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 Artist of the Month: Sydney Lea
Few poets write about the human body, in all its grace, frailty, and absurdity, with as much tenderness as Sydney Lea. In his poems, the body is the canvas on which our biographies are painted, the playing field of life’s battle. His voice is plainspoken, earthy, even casual, but as the poems develop (they’re often on the longer side), the humble language reveals a delicate, carefully weighed theology: in Lea’s eyes, the quirks and vulnerabilities of the human frame lie close together with its beauties and strengths. And in these homely shapes of ours, the sacred lurks everywhere. It’s through bodily weaknesses that grace finds places to lodge in us. Lea’s language tells the same story: it’s blunt, frank, and grounded in the ordinary (and in the flinty soil of New England), but as with the human frame he writes about, it’s in this plainness that the sacred lodges, through simplicity that the picture emerges. Against that spare background, beauty flares out all the brighter. Also a fiction writer, memoirist, and founder and longtime editor of the New England Review, Lea has been a generous contributor to the world of American letters.
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 Issue 54 Is Here
Just in time to take with you on vacation, the summer issue of Image is here. You’ll find: an interview with Belgian cardinal Godfried Danneels on contemporary painting—and the role poetry and symbolism can play in theology; Robert Cording on the power of literature to move us out of ourselves; a wry Ozymandian fable from Gina Ochsner; a profile of audacious young Scottish composer James MacMillan; Leslie Leyland Field’s memoir of her family’s strange reconciliation with her apathetic father; the drawings, etching, and lithographs of James Munce—inspired by the life of Saint Francis; poems by Gregory Orr and Mark Jarman; a review of Sam Fentress’s new book of photos of American roadside religious signs; and much more.
Click here to see the full table of contents and order a copy.
 Donata Wenders: Islands of Silence
Those who follow the films of Wim Wenders with a certain intensity have discovered that they often spawn books of photographs. This is no surprise, since Wenders is well-known as a photographer and as a director who loves the camera frame the way a photographer does. The spin-off books of photography (including one based on Buena Vista Social Club) also happen to contain work done by Wim’s wife Donata. But it would be a mistake to assume that Donata’s work is merely documentary, an adjunct to Wim’s vision. Now, with the publication of Islands of Silence, Donata Wenders’s quiet genius behind the camera is made evident. In this collection you can find a few shots that are associated with one of Wim’s films—a shot of actor Jeremy Davis, who starred in Million Dollar Hotel, or of Andie Macdowell from The End of Violence—but the range of photographs in this volume goes well beyond the world of film. Working exclusively in black and white, Donata Wenders loves to capture people in meditative moments, or reveries—like a ballerina or female bartender staring into space like figures in a Degas painting. As a result, character is revealed, the static photograph implying a larger narrative arc. We’re no experts in art photography, but the range of effects Donata achieves through shadow, slight shifts of focus, and a humming graininess are a delight to behold. It’s as if she’s in search of each subject’s soul, something that her friend Bono notes in his endorsement blurb: “Transformation, transubstantiation: flesh somehow becomes spirit. Donata’s images feel eternal to me, like they were always going to happen. Observed, not posed. Poised for the next world, a better world, she brings that kind of vision to the here and now.” Islands of Silence reveals an artist fully-formed and alert to epiphany. If you have any love for photography, this is one to put on your wish list.
Donata’s website can be found here.
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Jake Armerding: Walking on the World
 Hailed by the Boston Globe as “the most gifted and promising songwriter to emerge from the Boston folk scene in years,” Jake Armerding (ImageUpdate #42) continues to deliver on his artistic promise. Following his 2003 self-titled sophomore release, Armerding devoted three years to touring with the likes of David Wilcox, writing new songs, and preparing for his second release with Compass Records. When the recording sessions for Walking on the World commenced, conflicts of vision began to surface. In the end, Armerding decided to release the album on his own. “We ended up seeing differently,” he said. “It now sounds not exactly like they wanted and exactly like I wanted.” Evidencing a wide range of influences—Americana, bluegrass, country, 80’s pop music—Walking on the World is a musical melting pot. “I think it took 20 years for all those things to come together into this sort of fused mess,” Armerding said. And it’s this very fusion, this variety of styles, which might distract the listener from realizing the craftsmanship of the album. With his wide-ranging tenor and lyrical craft, Armerding shapes Walking on the World thematically around the subject of love. On the James Taylor-esque “Falling In,” he remembers the beginning of a relationship: “Hey, could you make up your heart / I’d like to begin. / Love is spreading her arms / and I’m falling in.” Armerding continues the themes of romance on “Flirting,” a bluesy and rhythmic riff recalling the songs of Morphine: “I’m sipping on the wine / she is nibbling on the food. / I’m swinging on her vine / she is swinging on my mood.” Other songs on the album range from foot-stomping tunes like “Regulation Blues” to painful investigations of loss such as the retrospective “What I Mind.” As suggested by the album’s title, these are songs of lived experience, particularly the realities of human relationships. Produced by Eric Merrill, Walking on the World features John Doyle, Aoife O’Donovan, Mark Erelli, and Dan Dugmore. Armerding is currently performing on the east coast.
To hear samples or order your copy of Walking on the World, click here.
Sacred and Profane: Voice and Vision in Southern Self-Taught Art
Edited by Carol Crown and Charles Russell
 The essays in Sacred and Profane: Voice and Vision in Southern Self-Taught Art examine several artists from the last century whose vision has been shaped by the geography, religious imagination, and racial and economic struggles of the American south. Because self-taught art tends to be deeply personal, it would be difficult to make any generalizations about the works featured here: from the chewing gum sculptures, handmade dolls, yard ornaments, and knick knack arrangements of Nellie Mae Rowe, to the “sermons in paint” by the Rev. Howard Finster, to the decorated shoes, chairs, and household objects of George Andrews. Each work is imbued with the private fascinations and idiosyncrasies of the artist—many of whom create out of a sense of divine calling, including the musician-evangelist Anderson Johnson, whose Faith Mission chapel in Newport News, Virginia is covered in his portraits of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and, of course, Jesus. Others are inspired with equal conviction to shape something meaningful out of the more ordinary, even profane, stuff of their world. Most of the works collected in this book (and there are nearly 100 illustrations) combine something of both, balancing what the editors call “the simultaneous demands of the sacred and the profane dimensions of existence.” If they share anything in common, the self-taught artists featured in Sacred and Profane possess a measure of creative improvisation that enables them to seize anything from found objects to Bible verses and appropriate them to their own unique artistic vision.
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