Over the Rhine – The Trumpet Child
Included on Paste Magazine’s list of the 100 Best Living Songwriters, Over the Rhine’s Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler have courted an ever-increasing list of admirers. With the recent release of their seventeenth album, The Trumpet Child, the band’s popularity seems primed for a sizeable increase. Filled with confidence and joy, the album takes an exuberant—though not necessarily light-hearted—romp through themes of the heart. Detweiler comments: “On this project, I think we returned to the quintessential stuff that’s always interested us in our writing: spirituality, sexuality, living vividly, challenging the status quo and subtly taking power away from those who have too much and transferring it to people who have too little.” Filled with lush soundscapes, brass and woodwind ensembles, and jazzy vocals, The Trumpet Child feels like a homecoming. Wiser for the miles, the album opens with “I Don’t Want to Waste Your Time,” a love song of sorts to the listener: “I’ve got a different scar for every song / And blood left still to bleed / But I don’t wanna waste your time / With music you don’t need.” The remainder of the lyrically-charged album is anything but a waste of time. Both forthcoming and elusive, the songs range from the personal (“Trouble”) to the flamboyant (“I’m on a Roll”). In the prophetic title track, Bergquist sings, “The trumpet child will lift a glass / His bride now leaning in at last / His final aim to fill with joy / The earth that man all but destroyed.” The band is not without a sense of humor, however, and closes the album with the tongue-in-cheek political take, “If a Song Could Be President,” and a spot-on growling ode to Tom Waits, “Don’t Wait for Tom.” Releasing The Trumpet Child on their own label, Great Speckled Dog, Over the Rhine collaborated with Nashville producer, Brad Jones (Matthew Sweet, Josh Rouse, and Ron Sexsmith). And though the album succeeds in bringing it all back home, the journey must begin again. Over the Rhine kicks off the first leg of their world tour September 13th and 14th, playing to sold out crowds in Seattle, Washington. And in October this year, Over the Rhine will re-release its Christmas album, Snow Angels.

For more on Over the Rhine, visit their official website.

The Maytrees by Annie Dillard
Reading Annie Dillard’s second novel, The Maytrees, is like taking a stroll through the dunes of Cape Cod, shoeless and pensive, the sea “a monster with lace hem” beside you, and then happening upon a weathered stone or a gleaming pearl in the sand, nudging it with your foot, and sifting the salty grains through your toes as you unbury the unseen. The Maytrees moves at this same careful pace. Dillard’s practiced eye observes the love of two protagonists, Maytree and Lou, unfolding and refolding it thought by thought, again and again. Although The Maytrees explores themes of grace, aging, and nature, it is best characterized as an unabashed love story: two New Englanders marry and find themselves forever wondering what love is. Dillard, undaunted by the long line of love stories that have scoured the genre of its obvious metaphors, writes like a patient beachcomber bent on discovering her own unique treasure in the sand. With her characteristic sense of humor, Dillard encounters the mystery of love with a handful of surprising and poetic images, from Aztec priests to sinking ships. And her characters explicitly ponder the strange paradox of love, the ridiculous notion that we care “wildly, then deeply, for one person out of billions,” that we bind “ourselves to the fickle, changing, and dying as if they were rock.” But ultimately, as Toby Maytree struggles to realize, “reason never trafficked in a man’s love life,” and it is “only in the face of the other” that we each find home.

Click here to buy the book.

The Soft Edge of Reason: Paintings by Kimberly Alexander
Kimberly Alexander explores the malleable edges between scientific knowledge and artistic expression in her new exhibition, “The Soft Edge of Reason,” on display at Studio 832 in Dallas, Texas, September 21 – October 20, 2007. Her vibrant, arresting canvases make use of structured scientific narratives—periodic tables, molecular formations, botanical illustrations, and more—to explore “the quiet, academic scandal that science, as an expression of humanity, is inextricable from the irrational aspects of our nature.” That is to say, at least in part, that even science is fodder for creativity. “The Soft Edge of Reason” includes a series of paintings called “The Periodic Table,” each inspired by a different element. Another series, “Young Immigrants,” uses botanical illustrations in paintings that explore issues surrounding teenage immigration with palpable tenderness and immediacy. A visual artist with a background in ideas (she has a masters in philosophy, literature, and art history), Alexander maintains a delicate balance between the lofty and the concrete. Her combination of scientific narrative with ideas lends a dose of mystery and metaphor to science, and a dose of concreteness and physicality to ideas. She presents the viewer with worlds that are at once welcoming and undeniably strange, quietly surreal but never hellish. Belonging somewhere on the border of the rational and the creative mind, her paintings are playful takes on the conventional language of science, suggesting that even this seemingly stripped-down discourse has its “inherent poetry” and, when encountered by human subjects, “borders on beauty, tragedy, comedy, and catharsis.” Kimberly Alexander is the co-director of the Trinity Arts Conference and has written about art for various publications, including Image—her essay, “Compilations: The Art of Lance Letscher” can be found in Image #44.

