The Image Annual Appeal Letter: Help us Transgress Boundaries
'Tis the season for fund drives, and this is our version of a little red kettle and tinkly bell. In all seriousness, we’ve got a great story to tell this year—check out our appeal letter to read about Sara Zarr’s journey from the Glen Workshop to the National Book Awards. We’re mighty proud to be a part of her story. It’s one example of the many ways Image has helped artists and writers of faith over the years to keep on keeping on, breaking rules by refusing to be confined to the label “Christian Artist,” and making their work about honesty and excellence first. Your help will enable us to carry on the work that we’ve started. Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution today. As a small, lean, tightly run ship, every dollar you give makes a big difference, be it $35, $50, $100, $500, $1,000 or more.

You can give right now by clicking here and donating over our secure server. Or, if you prefer to give by mail, just send Gregory Wolfe an e-mail at gwolfe@spu.edu with your mailing address and we'll send you a print version of this letter, a response card, and an envelope.

Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp
In Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp, filmmakers Matt and Erica Hinton put a camera where no camera has gone before: in the old fashioned rural churches of Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi where young and old gather to sing Sacred Harp, an a cappella hymn-singing tradition with roots in post-Puritan New England. Sacred Harp was, the filmmakers contend, America’s first music, and though it all but disappeared with the changing trends in American music over the last century and a half, it was ultimately preserved—not by the academies and institutions, “but instead by unschooled rural southerners who sang it not for an audience, but for one another and for God.” Combining history, archival images, interviews, and candid recordings, Awake, My Soul chronicles the intriguing story behind this much-loved musical tradition. In the opening scene of the documentary, singers arrive like pilgrims for the annual all-day singing held at Shoal Creek Church in Talladega National Forest, Alabama. They park their cars among the pine trees, wear nametag stickers, and, before long, fill the church with their unaccompanied, unrestrained voices. When they talk about Sacred Harp, the singers sound almost like evangelists sharing a testimony. They tell the stories of how they discovered the music, which vary from the man who stumbled upon a singing by accident, thinking he was going to a concert, to the one whose grandmother carried him to his first singing when he was six months old. With varying degrees of articulateness, they all say essentially the same thing: “it gets in your blood.” And watching one of the top-of-the-lungs singing sessions, it’s easy to imagine why. Although this music doesn’t sound like the familiar gospel-influenced hymns many of us grew up singing, it has an undeniable pull. The songs employ a structured rhythm and nontraditional harmonies that, to a first-time listener, sound both haunting and strangely beautiful, especially when paired with lyrics such as these, from “Idumea” (also known to Sacred Harp singers as #47b in the songbook): “And am I born to die? / To lay this body down! / And must my trembling spirit fly / Into a world unknown?” Full of raw passion, searing lyrics, and simple melodies (made up of only four notes: Fa, So, La, and Mi), Sacred Harp is a mixture of reverence and revelry that survives to this day in churches around the country. It is a remarkable part American music history, and Awake, My Soul is a loving and thoughtful introduction.

To watch the trailer or order the DVD, click here.

Love’s Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life by Scott Cairns
Scott Cairns is a busy man, having released a new volume of poetry, a memoir of pilgrimages to Mount Athos, and now a verse adaptation of selected mystical writing—all in the space of twelve months. This latest offering, Love’s Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life, spans nineteen centuries and includes passages from nearly forty Christian mystics. Cairns’s intent, as he writes in the preface, is to introduce modern readers to a “rich and enriching tradition …of great assistance to the spiritual life.” He provides a brief introduction to each author, followed by one or more excerpts of their writings rendered in verse form. Because Cairns engages these ancient texts with his own poetic imagination—and his distinctly ironic style—he allows readers to see with fresh vision the often familiar verses, such as the Apostle Paul’s writings on love: “I was a child, and spoke like one; / My thought? very like a child’s. / I gripped my reason with both / my little fists. It smelled suspiciously of milk.” Cairns’s style does not homogenize the many voices into one, but rather intensifies them, making the fruit of centuries of prayerful struggle accessible and powerfully alive to the twenty-first century reader. Love’s Immensity mixes familiar names—Basil the Great, Augustine, and Julian of Norwich—with others perhaps new to many western Christians, such as Syncletica, Dorotheus of Gaza and Nicephorus the Hesychast. Whether reacquainting us with old friends or introducing new teachers, these re-imagined mystical writings offer sustenance to those in search of spiritual depth.

Click here to buy the book.

