Join IMAGE for the 2010 Oahu Seminar

Issue #176 | August 19, 2009

Features
A Word of Thanks
Join Image and Kathleen Norris in Oahu, February 2010
Now Available: Bearing the Mystery: Twenty Years of IMAGE
Pierce Pettis: That Kind of Love
A Conservationist Manifesto by Scott Russell Sanders
The Snow’s Music by Floyd Skloot

Gallery Watch
Ruth Naomi Floyd Exhibit: Veil Series

ImageNews
Image Readings: Ann McCutchan
Would You Like to See a Glen Workshop “East Coast Edition”?
Subscribe to Image in Print

Features

A Word of Thanks

The staff of Image would like to say a very special thank you to Beth Bevis, former program coordinator for the SPU MFA program and editor of this newsletter for over half its life span (in two different stints, including one as an undergraduate student). Beth has left us for graduate studies in English literature at Indiana University and we will miss her terribly. Those of you who have been subscribing to ImageUpdate for some time already know how well-edited and produced it is. All of us at Image are deeply grateful to Beth and wish her abundant blessings in this next stage of her life.

Join Image and Kathleen Norris in Oahu, February 2010

You are cordially invited to spend a long weekend with poet and spiritual writer Kathleen Norris and the staff of Image in Honolulu, Hawaii, February 18-22, 2010. In the tradition of Image’s Florence Seminar, this event will bring a small group of inquirers together for a time of reflection, conversation, and personal enrichment. Our theme will be “The Habit of Attention: Renewing the Heart in an Age of Acedia.” Acedia is the ancient term for spiritual indifference and the subject of Kathleen’s latest book, Acedia & Me. In it, Kathleen, who grew up in Honolulu and returned with her ailing husband, David, chronicles her struggle with acedia after his death. As she began to investigate the meaning of her experience, going back to the works of the desert mothers and fathers and medieval monks, Kathleen realized how pervasive this malady is, and how deeply it permeates our culture of distraction. During our time together on Oahu, we’ll take on the issue of acedia as both a personal and a cultural challenge. We will delve into the ways art and faith can move us beyond the distractions of media hype and pop culture and reawaken us to the world. In addition to Kathleen’s talks and readings, we’ll head out to explore the natural beauty of Oahu and share a number of wonderful meals together. We will be posting all the details and printing a brochure in early September. In the meantime please feel free to contact us for more information and to request a brochure. Please contact Dyana Herron by email (dherron@imagejournal.org) or phone (206.281.2988).

Find more on this special event here. Download a postcard for the event here.

Now Available: Bearing the Mystery: Twenty Years of IMAGE

In the two decades since it began publication, Image journal has not only emerged as one of North America's leading quarterlies, but has also carved out a unique identity as the source for contemporary art and literature that grapple with the perennial questions of religious faith. We are thrilled to announce that Bearing the Mystery, a hardcover anthology of the best that has appeared in the pages of Image for the past 20 years, has just been published by Eerdmans. Bearing the Mystery brings together in one handsome volume the best fiction, poetry, essays, and visual art from Image's first twenty years - the work of nearly seventy writers and twenty visual artists (represented in sixteen glorious color plates). With contributions from the likes of Annie Dillard, Kathleen Norris, Ron Hansen, Wim Wenders, and Denise Levertov, and with a special introduction by founder and editor Gregory Wolfe that meditates on the journal's mission, Bearing the Mystery is indeed a treasure-hoard. In fact, Jeremy Begbie, Thomas A. Langford Professor of Theology at Duke University, calls Image journal “one of the brightest beacons of hope among those who care about the intersection of art and faith,” and says “Bearing the Mystery offers us the cream of years of wisdom and witness: this is a volume to be treasured.” This book is a wonderful addition to the personal collection of any Image lover and is perfect as a gift. You can further support the journal by buying the book directly from our website.

To own your copy, click here.

