Issue #177 | September 2, 2009

Features
Artist of the Month: Barry Krammes
Jesus Girls, edited by Hannah Notess
The Dark Villages of Childhood by Stephen Frech
Beauty for Truth’s Sake by Stratford Caldecott
The Antlers: Hospice

Gallery Watch
Phil Irish Exhibit: Watershed

Message Board
Jesus Girls Launch Party
Our Visual Legacy

ImageNews
Image Readings: Lauren Winner
Now Available: Bearing the Mystery: Twenty Years of IMAGE
Join Image and Kathleen Norris in Oahu, February 2010
Subscribe to Image in Print

Features

Artist of the Month: Barry Krammes

Assemblage artist Barry Krammes uses found objects to create miniature worlds with cathedral-sized impact. Layered with detail, mixing whimsy and tragedy, pathos with weirdness, his beautifully composed tableaux have the scale and scope of Dickens novels. Antique carousel figures, tiny, glowing paper lanterns, and gimcrack plastic people and animals mix with mushrooms, chess pieces, and marionette strings in his dreamlike scenes. With humor and dark allure, Krammes takes us into the world of childhood and coaxes us into reexamining it. Like Joseph Cornell before him, he combines a lively narrative imagination with a meticulous and constantly surprising visual sense. Krammes has been a much beloved teacher at past Glen Workshops, as well as at Biola University, where he teaches permanently; in the classroom he’s known for his humor, generosity, and attention to detail. To read more about Krammes and see samples of his work, visit here.

Jesus Girls: True Tales of Growing Up Female and Evangelical, edited by Hannah Notess

Jesus Girls: True Tales of Growing Up Female and Evangelical, edited by 2008-09 Milton Fellow Hannah Faith Notess, is now available from Cascade Books. This collection of essays, from the pens of women who now represent an array of traditions, guides us through the uncertainties of evangelical girlhood. Many new and experienced writers, including some familiar faces like former Milton Fellow Jessie Van Eerden and National Book Award finalist Sara Zarr, ask what it means not to have a “testimony” in the classic sense, with convenient before-and-after anecdotes. What if your story is more like a winding road, full of doubt and reevaluation? From the shag carpets of the fear-and-trembling hippie Jesus Movement to the “stomping shoes” of a black Baptist church to the stringency of missionary-kid boarding school, the younger versions of these women look towards their futures sometimes with confusion, sometimes with pain, but always with hope. We see through their trusting and loyal eyes the “sacred” and perplexing traditions of evangelical Protestantism, like the Native-American-inspired pseudo-Girl-Scout uniforms of the AWANA program, and some contemporary Christian rap songs with lyrics so ludicrous they become beloved. The essays are frank and hard-hitting, approaching sensitive topics such as the existence of hypocrisy and imbalanced sexual politics within churches, but still they recognize that behind the moralistic stonewalls are many broken, decent, loving people who are simply trying to figure out how to live, just like everyone else. For readers with similar experiences, Jesus Girls will bring back a flood of bewildering and affectionate memories, and readers of all traditions will appreciate this vibrant introduction to a quirky Christian subculture, and the challenge it presents to preconceptions about that subculture.

To buy the book, click here. To find out about the book launch in Seattle this month, check out our Message Board!

The Dark Villages of Childhood by Stephen Frech

To capture the essence of childhood as an adult— the raw excitement and bravado, the joy and horror of new experiences, the heightened sensitivity to nature— is not an easy feat. In The Dark Villages of Childhood, poet and former Milton Fellow Stephen Frech successfully recreates these sensations and more, while inviting the reader to return with him to a time that seems ideal and safe, but in which one is actually quite vulnerable to injury. For Frech, this injury was the death of a childhood friend, eulogized in the ten-part poem "Like a Ghost of Him," which describes their shared rural neighborhood, secret pacts, and rough-and-tumble play. However, nothing is as innocuous as it seems, and a game of stalking each other through the weeds with toy guns builds in suspense, "Until he was near enough to hear you say / in a speaking voice: 'you're dead.' / And you could feel in winning as in losing some stiffness, / some brightness pass out of your body." The inclusion of the word “you” makes the experience immediate, as Frech keeps the reader close to his side and thereby heightens the palpability of the physical environment and emotional tenor. These poems captivate not by invention, but by recollection, and although the memories are specific to an individual, their details feel startlingly and unsettlingly familiar. This effect mimics an aspect of childhood worthy of reflection—the blurred lines between self and other, and the capacity for an effortless intimacy. Frech touches on this when he notes, "how familiar children are with each other's bodies, / wet, shivering, giving off heat, / and how we never have that back again." Like a child, Dark Villages is straightforward, but not simple. Its attempt to confront the happiness and trauma of youth is as brave as boys daring each other to jump from higher and higher branches.

Click here to buy the book.