“The Soft Edge of Reason” will kick off September 22 with an artist’s reception at 6:00 p.m. Studio 832 is located at 832 Exposition Avenue in Dallas, Texas. For more information click here or call (214) 827-0605.

Peculiar Pilgrims
Linda Wendling, editor
Former Milton fellow in fiction Linda Wendling recently edited a new anthology from Hourglass Books, an independent press that publishes anthologies of short stories on themes like “fathers and daughters” or “the world of work,” drawing from top literary magazines and recent prize winners. This offering, Peculiar Pilgrims: Stories from the Left Hand of God, explores themes of grace, reconciliation, and the search for transcendence as they appear in the broad, eddying stream of contemporary fiction. The twenty-six stories here are not the fiction of predictable inspiration or instant uplift, though the collection is shot through with moments of hope and transcendence. Instead, these beautifully written stories make our yearning to believe seem newly strange—the way it ought to. The God from whose hand these stories come is mysterious, formidable, elusive, compelling. Writes Image editor Gregory Wolfe in the anthology’s introduction: “In a number of religious traditions, God actually demonstrates a marked preference for those on his left side. Because it is precisely there that we can come to the realization that there are no sides, only one screwed-up, yearning human family. In the stories that follow, that place of reversal and recognition is the first step on the pilgrim’s path.” The collection includes several Image favorites like Melanie Rae Thon and Erin McGraw, as well as the hard-to-find work of our managing editor, Mary Kenagy.

Order it here.

Image is Coming to Canada. Mark Your Calendars!
This fall Image editor Gregory Wolfe will be traveling to four Canadian cities—Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, and Winnipeg—to spread the word about the journal and to strengthen ties with Canadian artists, writers, and those who are working for cultural transformation. In Winnipeg on October 25, Image will host a special evening at the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery where Gregory Wolfe will give a talk on the power of beauty to nourish our common life, communicate faith, and renew our culture. Wolfe will also be giving a presentation in Calgary (date to be announced). In Vancouver and Toronto Wolfe will be appearing at two special book launch events that Image is co-sponsoring. These events, featuring Kathleen Norris as keynote speaker, will celebrate the publication of God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas, a beautifully illustrated collection of daily meditations for the seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, written by Norris, Luci Shaw, Eugene Peterson, Scott Cairns and others. Image will co-sponsor the book launch events, held in Toronto on November 13 and Vancouver on November 14. We are grateful to several Canadian donors for making these appearances possible and are looking forward to getting more Canadian readers—and more Canadian contributors to our pages.

For information about Gregory Wolfe’s appearances in Calgary and Winnipeg, contact Julie Mullins at (206) 281-2988 or jmullins@imagejournal.org.

For details of the God With Us book launch events in Vancouver and Toronto, call 778-995-9424 or e-mail greg.pennoyer@incarnation.ca.

Jonathan Millet at the Cerulean Gallery
September 7 – October 15, 2007
Jonathan Millet’s mixed media panels are textured and subtle explorations in color. Juxtaposing organic images with structured ones, Millet combines trees with ladders, lillies with shower heads. One painting places a steamroller against the backdrop of wood grain. Millet’s interest in printmaking gives his art a textured feeling so that the experience of viewing the work is often multilayered. In the artist's statement, Millet says that he “employs both symbolic images and personal motifs, which reflect on the ordinary qualities of life in proximity to the sublime.” Millet’s work is on display as part of a larger exhibition at the Cerulean Gallery called “Correlations.” For more information, go to the gallery’s website or call (214) 739-2583. Cerulean Gallery is located at 6609A Hillcrest Ave in Dallas, Texas.

To see more of Jonathan Millet’s work, click here.

If you have information other ImageUpdate readers might find interesting, share it here! Do you have a question that you hope a member of the ImageUpdate community might have the answer to? Ask it here. Have your messages posted by sending an email to gwolfe@spu.edu.

Assistant Professor of English Position at University of North Texas
Tenure-track position in creative nonfiction, beginning 9/2008. Required qualifications include a Ph.D. or M.F.A. and significant publication record in the field. Relevant teaching experience highly desirable. The typical teaching load for productive faculty is 3/2. Send letter of application, vita, and three letters of reference to Prof. David Holdeman, Chair, Department of English, University of North Texas, P.O. Box 311307, Denton, TX, 76203-1307. We will begin considering applications immediately, and the position will remain open until filled. UNT is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer that values diversity and is located in the culturally and economically vibrant Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex.

