Still Time to Register for the Image Conference in Houston
There's no time like the present to register for the Image Conference! We're only a month out and can hardly wait to share the goodness in store-keynote talks by Kathleen Norris and Nicholas Wolterstorff, a performance by Seven Dance Company, an evening concert at the Rothko Chapel with Ann Gebuhr, and much more. The theme is "The Matter of Devotion: Art, Liturgy, and the Stuff of Worship" and will explore the ways that art provides the sacramental link between the sacred part of our week and the workaday world of diapers and spreadsheets, shoes and books. A distinguished group of artists and scholars will examine issues including the changing relationship between worship and contemporary culture, both high and low, the ways in which fine art and liturgical art influence one another, and the renewal movements in both traditional and emerging churches.

The Conference is November 10-13, so there's still plenty of time to sign up for a spot. See you in Houston!

To register, feel free to call us at (206) 281-2988 or register directly online here.

For general information about the conference, click here.

John Terpstra: The Boys; or, Waiting for the Electrician's Daughter
Here, in 213 spare, economical prose vignettes, is poet John Terpstra's love letter to his wife's three brothers, each of whom suffered from muscular dystrophy and died in his early twenties just as Terpstra and their sister were starting a life together as a young married couple. The author first meets Neil, Paul, and Eric when he comes from Ontario to New Jersey to visit his girlfriend's family over Christmas break from college. As the young outsider coming into a family knit close by the boys' condition, the author is the awkward, uneasy one. The wheelchair-bound brothers' boisterous humor, their collective jargon (they talk almost in code sometimes), their nicknames, and their flying hockey pucks at first bewilder the author, then win him over-and he also earns their trust and love, as often as not as the butt of affectionate jokes. But despite the family's abundant warmth and charm, the story is completely unsentimental: the boys are also prickly, ornery, opinionated, stubborn, and a terrifying burden on their parents. As the book moves toward its sad, inevitable conclusion (we understand from the beginning that the brothers are all dying), it moves from humor to meditation. The boys' conditions decline, and the entire family is put under complicated strains. As the boys fall one by one to their disease, the reader feels vividly all the individuality and humanness that's being lost. Without ever using polemical terms, this book quietly makes its powerful statement about the value of life. The book is beautifully printed by Gaspereau Press of Nova Scotia . An excerpt appears in Image issue 47.

Buy the book here.

Arvo Pärt - 24 Preludes for a Fugue
Since gaining widespread acclaim in the 1990s, classical composer Arvo Pärt (Image #2, ImageUpdate #18) has for many years been notably reclusive. Protective of his privacy and reticent to be interviewed, it is something of a treasure to view Dorian Supin's documentary, Arvo Pärt: 24 Preludes for a Fugue (released last month on DVD). During the three years that Supin followed Pärt's rehearsals, conferences, and classes, Pärt-who initially thought otherwise-decided to allow interviews over tea and during his daily walks. The Estonian-made film allows viewers intimate glimpses into the hermitic composer's life and music. Although it is not an exhaustive biography, the twenty-four vignettes provide much behind-the-scenes footage, including segments shot inside Pärt's home. Though most vignettes are two to three minutes, some are even shorter, such as "Tomato with Sugar" in which Pärt and his wife, Alina, lovingly argue over the use of sugar on tomatoes. The overall portrait that emerges-in a manner similar to Pärt's own "tintinnabul" style of music-is of a personable and often humorous man who approaches his vocation with seriousness, a composer who crafts each note with careful reverence. Somewhere near the end of the movie, amidst the sounds of beautiful music, Pärt is shown kneeling at an Orthodox altar to pray. The image is fitting for a man passionately devoted to music and God. Amongst others, the film includes excerpts of Tabula Rasa, Alina,and My Heart's in the Highlands. More treasures are to be found among the DVD's Special Features: three short archival films directed by Supin. These films include rehearsals, performances, and an entire recital. Arvo Pärt: 24 Preludes for a Fugue won the "Jury Special Selection" for Best Art and Best Estonian Documentary at the 16th Pärnu International Documentary and Anthropology Film Festival, 2002.

