Mark Lewis

Christ before Pilate

Chalice for Hornby Church

Mark Lewis is an artist, jeweller and silversmith and until recently, was a full-time Lecturer in the Sir John Cass Department of Art Media and Design at London Metropolitan University and Chair of Faith & Image. He has undertaken drawing and painting in a Christian context and has designed and made Church plate. In addition to his lecturing, Mark has delivered workshops for the Big Draw as part of its national launch and run other community drawing events. He has now set up a consultancy to develop drawing skills and creative thinking in a variety of exciting learning contexts.

Faith & Image is a forum for all who have an interest in art as a medium of spiritual expression. The group seeks to gain insight and understanding from all art forms, all traditions and cultures. Faith & Image offers a programme of illustrated talks and discussions. Speakers include a wide range of artists, architects, craft workers, art and design historians.

Interviews with C4M Patron & Founder

David Hawkins, the Bishop of Barking, is himself a practising artist as well as being Patron of Commission For Mission. His views on art and the need for the Church to re-engage with the arts can be read in a three-part intervew by clicking here, here and here.

Henry Shelton is the founder of Commision For Mission and a professional fine artist. Henry has also been interviewed for Commission For Mission and his interview can be found by clicking here and here.

“I think there is a big need to re-engage with the Arts. The Church has had a lengthy and happy marriage with the Arts in the past but needs more artists. I agree with Rowan Williams that ‘artists are special people and every person is a special kind of artist’.” David Hawkins

“The purpose of Commission For Mission is to promote modern Christian Art in all its forms and by doing so raise money for charity. I want us to be offering quality work and craftsmanship, rather than mass-produced work, to continue the legacy of the Church as a great commissioner of art.” Henry Shelton

Meditations on Stations

Jonathan Evens has posted a review of the Northwood & Northwood Hills stns to his blog together with photos of selected artworks and his associated meditations.

Feedback from the project on his meditations has included:

• "Thank you so much for these meditations. We found the whole journey [around the artworks] together really moving – thank you for your contribution to it."
• "God really has worked through your words and you have such a gift."

Rosalind Hore

Rosalind Hore is a sculptor and painter of Christian subjects – Christ figures, nativity sets, Ecce Homo, Stations of the Cross etc. She works in clay, plaster, concrete (figures can also be bronze cast at the foundry). Her paintings are mostly in acrylic of the events in the life of Christ. Her Pieta (pictured above) can be viewed at St Laurence’s Upminster.

Rosalind has been an art teacher throughout her working life, has taken part in the Cambridge Open Studios (creating a sculpture garden and art gallery at her home) and has led art groups and projects in the parishes where she has lived. She has a sculpture in the Bible Garden at St Mary's Goring-by-Sea, which she describes as follows: "As part of a parish mission called Stepping Stones, I decided to do something special and made a seated figure of Christ with his arms outstretched titled Come Unto Me. We put stepping stones in the grass leading up to him."

C4M's Pentecost Festival exhibition

Apocalyptic Landscape by Jonathan Evens

Station 3: Jesus Falling 1 by Henry Shelton

Christ by Rosalind Hore

Bursting through the Crown of Thorns by Harvey Bradley

The Pentecost Festival is a London weekend festival with hundreds of events celebrating diversity in the Christian faith: multi-culturalism, arts, politics, ecology, worship. Co-ordinated by Share Jesus International over the Pentecost weekend 26th - 31st May 2009, the festival is highly visible and takes place in the parks, coffee shops, bars, churches, clubs and theatres of central London. In 2008, the festival's inaugural year, the capital saw 10,000 people enjoy over 150 events at more than 60 venues and outdoor spaces.

Four Commission For Mission artists - Harvey Bradley, Jonathan Evens, Rosalind Hore and Henry Shelton - will be exhibiting at Central Hall Westminster as part of the Festival Feel section of the Pentecost Festival programme. Our exhibition will be taking place on Saturday 30th May from 12 noon to 6.00pm. In addition to our exhibition, Harvey Bradley and Henry Shelton will each give a painting demonstration. Click here for more details from the Pentecost Festival website.

Café Refresh

New contacts for and additional interest in Commission For Mission seems to come on a daily basis at present.

The latest group that we are talking to are Café Refresh based at St Andrews Leytonstone. Through Café Refresh the church plans to offer a spiritual haven for their community. They intend to run a creative programme in their café, hall and worship space and are looking for local artists of all genres to help and participate in this.

They are exploring how they can offer such activities as children’s creative workshops, poetry/literature reading and writing workshops, low cost exhibition space, music recitals, and possible joint arts projects with other partners. They are also planning about six exhibitions per year. They would like to get this up and running by summer 2009.

Helen Gheorghiu Gould is the project's Development Worker. She has been involved in the original vision and Action Plan, and is now developing the café and creative programme and meeting as many local organisations and people as possible. Her previous experience has been in running a charity dealing with arts and social/international development.

Also in Walthamstow will be the annual E17 Art Trail for which Commission For Mission Chairperson Henry Shelton, at the instigation of Commission For Mission member Steven Saxby, will be loaning his Stations of the Cross to be displayed at St Barnabas Walthamstow from 5th - 13th September 2009.

Jonathan Evens

Mark of the Cross

I AM Love

Jonathan Evens paints in a symbolic expressionist style and has facilitated the involvement of churches in a range of public art projects. His arts journalism has featured in publications including 'Art & Christianity' and 'The Church Times'. He is also a creative writer (meditations, poetry, short stories, and a blog) and the Vicar of St John the Evangelist Seven Kings. Jonathan is the Secretary of Commission for Mission.

Jonathan's paintings can be viewed on the Veritasse website by clicking here. More information about all of Jonathan's creative projects can be found on his blog at: http://joninbetween.blogspot.com/.

Each week he posts a new photograph in his 'Windows on the World' series on his blog. Past images from this series (each of which feature a foreground object framing a background view to suggest the way in which we each see the world from a specific perspective while also simultaneously perceiving something beyond) can be viewed by clicking on the photographs tab in the blog index.