Pierce Pettis: That Kind of Love

Pierce Pettis’s songwriting keeps getting better—and that’s saying a lot. With That Kind of Love, he has produced another collection of unskippable gems. The eagerly awaited album was four years in the making, and in the liner notes Pettis writes that the extra time allowed the songs to mature and develop. It shows. The emotional and theological richness, the playfulness and lyricism of his writing, and the power of his storytelling continue to grow. As one music critic noted, “Pierce Pettis doesn’t write mere songs; he writes literature.” The second track, “I Am Nothing” (written partly at Image’s Glen Workshop), is both a celebration and a crie de coeur, an anguished manifesto of a believing artist: “I am nothing / but the angels sometimes whisper in my ear. / They tell me things and then they disappear. / Sometimes I like to make believe I hear.” Elsewhere, Pettis shows a genius for taking an idea that at first appears light and burnishing it until its weight takes you by surprise. Like “Crackerjack Ring” on Great Big World, “To Dance” uses this kind of sleight of hand. Co-written with Greta Larson, it’s an irresistible waltz, by turns playful, wistful, earthy, and romantic, a perfect portrait of full humanity: not exactly animal, not exactly angelic. The title track stands in the ancient tradition, from John of the Cross to Sam Cooke, of poetry and song that use human love and longing as a channel for understanding divine love. The result is a hymn as profound in its theology as anything Charles Wesley ever wrote—and like Wesley, Pettis is a songwriter for the ages. Join his mailing list at www.PiercePettis.com for information about where he’s playing. His house concerts are unforgettable.

Learn more about Pierce’s work here.

A Conservationist Manifesto by Scott Russell Sanders

In A Conservationist Manifesto, essayist and memoirist Scott Russell Sanders makes a case for supporting farmers’ markets and building with local materials. He advocates putting down roots in a place, while preserving the land’s wildness and mystery. In this sense the book is, as its title suggests, a manifesto—it is an argument for conservation and restraint rather than consumption and development. But it is more than a mere declaration of principles. While the book discusses climate change and uninhibited consumerism, it does not dwell on mind-numbing statistics. The majority of its pages, rather, are devoted to stories. Some are personal stories, such as recollections of Sanders’s own marriage and of settling into the Indiana town that would become his home. He also includes stories of community struggles—of the developers who want to build on the woods surrounding his home, and of neighbors who fought to keep the town courthouse, built from local limestone, from being torn down. Sanders describes a land he quite evidently loves—its woods and marshes, its last wild prairies—with prose that moves between personal anecdote and lyrical nature writing, morphing, at times, into a kind of spiritual writing. In his discussion of Noah’s ark and of the idea of the Sabbath, Sanders reframes the biblical narratives so often used to justify humanity’s unrestrained consumption of natural resources. He also discusses the spiritual benefits of having contact with the natural world. Wild spaces, he writes, “give us a chance to glimpse the shaping intelligence in nature, to sense the ultimate mystery from which all things rise, and to align our lives with that power.” As tempting as it would be for a book like this to become sentimental, apocalyptic or political, Sanders for the most part avoids these temptations. His tone suggests that he is compelled not by fear or a political agenda, but by something more akin to love. This love springs from a rootedness in the earth—from a deep attachment to the land itself, its grit and its loam, its grass and its waters. And, through story and language, A Conservationist Manifesto seeks to cultivate that love in its readers—a love for place that will grow, naturally, into the desire to conserve.

Click here for more.

The Snow’s Music by Floyd Skloot

In his new collection, The Snow's Music, poet Floyd Skloot orchestrates a haunting symphony out of meditations on memory and transience. The grounding melodies of these poems are harmonized with notes from other artistic disciplines. This interplay is especially manifest in a section that renders intimate, internal moments in the lives of historical writers, musicians, and artists. Skloot breathes life into the creative process, exploring the visions of these artists and pondering the correspondence between the making of art and memory. In "Paul Signac at Castellane, 1902," these meditations on artistic remembrance and vision collide, as the painter's eye is captured: "The ancient bridge shimmers in the river's / reflection. But there is no time for memory. / No time even to think. Purple shadows / stain the cliff's throat, lap at the bank, / and he needs to capture the broken light / that brought him to a halt before it vanishes." Skloot's prayerful attention to detail becomes the verbal equivalent of the way the painters he writes about sketch a landscape to capture the incandescence of a moment. This interplay between art forms is not exclusive to one section of The Snow's Music but suffuses the collection, as painterly details and vivid colors mingle with the recurring metaphor of music alongside the theme of memory. In poem "Late Autumn Air," sight and musicality are melded together as "the leaf's heart holds red and green / as well. Such color is a kind of laugh, / an echo of delight scored to the drift / of this wind and the fading of this scene." From considering a mother’s memory loss to the agony of a sibling's death, from lyrical notations of the natural world to the shadowy figures of dreams, Skloot ranges far and wide in his observations. In each still moment, his eye captures the smallest threads of color veining the scene. These visions become an electric music that pulls at the soul; they interact with and build on one another, providing arresting snapshots of human beings, past and present.

