The Big Draw: Norsey Wood

The Big Draw: Drawing, printing and digital images. Norsey Wood, Saturday  20th  July, 10am - 3 pm. Free. Drawing opportunity for all.  Come and take part. Artist leaders - Mark Lewis and Peter Webb. Trail artists - Julia Tanner, Dezadie (digital artist), Lesley Cartwright. Meet by the Visitor centre. Children to be accompanied by an adult. Associated with the national Big Draw movement - www.campaignfordrawing.org. The Campaign for Drawing has one aim: to get everyone drawing!

The Big Draw is followed by an Arts Evening at St. Mary Magdalen Billericay with Tim Cunningham and Jonathan Evens (poetry), Colin Burns (music) and Dezadie (animations) plus a dance group and projected images from the Big Draw (Saturday 20th July, 7:30pm - 10pm).

Members' update: Andrew Vessey

Andrew Vessey writes:

"I've been painting hard in the studio - small semi-abstract studies - and beavering around in the sunshine - pastels and ink drawings - getting ready for three weekends of Open Studios. We are a nicely diverse group of about 30, living and working along the Waveney Valley and it's always good to find conversation and friendship. I'm the only clergy person but in addition to seeing a few of them in one or other of the churches I visit on Sunday on duty, they have made me very welcome socially. We have two taster exhibitions planned that will coincide with the Studio dates and are booked for a Group Show in the Pears Gallery in Aldeburgh mid-September. Before then I am creating two pieces for a unique show in Wenhaston (July 27-29) celebrating the life of the late Harry Becker who lived here in Suffolk for much of his mature working life, painting labourers and toilers! I shall be painting Joseph in the sawpit and Mary in an orchard, each discovering "they are not alone". Then in late August I have a one-man in St Michael's Framlingham, one of the truly great wool churches of Suffolk and where 27 years ago I began my curacy."

New website page on Arts initiatives

commission4mission and aspects of its work now feature on the website of the Diocese of Chelmsford. c4m  is an initiative and organisation which has grown out of the Chelmsford Diocese although its membership and activities now extend beyond the Diocese itself.

The website page has been written by Jonathan Evens and includes information about c4m commissions in the Diocese, the Barking Episcopal Area Art Trail, and the Barking Episcopal Arts Festival to which we regularly contribute.

Click here to see the new website page.

Member's update: Harvey Bradley

Harvey Bradley is an artist coordinator for the first Billericay Art Trail which runs  from Friday 31st August to Saturday 9th September. The trail is intended to be a showcase of local artists’ work, exhibited in venues across the town. The main focus of the trail will be the busy High Street with its many shops, cafes and restaurants allowing art trail visitors to walk between several of the venues. The Fold, the centre for the Arts in Billericay, is a key location for the art trail and will host artists for the duration of the trail alongside its own exhibitions.

Harvey's work will be shown at Masons of Billericay. Harvey writes: "When ‘throwing' and my pottery is going well, there is nothing like it. I do enjoy ‘turning’ pots too and, particularly with porcelain, it gives a distinct refinement to the form. On my kick wheel it is a calming and relaxing process."

Faith & Image 2012-2013 Programme

Here is the proposed 'Faith and Image' programme of evening presentations (at St Mary's Woodford) and weekend visits to galleries, churches or historic places. All are welcome to these events. An entrance fee of £4.00 is charged for evening talks, which includes refreshments. Details from Mark Lewis 020 8504 5840 or Jane Cooper 020 8504 1272.

Tuesday May 8th / Saturday visit to be arranged, at the time of Evensong
"The Re-building of Coventry Cathedral after the war"

A reflection on the power of art, architecture and poetry to create healing and forgiveness in the context of the bombing devastation of Coventry

Saturday June 30th Burghclere Chapel: The paintings of Stanley Spencer"

Lectures, and a discussion of Spencer's work during a visit to the Chapel

Saturday July 21st "Art Trail" visits, with lectures and guided tour of art work at St Edmunds Chingford, St Barnabas Walthamstow and St Andrews Leytonstone (with excellent café!)