Faith and Vision: Christians in the Visual Arts
If you've been reading ImageUpdate for any length of time, you've seen numerous references to art exhibitions, conferences, and newsletters organized by Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA). Many of you non-visual-arts-types might have skipped those paragraphs, thinking you had no real way to connect with what was being described. Please don't skip this paragraph. In Faith And Vision, a book edited by long-time CIVA stalwarts Cameron Anderson and Sandra Bowden, you can now connect with the remarkable spiritual and artistic renewal that CIVA has helped to bring about in over its 25-year history. The heart of Faith and Vision is simply a collection of gorgeously reproduced color plates of art by CIVA members. The sheer act of bringing this work together in one place makes for an almost overwhelming experience. One thing is clear: membership in CIVA does not induce artists to adopt some sort of Christian "house" style-the work in this volume spans the gamut from painstaking realism in egg tempera to clips of video art and conceptual contraptions, from Byzantine icons to images of Jesus on a Wheaties box. Equally important is the book's generosity towards those who are newer to CIVA. Yes, you'll find work by masters like Fujimura, Knippers, de Staebler, Sheesley, Forte, McCleary, Grimm-Vance and company. But you'll be introduced to artists who are either young or recent discoverers of CIVA: Mark Hilpert, Chong Keun Chu, Heidi Petersen, Adrienne Outlaw, and many others. There are helpful essays by the curator Howard Fox and philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff, plus a chronology of CIVA and an artists' index. The book is handsomely produced by Square Halo Books, another jewel in the crown of their small, but exquisite catalog of books on faith and the arts. We're proud to say that Image is mentioned many times in the book; we've been glad to be able to lend a hand from time to time to this indispensable organization.

Buy the book directly from CIVA here.

Visit Square Halo Books here.

The Green Door
A Music and Poetry Performance with Lydia McCauley and Luci Shaw
Singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist Lydia McCauley has created a new music and poetry project, The Green Door, which will be presented at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Bellingham, WA, on November 19 at 7:30 pm. Second in a series of music and poetry collaborations by Lydia McCauley and Luci Shaw, The Green Door gives listeners fresh insight into nature's beauty and its profound influence on our souls. The music and poetry join and intertwine in a presentation that enhances both the song and poetry. McCauley's ensemble, composer/organist Frederick Frahm, and St. Paul 's Chancel Choir will be featured in the program. Lydia McCauley's songwriting is informed by Appalachian, Celtic, and medieval music; an affinity with nature; and her pilgrimages around the world. She has five CD releases on the Brimstone Music label, co-owned with husband, Kurt Scherer. Luci Shaw is a poet, essayist, teacher, and retreat leader, much of whose writing reflects the wild natural beauty of Creation. Author of a number of prose books and eight volumes of poetry, including Writing the River, The Angles of Light, The Green Earth,and Water Lines, she is writer in residence at Regent College, Vancouver, Canada. Tickets will be available at the door; suggested donation $12 per person.

For more information, call 360.647.0152 or visit her website here.

For more about Luci Shaw, click here.

For more about Lydia McCauley, visit her website here.

Gallery Watch

The Vision Glorious- ECVA
The New York Chapter of ECVA (The Episcopal Church and Visual Arts) will have their first "hard copy" exhibition "The Vision Glorious" at the General Theological Seminary in New York City. The artists will be exhibiting in a variety of mediums-painting, drawing, digital art, photography, sculpture, icons, vestments, and more. ECVA's mission is to encourage artists, individuals, congregations, and scholars to engage the visual arts in the spiritual life of the church. ECVA values the significance of images in spiritual formation and the development of faith, and creates programs to support those who are engaged in using the visual arts in the spiritual life. The General Theological Seminary is located on 175 Ninth Avenue, between 20th and 21st Streets, and will close the exhibit on Friday, October 28. For more information, please contact Krystyna Sanderson, Chair of ECVA New York Chapter: by phone (212) 673-5430, or by e-mail krystynaphotography@att.net.

