the Run with the Fire DVD can be purchased via http://www.veritasse.co.uk/cards-prints/most-popular/run-with-the-fire-dvd-pack/. A preview of the Run with the Fire digital exhibition can be seen at  http://youtu.be/nFBGZDgFaw4, while for up-to-date news of the project see http://runwiththefire.blogspot.com/.

AGM: The c4m AGM was held in June at All Saints West Ham. The evening included: a drinks reception; viewing of the c4m exhibition located at All Saints; Colin Burns performing tracks from his debut album Emerald&Gold; a talk by Mark Lewis on 'Stanley Spencer - A visionary of our time' followed by personal reminiscences of Spencer as art tutor at the RCA from Joy Rousell Stone.

Charitable donation: This year our annual charitable donation - which in 2012 amounted to £668.46 – has gone to Safer Places in support of their work with victims of domestic abuse.


Member profile: Ken James Ashby
Ken studied Fine Art at Camberwell School of Art and considers himself to be of the romantic school of art, responding to the beauty he sees around him and painting in different styles depending on the subject itself. He draws influences from many different quarters, also painting in response to modern ugliness, whether it is torture, terrorism or environmental disaster/global warming.

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