To purchase the volume, click here.

Gallery Watch

Ruth Naomi Floyd Exhibit: Veil Series

The White Stone Gallery in Philadelphia will exhibit a collection of black and white photographs from artist Ruth Naomi Floyd beginning September 11. Floyd notes that these images, cumulatively titled The Veil Series, were inspired by Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 and Philippians 1:6. From this textual beginning, the visual work explores the different “veils” that we wear as humans as we encounter personal difficulties and struggle with faith. “It is in these seasons,” states Floyd, “that we choose to embrace, reject, shield, conceal, shroud and grasp the realities of our veiled experience. For the One who created us is the only One who fully sees through our veils.” This is translated into the photographs by the inclusion of veils, or translucent layers, partially obscuring her models’ faces. While an accomplished photographer, vocalist, and performer, this is Floyd’s first showing of black and white photographs. The exhibition runs through October 31, 2009. For more information on this series, click here.

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ImageNews — The Scoop on Our Programs

Image Readings: Ann McCutchan

Ann McCutchan’s personal essays about the role of music in her life go behind the typical “liner note” style of music writing to something far more elemental, primitive, bodily—and, hence, spiritual. As a clarinetist, McCutchan has learned how music can be a spiritual as well as artistic discipline. She celebrates the beauty of music (as well as the human mind and body), interrogates her own life to discover the path she's been walking, and bears witness to the presence of mystery. That makes her a triple threat. Click here to listen.

Glen Workshop: “East Coast Edition”?

Over the last fifteen years, Image’s weeklong Glen Workshop program in Santa Fe, New Mexico has grown into a rich experience that attracts both new and frequent attendees who come back year after year. The workshops run by world-class faculty, the strong feeling of community that grows among attendees, the beauty of New Mexico, and all the vibrant lectures, readings, concerts, and worship services at the Glen have contributed to its growing popularity. And as many of you know, the Glen now tends to fill up quickly, leaving many to sit on waitlists as early as January. In fact, the Image staff has just returned from our biggest Glen yet. With that in mind, we have been considering adding another weeklong Glen Workshop to our programs—perhaps on the East Coast in order to reach those who haven’t been able to make it out to Santa Fe. This is both an exciting and a daunting prospect given the small size of our staff, but we’d like to look into the idea. And we need your help! Because we spare no effort in trying to make the Glen Workshop affordable (and are always seeking scholarship funding), the cornerstone to planning such an event is finding a venue with reasonable room and board rates. A college campus, like that of St. John’s in Santa Fe, is one logical choice for a venue, but there may be others, including retreat centers, etc. Other items on our venue wish list include: great natural beauty; good food service; proximity to major population centers; a quiet, retreat-like atmosphere; excellent facilities for those working in the visual arts; and room to accommodate between 100 and 200 attendees. Do you know of such a place, on the East Coast or elsewhere? If so, we’d love to hear from you.

To share your suggestions with us, send an e-mail to GlenWorkshop@imagejournal.org. Please be patient as it may take some time for us to respond. And thanks for taking the time to offer your suggestions!

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If you like reading about great new art and writing inspired by faith in ImageUpdate, and you're ready to get down to reading and seeing the stuff itself, it's time to subscribe to Image. Each quarter our editors comb the world of art and letters to bring you our favorite new work—work that respects transcendent mystery as well as the gritty truth of the material world that bears the divine imprint. A one-year subscription gets you four beautifully produced issues delivered right to your door. Ninety percent of the journal's content is not available on our website, but only through what we call "the sacrament of print." Click here to get the magazine Terry Tempest Williams calls "evocative and inspiring" and Bret Lott calls "the most meaningful literary journal being produced today."

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