The Invisible Dignity Project: September 22 – November 17, 2007
Opening on September 22 in Winnipeg, Canada, the Invisible Dignity Project is a series of events highlighting, through art, music, and dialogue, the oppressed dignity of people who are made invisible in our communities. The imagination and energy that provokes us is rooted in Christian faith, which calls us to lift the veil between us and them. Throughout the week of September 22-29, 2007 we will open an art exhibit, worship and celebrate through visual and performing arts, discuss the concept of art and human dignity at a theoretical and a personal level, talk to school children about art and creating art, pray and fast for victims of human trafficking and break that fast at week's end in a concert of spirit and support for the marginalized and victimized in our city and around the world. After the opening week, there will be ongoing related events throughout the fall and winter—check the website for more.

This section lists ongoing exhibits and events that have been featured in previous issues of ImageUpdate. Click on the links for more information.

Don Swartzentruber’s “Pop-Mennonite” is an exhibit of paintings, drawings, comics, and audio that explores Old Order Mennonite tradition and its weird resonances with pop culture. Through September 23 in the Grace Albrecht Gallery at Bluffton University. Click here for more information about the artist and his work.

GregoryWolfe.com is Live and Kicking
Claiming that “I am not sure I have the wherewithal to launch a blog,” Image editor Gregory Wolfe has nevertheless just hung his shingle out in cyberspace with a brand new website: www.gregorywolfe.com. Handsomely designed by Joel Ertsgaard and featuring visual art from artists who have been featured in the pages of Image (including Alfonse Borysewicz, Mako Fujimura, Erica Grimm-Vance, Wayne Forte, and Jim Morphesis), the site contains a whacking great amount of Wolfeana. The “Life” section includes a bio, CV, news page, and photos (dignified and undignified). The “Works” area includes excerpts from and reviews of Wolfe’s books, plus online essays, interviews, and audio clips. In “Talks” he lists a number of his lecture topics, sets out his speaking schedule, and provides details on how to book him to speak for your event. Under the heading of “Passions,” Wolfe has taken some time to write about his interests: the “Art” section provides links to Image and the MFA program at Seattle Pacific University, while “Faith” relates his involvement in the international Catholic lay movement known as Communion and Liberation, and under “Incarnation” he shares links and thoughts about the tradition of Christian Humanism. We’re biased (of course we have to be... we work for him) but we think it’s pretty cool. Greg wants to offer special thanks not only to Joel and the contributing artists, but also to Dominic Williamson who built the site and to Rachel Ellis and Sara Arrigoni, who helped him put it together. Check it out when you get a chance.

Go to GregoryWolfe.com.

Image's Glen Workshop Featured on Public Television
Image and the Glen Workshop are featured on a new broadcast of Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, a national public television program produced by WNET Television in New York. The segment was recorded at our recent Glen Workshop, which was centered on the theme—“God of the Desert: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam through the Prism of Art.” Featuring speakers from all three traditions, this year's Glen evoked intense discussion and, for many, new horizons. Its purpose was to challenge Christian artists to discover how beauty and art might enable us to better understand the other religious traditions that trace their lineage back to Abraham. The Religion and Ethics Newsweekly crew, led by senior correspondent (and poet) Judy Valente, filmed extensively in workshops and plenary sessions over a two-day period. At a time when ideological politics and celebrity dysfunctionality dominate the airwaves, we're proud that a national television program sees Image's mission and programs as newsworthy.

View the segment here.

New Gear on Sale Now at the Image Store
Just in time for the Glen Workshop: two new T-shirts are available from Image’s store at Café Press (plus tote bags). The first features Barry Moser's wry, loving portrait of Flannery O'Connor, our unofficial patron saint, who wrote that “In the novelist's case, prophecy is a matter of seeing near things with their extensions of meaning and thus of seeing far things close up. The prophet is a realist of distances.” A mission statement for Image if we ever heard one. The back of the shirt (which comes in both men's and women's cuts) says “The Realism of Distances.” This design is also available in a tote bag. The other shirt uses a paraphrase of a line from Graham Greene's incandescent novel The Power and the Glory: “Hatred is just a failure of the imagination.” The back has the logo and theme of this year's Glen Workshop, which focuses on art and the imagination as a lens through which to view the three great western faith traditions—and as a means to overpower hate. The previous generation of shirts, with Dostoyevsky's mysterious dictum, “Beauty will save the world,” is still available, too, in a variety of styles. Plus: mugs, buttons, hats, and more.

Get yours here .