NextNext Visual Art
 Curated by Dan Cameron, Senior Curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the 2005 NextNext Visual Art presents a dozen Brooklyn artists who have created dynamic new projects in a range of media specifically for spaces in the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The exhibition will be on view from now through December 17 in Brooklyn, NY in the following locations: the Diker Gallery Café, Natman Room, and Lepercq Space in the BAM Peter Jay Sharp Building; and in the Harvey Theater in conjunction with BAM's live performances during the 2005 Next Wave Festival. For more information, please call (718) 636-4101, e-mail BAMart@BAM.org, or go to BAM's website.

Joel Sheeley's Art @ Home
The David J. and Betty M. Draewell Gallery at Judson College presents the artwork of Joel Sheesley, ImageUpdate's August Artist of the Month. Sheesley's work is filled with the rhythms of nature as brush strokes tenderly convey the integration of culture in nature. Art @ Home will be displayed not though November 23 at Judson College, 1151 N. State Street, Elgin, IL 60123. For information about the location and times, please call (847) 628-1030. For more information about Joel Sheesley, please click here.

Makoto Fujimura's Water Flames
The grand opening of the Sara Tecchia Roma New York Gallery currently features an exhibit by Makoto Fujimura called Water Flames. The title of each piece is drawn from Dante's The Divine Comedy. Noted artist and critic Robert Kushner writes, "The idea of forging a new kind of art, about hope, healing, redemption, refuge, while maintaining visual sophistication and intellectual integrity is a growing movement, one which finds Fujimura's work at the vanguard." Water Flamesis showing now through October 23. The Sara Tecchia Roma gallery is located in New York City at 529 West 20th Street, 2nd Floor, New York 10011.

For more information, please visit here.

Upcoming

The 2005 Heartland Film Festival
The thirteenth annual Heartland Film Festival has begun and is running now through October 21, in Indianapolis, Indiana. The Heartland Film Festival is a nonprofit organization whose mission is "to recognize and honor filmmakers whose work explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life." From documentaries to drama to animation, the festival screens films from around the world to support those that strive for meaning and "take entertainment to a higher level." The festival also recognizes films released in the theater that seek to enrich, inspire, and give hope to viewers. Throughout the year, Heartland keeps the pulse of the industry, presenting the Heartland Film Festival's Truly Moving Pictures Award to recognize films of substance from Hollywood. This year Heartland was also awarded a major Lilly grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. to take its message of Truly Moving Pictures cross country. Be sure to drop by Indianapolis this month, and look for the Heartland Film Festival near you in 2006.

For a complete schedule and ticket information, please call Heartland's toll-free ticket line at 1-866-HFF-1010, or go straight to their website.

Getty Research Institute Announces its 2006-07 Grant Theme: Religion and Ritual
The Getty Research Institute will focus in 2006-2007 on the interrelation of religion and the visual arts, both taken in the broadest senses. The application deadline is November 1, 2005. For more information, click here.

The Art, Faith, and Social Justice National Conference: A Call for Papers
The Art, Faith, and Social Justice National conference welcomes submissions for papers, panels, and bare bones performance presentations to be held on Thursday, November 10 beginning at 9 am through Saturday, November 12, 2005 at 12 noon. For information on The Art, Faith, and Social Justice National Conference, please 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.

Arlene Hutton's Last Train to Nibroc
There are only two weeks left for you to catch Arlene Hutton's "tender romantic comedy" Last Train to Nibroc. The show is presented by Taproot Theatre Company and closes on October 29. Last Train to Nibrocis the beautiful journey of Raleigh, a soldier who dreams of becoming a writer, and May, a young woman who desires to become a missionary. Their unexpected friendship develops as they travel by train from California with the coffins of, as Raleigh notes, "two of the greatest authors of the century," Nathaniel West and F. Scott Fitzergald. Though their individual dreams lead them to separate destinations they are reunited at the Nibroc Festival a year and a half later. They soon discover their hopes and their relationship are on a different track. Arlene Hutton's tender romantic comedy is a sweet story of a young man and woman, transformed by the simple intersection of their lives. All performances are held at Taproot Theatre located at 204 N. 85th St. in Seattle. The intimate 226-seat theatre is wheelchair accessible and equipped with assistive listening devices.

For more information, please go to www.taproottheatre.org.