Beauty for Truth’s Sake by Stratford Caldecott

In the mid-twentieth century, the famous mystery novelist and translator of Dante, Dorothy Sayers, published an influential essay entitled “The Lost Tools of Learning.” At the heart of her argument was a belief in the need to revive Western education, which she argued had become too utilitarian and mechanistic—more focused on information than on wisdom. What Sayers did so powerfully in that essay was dust off the ancient medieval vision of a liberal arts education and show its continuing relevance. That vision was based on two clusters of study: the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, dialectic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music). In short, the medieval method cultivated the ability to speak and articulate, but also the capacity to sense the beauty of the created order—pattern, symmetry, and so on. Stratford Caldecott’s Beauty for Truth’s Sake does something similar to Sayers’s “Lost Tools,” but in a more extended and fleshed out fashion. Where Sayers focused on the trivium, Caldecott concentrates on the quadrivium. Caldecott has been influenced by the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, who wrote so persuasively about the importance of “theological aesthetics.” But Caldecott’s slender, well-written volume is not heavy going; in fact, it provides a primer on how to recover ancient forms of liberal education. For example, he illuminates the ideas of Pythagoras, such as the importance of numbers as a guide to understanding the order of the cosmos. There are other sections in this vein—such as one on “The Five Platonic Solids”—that are marvels of concision and fascinating detail. Here is a book that demonstrates, in clear, compelling language, how art and faith link up to science and the whole enterprise of education. That sense of the unity of knowledge is one of the things Caldecott reminds us Western culture once believed in and valued—and can yet recover.

To learn more about this book, click here.

The Antlers: Hospice

Brooklyn-based indie rock group The Antlers give listeners a focused exploration of solitude—including the distinct solitude that can exist within the confines of a relationship—in their new album Hospice. The ten songs included on Hospice were written, in fact, by frontman Peter Silberman during an almost two year period of self-isolation from friends and family. When Silberman emerged, he brought with him a collection of haunting pieces that together tell a harrowing story: that of a hospice worker assigned to care for a young female patient with bone cancer at Manhattan’s Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center. The album’s sound textures are as complex as the subject matter, as keyboards, horns, guitar, banjo, electronic drone, and found noises are layered over each other to create dense atmospheres that begin quietly and unassumingly, but build to mirror the psychological angst of the characters. Silberman’s vocals become just another ingredient in this orchestral soup, his breathy falsetto at times difficult to discern from other components, at other points soaring above all else. Patient Sylvia speaks directly only once, briefly, in “Thirteen”: “Dig me out / Oh, dig me out / Couldn't you have kept all this from happening? / Dig me out from under our house,” one of many allusions to Sylvia Plath. Her caretaker narrates every other song, his powerlessness against the disease prompting this lament in “Atrophy”: “Someone, oh anyone. Tell me how to stop this. / She's screaming, expiring, and I'm her only witness.” Serving as the sole witness to such suffering seems unbearable, and perhaps this is why Silberman steps outside his main narrative at a few points to note other types of solitude within relationships. The most effective example is the surprisingly catchy “Bear,” in which an unwanted pregnancy prompts a couple to realize, “We’re terrified of each other / and we’re terrified of what that means.” Relief is offered at the end of the album during “Wake,” when Silberman’s main character moves through his grief after Sylvia’s death and vows, “I've got the keys, I'm letting people in.” A willing reconnection to community is what makes art possible, and the act of opening up through pain becomes the healing hand in this challenging album.

To own your copy, click here.

Gallery Watch

Phil Irish Exhibit: Watershed

Lennox Contemporary in Toronto presents Watershed, an exhibition of paintings by Canadian artist Phil Irish. The paintings detail the transformation and renewal of persons in relation to their evolving physical environment. Irish imbeds annotated maps—hand drawn by friends and strangers—in the paintings to explore the intersecting points of view of individuals living along the Grand River watershed. The show runs September 3 through September 20 with a public reception on September 3 from 6-9. For more information on this series, click here.

Message Board
Post here to reach thousands of readers interested in the intersection of art and faith. We welcome messages about job listings, local events, conferences, prizes, calls for papers, and more. Submit your messages by sending an e-mail here.

Jesus Girls Launch Party

On September 10th at 7 p.m., join the women behind Jesus Girls: True Tales of Growing Up Female and Evangelical, as they celebrate the publication of this collection of essays with a book launch party at Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle. Free to the public, this event will include drinks and snacks, as well as readings from the book by contributing writers Sara Zarr, Shari Macdonald Strong, Andrea Palpant Dilley, Heather Baker Utley, and editor Hannah Notess. To view more details or to RSVP, click here.

Our Visual Legacy at St. Andrew's Mt. Pleasant

In cooperation with CIVA and the Washington Arts Group, Our Visual Legacy, a conference on the visual arts, will be presented by the Worship Arts Ministry of St. Andrew’s in Mt. Pleasant, SC, September 17 – 19. Our Visual Legacy (OVL) is an event designed specifically to encourage and strengthen artists of faith and explore ways that the community of faith can support these artists as they work out their calling and integrate the arts into worship and mission. We will contextualize today’s artist and the state of the arts today within the history of our visual legacy, speak into the issues and movements of our current situation, and explore ways to move forward as artists and as the church. Therefore, visual artists, any artists, art enthusiasts and patrons, as well as church leaders are encouraged to attend. The conference will include workshops, art exhibits, worship, renowned speakers including James Romaine, Ed Knippers, and Sandra Bowden, and more. To learn about specific classes offered, or to register, click here.

ImageNews — The Scoop on Our Programs

Image Readings: Lauren Winner

A combination of Southern charisma and savvy New York intellect, Lauren Winner is like her books: brainy and sophisticated and at the same time utterly charming. Winner renders the Christian tradition with reverence and deep affection, shedding light onto some of the more obscure corners of Christian spirituality and enriching our understanding of the familiar with the unfamiliar. Winner's discussion is more informal dialogue than it is theological analysis--but it is rich. She blends years of scholarly research with her own fresh storytelling, making her books as accessible as they are smart. Her authenticity will win your heart.

Click here to listen to an excerpt of Girl Meets God, recorded at the 2009 Glen Workshop.

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.

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.

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