Thursday September 20/Saturday 22 September visit to Chichester Cathedral

"The Art and Architecture of Chichester Cathedral"

Tuesday October 16th "Roger Wagner: Religious poet and illustrator"

Author and illustrator of "The Oxford Book of Psalms" and "The Fire Sonnets"

Wednesday November 7/ Saturday November 10th Visit to the Imperial War Museum
"Poets and Artists of the Wars"

Completed commission: St John's mosaics

A commission for two mosaics at St John's Seven Kings has been completed today in readiness for their dedication by Rt Revd David Hawkins, Bishop of Barking, during tomorrow's Patronal Festival service at the church.

The mosaics complete work that the church has carried out to create a community garden and will also feature in both the local Church art trail and the art trail for the Barking Episcopal Area.

Graffiti Love by Viki Isherwood Metzler has been installed on the east wall of the church, where it can be seen by passers-by on the busy Aldborough Road South. The second mosaic is by Sergiy Shkanov and forms part of a Trinity sculpture, designed by the community garden planning group, for the remembrance area of the community garden.  

c4m, churches and the E17 Art Trail

c4m Associate, Rev. Steven Saxby has overseen the involvement of St Barnabas Walthamstow and St Saviour's Walthamstow in this year's E17 Art Trail. Among the artists exhibiting at St Saviour's is Henry Shelton whose Stations of the Cross, previously exhibited at York Minister and St Barnabas, can be seen at St Saviour's this weekend as part of the Art Trail, and subsequently at the usual church opening hours.

Three c4m members - Valerie Dean, Rosalind Hore and Henry Shelton - have completed series of Stations of the Cross and would be interested to discuss the possibility of these being located in local churches. To discuss this possibilty further and to see images from each series, please contact tel: 020 8599 2170 or email: jonathan.evens@btinternet.com.

Work being shown at St Barnabas this year includes banners, cartoons, flower arrangements, jewellery, photograms, photographs, silver. Artists include: Rebecca de Quin, Lorraine Huddle, Lano, Louise Loder, Anna Newson-Lyons, Sean Pines, J.A. Saxby, Kirsten Schmidt, Sandra Shevlin, Simplystems, Paul Tucker.

St Saviour's is also showing paintings by Elizabeth Pell and soft sculptures by Harriet Hammel. For the last 20 years Elizabeth Pell has been an art tutor in Adult Education. There is also a display of work by Jonathan Carthy, Kofi Serebour, Susan Collins and Alyson Scott who are members of a class which she currently teaches at Scope.

Annual Report 2010/11

Rt. Revd. Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Chelmsford launching the Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area

In our second full year of operation commission4mission has consolidated its initial achievements, reviewed its strategy, and maintained its growth and development.

During 2010/11 commission4mission has:

• researched, published and launched a Church Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area;

Pottery and paintings in our ‘Peacing Together One World’ exhibition at St Mary Magdalen, Billericay

• completed commissions for artworks at All Saints Hutton, St Peter’s Harold Wood, St Edmund’s Tyseley and St Pauls Goodmayes;

• gained commissions for artworks at All Saints Hutton, St John’s Seven Kings, and St Margaret’s Great Ilford;

• maintained a changing display of member’s work at All Saints West Ham and organised exhibitions at St Mary Magdalene Billericay, St Nicholas Rawreth and as part of the West Ham Festival;

• held a networking event and a performance evening and organised a launch event for the Barking Episcopal Area Art Trail;

• worked in partnership with CANA and Veritasse to create ‘Run With The Fire’, an international art project for the London 2012 Olympics;

• completed a strategic development review resulting in work commencing to gain charity registration for commission4mission;

• expanded our membership to 38 (as at 31/03/11) and were joined by Wendy McTernan as regional co-ordinator in South/West London; and

Jonathan Evens and Henry Shelton present the c4m cheque to staff of Haven House.

• presented a cheque for £2,700 to the Haven House Children’s Hospice, this being the charitable element from our first year of operation.

We are very grateful to: all members for their support and involvement; all committee members for their direction and guidance; our Patron, Bishop David, for his ideas and interest; Rev. Helen Gheorghiu Gould for her work on our Strategic Development Review; Mark and Matt Lewis for work on the Barking Episcopal Area Art Trail; Wendy McTernan who joined us as a Regional Co-ordinator; Ranjit Solomon for his independent examination of our accounts; and to London-over-the-Border for their generous financial support of the Barking Episcopal Area Art Trail project.