Paraclete Press - Fiction Award
The Paraclete Fiction Award will be given to the author of a previously unpublished literary novel with Christian themes or interfaith dialog. The winner will receive $2,000 (advance royalties) and publication by Paraclete Press in accordance with Paraclete's standard publishing agreement and terms. Contest finalist and winners will be announced by the contest judget, Alice McDermott, at an award ceremony at the Calvin College Festival of Faith and Writing, April 20-22, 2006. The award winner's reasonable travel to the festival will be paid by Paraclete Press, and conference fees will be waived by Calvin College . There is a $25 contest fee that must accompany your submission. The contest deadline is January 25, 2006.

For questions about guidelines and entry forms, please go to www.paracletepress.com, or www.calvin.edu/festival.

Subscribe to Image On-line and Get the New Over the Rhine Album-Only While Supplies Last
If you love the kind of art, music, and writing you read about in ImageUpdate but don't yet subscribe to Image in print, we want to extend a special offer to you: order Image on-line now, and while supplies last we'll throw in Over the Rhine's gorgeous May release, Drunkard's Prayer-just to thank you. (If you're not one of the quick and lucky ones, we'll cancel your order and won't charge your credit card. No harm, no foul.)

If you don't already know Over the Rhine-the beautifully crafted songwriting, the rich instrumentation, the unearthly voice of Karin Bergquist, who is half Margo Timmons (of the Cowboy Junkies) and half Billie Holiday-this album is a great place to start. Read about it here.

Click here to order a one-year subscription under the special offer, or here to make it a two-year subscription. We'll mail the CD right away, and your subscription will start in three to six weeks. (If you try the link above and see a note that says t he item you have selected is presently unavailable, that means we sold out. Sorry. But you can still subscribe here, without the special offer.)

This offer is good only with internet orders for new personal subscriptions and is available only while supplies last. Eternal thanks to Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler (www.overtherhine.com).

Kathleen Norris to Headline Fall Image Conference
Mark your calendars! The twelfth annual Image Conference will be held November 10-13, 2005 in Houston, Texas. This year's theme: "The Matter of Devotion: Art, Liturgy, and the Stuff of Worship." Speakers will include Kathleen Norris, author of Dakota and The Cloister Walk; philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff, author of Art in Action; Thomas Lynch, author of The Undertaking; poet Robert Cording; Seven Dance Company; and visual artists Alfonse Borysewicz and Wayne Forte. (More speakers and presenters will be announced in due course.) In his essay "Trumpets, Ashes, and Tears," Wolterstorff describes the "one-plus-six rhythm" that calls believers together to worship on one day each week, then disperses us to do our work in the world for the other six. He describes the complicated tension in our religious heritage that opposes sacred and profane, worship and work. Is worship meant to strengthen us as we return to work, or are our daily pursuits merely a prologue to our devotion? How should the quotidian experiences of joy, suffering, and repentance be given flesh in the language, music, architecture, and visual art that create both the environment for worship and the liturgy that takes place there? The 2005 Image Conference will explore these questions, with particular reference to the ways that art provides the sacramental link between the sacred part of our week and the workaday world of diapers and spreadsheets, shoes and books. A distinguished group of artists and scholars will examine issues including the changing relationship between worship and contemporary culture, both high and low, the ways in which fine art and liturgical art influence one another, and the renewal movements in both traditional and emerging churches.

Stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks and months here.

Visit our co-sponsor's website here.

Image Forum: Let Your Voice Be Heard!
As a quarterly journal, Image doesn't have a "Letters to the Editor" section that you see in periodicals that appear more frequently. We've always regretted that, because through our pages--and programs like the Glen Workshop and the Image Conference--we've been striving to build community, to stimulate a larger conversation in artistic and religious circles, both in this country and around the world. Now, thanks to some hard work on our webmaster's part, we've launched the Image Forum, a full-featured online message board system. You now have the chance to post and respond to a host of message threads. Write a virtual Letter to the Editor. Start a thread in any of several different forums devoted to particular art forms. Share your work with others. Let us know how to make the Forum better. Let your voice be heard!

http://forum.imagejournal.org

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