Sandra Bowden: Two Exhibits
Two Sandra Bowden exhibits exploring the interaction of images and the biblical text are currently on display in Washington and British Columbia. Word As Image opened recently at John Knox Presbyterian Church in Seattle, and Ikon & Logos opened at Regent College’s Lookout Gallery in Vancouver, B.C. Though both exhibits include older items, neither is merely retrospective, as works of collage and text are set alongside archeological-themed pieces and Bowden’s newest interest: artist’s books. Working with paper, mixed media, texts, and paint, Bowden has spent over forty years exploring, among other themes, the interaction of history and language. Though simple and seemingly straight-forward, Bowden’s works use a variety of materials—musical scores, envelopes, letters, rice paper—to act as conduits between two worlds. Such bridging can be seen in the “Tel Suite” collages, texts such as “Decalogue,” and mixed media paintings like “Hidden Worlds,” a series containing half-concealed images of the earth as if it were surfacing from a great depth. An almost audible bridging is evident in “Holy, Holy, Holy,” a work that juxtaposes the Greek from Revelation 4 and Benjamin Britten’s Sanctus in a visual antiphon. Bowden’s artist’s books offer the viewer, as one might guess, actual books—some gilded (“Resurrection Book”) and some filled with objects (“Book of Nails”). Others, such as “Libro I, II, III,” lay open, exposing diagonally ripped pages like wounds. Bowden, former president of Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA), currently lives in Massachusetts. Her work has been displayed internationally, and is part of the collections of The Vatican Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, The Museum of Biblical Art, The Hafia Museum, and many other private collections. To accompany her 2006 retrospective, Square Halo Books published The Art of Sandra Bowden. In addition to many photographs, the book contains scholarly essays on her work. Bowden will be on the Regent College campus December 5, 2007 for a lunchtime discussion. Ikon & Logos will continue at the Lookout Gallery until December 14, 2007. The Word As Image exhibit can be viewed at John Knox Presbyterian Church during regular office hours. For more information, please call 206.241.1606. Bowden will deliver a lecture on Friday, December 7 at the church. The event is co-sponsored by Image and will be followed by a reception.

For more information, visit Sandra Bowden’s website. For more on the exhibits, go to John Knox Presbyterian Church or Regent College.

Take Heart: Catholic Writers on Hope in Our Time, edited by Ben Birnbaum
Of the three “theological virtues”—faith, hope, and love—most people find hope the most difficult to define or describe. Most of us find personal difficulties or troubles in the world enough to make us question at times what hope can possibly mean. A wonderful new book goes a long way toward giving concrete shape to this mysterious virtue—from a Catholic perspective. Edited by Jewish writer Ben Birnbaum, a frequent Image contributor and longtime senior staffer at Jesuit Boston College, Take Heart collects original, short essays on the topic from 35 leading contemporary Catholic writers. Among the contributors is Image’s editor, Gregory Wolfe, who recounts in his essay “Thickening Agent” how he came to found Image and how it has given him hope. We’re also pleased to note that many other writers featured in Image over the years have meditations in this volume, including Harold Fickett, A.G. Harmon, Peggy Rosenthal, Mike Heher, Paula Huston, Jeanine Hathaway, Paul Mariani, Robert Royal, and Valerie Sayers. Birnbaum divides the book into three sections: “Build,” “Love,” and “Believe.” He quotes the French existentialist philosopher Gabriel Marcel by way of seeking a common theme for the book: “There can be no hope that does not constitute itself through a we and for a we. I would be tempted to say that all hope is at bottom choral.” Birnbaum notes that many differences exist among the contributors but believes that in the end, the voices do come together to form something rather like a choir. Take Heart is a project of Boston College’s “Church in the 21st Century” program.

To purchase the book, click here.

To learn more about the "Church in the 21st Century" program, click here.

Reading with John McLaughlin
November 27, 7:30 p.m. at Elliott Bay Book Company
Join Image as John McLaughlin reads from his debut novel Run in the Fam’ly, recipient of the 2006 Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel, at Elliott Bay Book Company. Set in inner-city Oakland at the twilight of the Reagan era, Run in the Fam’ly employs a mastery of vernacular speech and an understanding of street culture rooted in McLaughlin’s experiences working with the homeless of Seattle and Los Angeles. Says Richard Rohr, “The story of Jake and Curtis is good news for us all because they—like the best characters of Flannery O’Connor—come to God through the path we all have in common: suffering and failure.  It's also good news because it heralds the emergence of a remarkable new writer of extraordinary vision and courage. The world of this novel is one which is largely ignored by middle-class America, but we experience it here in its full richness of pain, beauty, and mystery.” In addition to his writing, McLaughlin directs Education Across Borders, a non-profit organization serving indigent communities in the Dominican Republic and is a regular member of the Milton Center Friday Workshop at Image.

Click here for directions to Elliott Bay Book Company.

If you have any questions, call 206-281-2988, or click here.

Ben Frank Moss: Spirit States
Ben Frank Moss (Image #12) will be exhibiting works through December 2, 2007 at Cornell College's Peter Paul Luce Gallery in McWethy Hall. Spirit States is a collection of 40 oils and acrylics on primed paper, as well as pencil drawings, ink drawings and mono-prints. Vibrant color dominates Moss’s works, which focus primarily on landscapes, exhibiting an unsentimental sense of wonder as they gaze at a world both beautiful and untamed. Moss is chair of the studio art program at Dartmouth College and George Frederick Jewett Professor of Studio Art. Admission to the exhibit is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. There will be an artist’s lecture at 2 p.m. on Sunday, December 2 followed by a closing reception.