Revd. Jonathan Evens, Secretary – July 2011

commission4mission @ Leytonstone

The latest commission4mission exhibition begins tomorrow at Holy Trinity with St Augustine of Hippo Leytonstone (4 Holloway Road Ell 4LD). The exhibition runs from 14th - 20th July (10.00am - 1.00pm, 4.00 - 7.00pm) as part of the Leytonstone Festival and the Barking Episcopal Area Art Festival.

The exhibition will include work by Colin Burns, Jonathan Evens, Mark Lewis, Elizabeth Duncan Meyer, Caroline Richardson, Henry Shelton and Joy Rousell Stone. Also able to be seen at Holy Trinity with St Augustine of Hippo are a set of intricate Stations of the Cross by Barbara Sampson and Scenes from the life of St Augustine, a concrete frieze by the sculptor Stephen Sykes.

On Wednesday 20th July at 7.30pm, c4m will also be holding its AGM at Holy Trinity with St Augustine of Hippo Leytonstone. The exhibition can be viewed prior to our meeting. At 7.30pm we will hear presentations from Dr Graham Gould on Scenes from the life of St Augustine, the concrete frieze by the sculptor Stephen Sykes, and Mark Lewis speaking on the Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area, and these will be followed by the AGM. The AGM will include discussion of a revised constitution designed to enable us to register as a charity.

The Barking Episcopal Area Art Festival includes a number of interesting activities and events (which are open to all), including other visual arts exhibitions and presentations. Click here for the Festival programme and for more information.

commission4mission exhibition and AGM

On Thursday 14th July the latest commission4mission exhibition begins at Holy Trinity with St Augustine of Hippo Leytonstone (4 Holloway Road Ell 4LD). The exhibition runs from 14th - 20th July (10.00am - 1.00pm, 4.00 - 7.00pm) as part of the Leytonstone Festival and the Barking Episcopal Area Art Festival.
The exhibition will include work by Colin Burns, Jonathan Evens, Mark Lewis, Elizabeth Duncan Meyer, Caroline Richardson, Henry Shelton and Joy Rousell Stone. Also able to be seen at Holy Trinity with St Augustine of Hippo are a set of intricate Stations of the Cross by Barbara Sampson and Scenes from the life of St Augustine, a concrete frieze by the sculptor Stephen Sykes (see images above).
On Wednesday 20th July at 7.30pm, c4m will also be holding its AGM at Holy Trinity with St Augustine of Hippo Leytonstone. The exhibition can be viewed prior to our meeting. At 7.30pm we will hear presentations from Dr Graham Gould on Scenes from the life of St Augustine, the concrete frieze by the sculptor Stephen Sykes, and Mark Lewis speaking on the Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area, and these will be followed by the AGM. The AGM will include discussion of a revised constitution designed to enable us to register as a charity.

The Barking Episcopal Area Art Festival includes a number of interesting activities and events (which are open to all), including other visual arts exhibitions and presentations. Click here for the Festival programme and for more information.

Sermon: Emmaus epiphany

As part of ongoing work designed to develop temporary and possibly permanent artworks in the parish of St Paul's Harlow and St Mary's Parndon, which will involve a study day on 'The value of public art' on Saturday 19th September at St Paul's Harlow, Jonathan Evens preached the following sermon today at St Paul's Harlow:

 

Thanks very much for the invitation to come along to St Paul’s today. It’s great to be here. As Rev. Martin Harris has mentioned I’m part of a group of artists called commission4mission which encourages churches to use contemporary art. We are the people who put together the Church art trail leaflets for the Barking Episcopal Area which feature St Paul's Harlow because of its artistic importance in terms of its architecture and the ‘Emmaus’ mosaic by John Piper, something which I’m told Martin manages to mention in each of his sermons! I’m here today with Robert Enoch (who installed your Easter pillars) and we’re here because we would like to work with your church to develop new pieces of art as part of your vision for the growth of this church and as part of the mission work you are undertaking in Harlow.

 

So I’m going to talk for a few minutes about some ways in which art can open our eyes to see more of God in our world. I’m going to start, naturally enough, with a painting.

 

(Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio)

 

I wonder if any of the children or young people here could tell me what they see in this painting by Caravaggio. Did anyone here watch the quiz show called ‘Catchphrase’ that used to be on ITV on Saturday nights? ‘Catchphrase’ had its own catchphrase which was ‘Say what you see’ and that is a good rule of thumb to remember whenever you look at a painting. So, who would like to say what they can see in this painting?

• Who is at the centre of the picture?
• How does the artist make sure we focus on Jesus?
• Why is Jesus the central person in the picture?
• What is Jesus doing?
• How are the other people reacting to him?

At the centre of the picture and at the centre of the story is a very simple and ordinary action; breaking bread or tearing a loaf of bread into two pieces. Although it is a simple and ordinary thing to do, it becomes a very important act when Jesus does it because that is the moment when Jesus’ two disciples realise who he is. They suddenly realise that this stranger who they have been walking with and talking to for hours is actually Jesus himself, risen from the dead. They are amazed and thrilled, shocked and surprised, and we can see that clearly on the faces and in the actions of the disciples as they are portrayed in this painting.

Something very simple and ordinary suddenly becomes full of meaning and significance. This simple, ordinary action opens their eyes so that they can suddenly see Jesus as he really is. That is art in action! Art captures or creates moments when ordinary things are seen as significant. When our eyes are suddenly opened, in this way, to see meaning and significance in something that we had previously thought of as simple and ordinary, that is called an epiphany.

There is a time in the Church calendar that is also called Epiphany. Who can remember when Epiphany is? What do we remember and celebrate in the season of Epiphany? At Epiphany we remember the Magi or Wise Men coming to visit Jesus as a young child.

 

In the Epiphany icon above Jesus has a halo and is being spotlighted by the star that led the Magi to him but Jesus would actually have been a very ordinary looking young boy. There wouldn’t have been anything special that the Magi would have seen that marked him out as being significant but nevertheless they realised who he was and worshipped him. They saw the significance of the ordinary looking child they had come to visit and that is why they had an epiphany. By giving Jesus a halo and spotlighting him with a star, this painting focuses our attention on the significance of Jesus, rather than this ordinariness. It shows us the significance that the Magi saw in this ordinary looking child through their epiphany.

An epiphany happens when an everyday reality becomes charged with spiritual significance. This is what art can do for us. It can give us epiphanies by helping us see ordinary things in new ways. Caravaggio’s painting does that for us. It is a painting of an epiphany but it is also an epiphany itself because it brings the story to life in a way that helps us see it afresh, as though we were seeing it for the first time.

 

You have a wonderful and important work of art in your Church – John Piper’s ‘Emmaus’ mosaic. It is important because John Piper was a significant British artist and also because this mosaic is probably the first that he made for a Church. Whatever you think about it, whether you like it or not, because you see it so often it is likely that you often don’t really notice it or think anything much of it. That is what happens whenever something becomes very familiar to us. How could we change that so that we start to see it afresh, as though we were seeing it again for the very first time?

Art could do that for us? One of the ideas that Robert Enoch has suggested for this Church would make that happen, if it was tried as a temporary installation, by covering up the mosaic initially with another design; like this …

 

Then over several weeks more and more of the mosaic would be revealed until the whole image was visible once again.

 

We’re not saying that that idea will definitely happen – that would be for you to decide as a Church and we would like to discuss some of our ideas with you after the service is over – but, if that installation were to happen it would have the effect of helping you see your ‘Emmaus’ mosaic again as though for the first time. Just as the disciples had an epiphany when they saw Jesus as though for the first time, this artwork would help you to have a similar epiphany about your ‘Emmaus’ mosaic.

Something similar could happen with the Church building too. Lots of people locally will come into the centre of Harlow regularly and walk straight past this building as though it isn’t there. Again, it is something so familiar that they don’t stop to look at it and see it as though for the first time. Once again, art could make them stop and stare. Another of our ideas is to project images at night onto the west windows of the church. Changing or moving images in those windows, again as a temporary installation, could make local people stop and look again at this building. Through the projected images we could show on the outside something of what happens on the inside and that might make people stop and look and see this church – the building and the people – as though for the very first time.

This is what art can do and when art gives us epiphanies like this then our eyes are opened, as were the eyes of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and we see something of God in the ordinary, everyday things around us. Whether we like the idea of the artworks that I’ve mentioned this morning or not, having epiphanies, seeing God in the everyday, seeing heaven in the ordinary, now that is something for which each of us should pray on a daily basis. Art can help to make that happen for us but our prayer should first and foremost be may our eyes be opened to see the glory of God all around us, whether that comes through art or by some other means. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.