For more information, click here.

David Robinson: Impedimenta
The sculptures of David Robinson (Image #49) range from monumental commissioned pieces to sculptures of the human form which have been referred to as “meditations on being human.” Robinson also creates incredible suspended works that exhibit a tentative sense of balance where gravity plays an active role in the creative process. Two events this month will feature the works of this important Canadian sculptor. The recently opened Robinson Studio Gallery in Vancouver, B.C., which showcases Robinson’s work, will hold a public reception on Friday November 16, 5-10 p.m. The event will serve as an opening reception for Robinson’s exhibition, Impedimenta. The exhibition, featuring sculptures of people that “reflect humankind's presence in the city,” will be held at Newzones gallery in Calgary through November 27, 2007.

For more information about the Impedimenta exhibit, visit Newzones gallery website.

For more on the opening reception in Vancouver, visit the artist’s website.

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.

Body Broken—Body Redeemed: Art of Maria Gabankova
December 2007 marks the publication of a full-color art book by Maria Gabankova: Body Broken—Body Redeemed: Art of Maria Gabankova. It is available online from Piquant Editions.

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

Christianity & the Visual Arts in Indonesia, June 8-23, 2008: The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, the Nagel Institute, and the Asian Christian Artists Association are hoping to find a few innovative visual artists to go to Indonesia for two weeks next summer to learn about a fascinating culture, share insights and examples from their own artistry, and experiment together in studio on a common project. The deadline for applications is January 25, 2008. For more information and instructions on how to apply, click here.

Wayne Forte at the Signs of Life Gallery: In his new exhibition at the Signs of Life gallery in Lawrence, Kansas, Wayne Forte explores a way of understanding narrative through paintings styled as liturgical banners. The show continues through Thanksgiving. For more information, go to the gallery web page.

Next Stop on the Image Canadian Tour: Calgary
Join Image editor Gregory Wolfe in Calgary on November 20 for his next stop on Image’s Canadian tour. Wolfe will give a talk at the Engineered Air Theatre in the Epcor Centre for Performing Arts, addressing the power of beauty to nourish our common life, communicate faith, and renew our culture. Wolfe was also recently in Toronto and Vancouver for book launch events for God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas but he will be returning to those two cities in the first half of 2008 for Image-specific presentations and networking meetings (we'll announce those trips in due course). Thanks to financial support from some Canadian friends, Wolfe has been spreading the word about the journal and strengthening ties with Canadian artists, writers, and those who are working for cultural transformation.
 
For more information about Wolfe’s appearance in Calgary, contact Julie Mullins at (206) 281-2988 or jmullins@imagejournal.org.

Blue in Green Film Screening with Ron Austin
November 26, 2007, 7:00 p.m., Seattle Pacific University Library Seminar Room
Join Image for an evening with renowned film writer and producer Ron Austin on Monday, November 26 at 7:00 p.m., in the Library Seminar Room at Seattle Pacific University. The evening will feature a screening of the film Blue in Green, created by the Unica collective Austin helped to found, followed by a question-and-answer session. Blue in Green is a funny, accessible, real, and moving exploration of desire and its subtle but devastating effects on our lives. Ron Austin was born in 1934, and was raised in Hollywood. At age 12 he became a child actor, initially working under the direction of Charlie Chaplin and noted teacher Viola Spolin. A graduate of the UCLA film school in 1956, he is a veteran writer and producer in the Hollywood industry, with over a hundred credits in film and television. He is also a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and has won two lifetime achievement awards from the Writers Guild of America for his service to writers and the Hollywood community. Over the years, Austin has written episodes of Mission Impossible, produced powerful documentaries on the war in Sudan, and spoken before Vatican officials at large international events. Through all the hubbub, he has preserved a spiritual equanimity that conveys profound thought, openness and curiosity, and a grounding in the timeless. Most recently, he published In a New Light: Spirituality and the Media Arts, chock full of wisdom for budding filmmakers (and film-watchers) interested in linking the cinema with faith.

For directions to campus, click here. For a map of SPU, click here. The library is building number 14.

For more information contact Julie Mullins at (206) 281-2988.

Want to Work for Image This Summer?
Are you an undergraduate or graduate student who'd like to work for Image this coming summer? Or do you know someone who might be interested? The purpose of the Luci Shaw Fellowship is to expose a promising student to the world of literary publishing and introduce him or her to the contemporary dialogue about art and faith that surrounds Image, its programs, its contributors, and its peer organizations. In short, we're looking for summer fellows who share our vision for the place art has in the life of faith, and who are also diligent, meticulous, and responsible about the daily details. There's grunt work galore in this job, but also plenty of opportunities to grasp the vision at the heart of a dynamic arts organization. The Shaw Fellow will also receive a scholarship to Image's Glen Workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

To learn more about the Luci Shaw Fellowship, and to download an application, click here.