Artist of the Month: Ann Copeland
In her essays on music, Ann Copeland orchestrates a marvelous tapestry of the ancient and modern, the cosmic and the mundane, the ecstatic and the everyday. She writes herself so deeply into the physical matter and detail of the world that her writing hardly feels like self examination at all, plying strand upon bright strand without ever dropping a thread. She weaves together Gregorian chant, the monastic life, marriage, the passing of time, joy, sensuality, and history. No wonder one of her favorite images is cloth: practical but delightfully tactile, cloth’s drape and color, its feel against the body, the craft of dressmaking, and cloth’s intimate connection with vocation—be that the vocation of a religious or a young housewife—offer Copeland a way of uniting her meditations on music and the soul, starting with a scene in which a group of young postulants is instructed to sew the habits they’ll be clothed in as nuns. The transcendent power of music is a vein we’re glad to hear that Copeland is continuing to mine in a collection-in-progress of interconnected essays titled “Musicking Moments.”

Visit our Artist of the Month page on Ann Copeland here.

Larry Woiwode: A Friend in Need
Last year one of Image’s editorial advisory board members, the renowned fiction writer Larry Woiwode (author of Beyond the Bedroom Wall and many, many other superlative books), was in a serious accident on his farm in North Dakota. As his loving wife Carole describes the accident: “His jacket caught in the power takeoff shaft connecting the tractor to a baler and he was thrown from one side of the tractor to the other and pinned against the shaft. Fortunately the impact shut the tractor down. For the next hour he labored to get to his pocketknife and cut through the sleeve wrapping his right arm to the shaft. Though cut and bruised and badly shaken...he was able to free himself and walk to the house. We are thankful he did not lose an arm. We are thankful he is alive.” Larry did suffer several broken ribs, along with spine and nerve damage. Though he is Poet Laureate of North Dakota, he receives no financial support for this position and during his recovery he hasn’t been able to work. We are hoping that some of you might help the Woiwode family during this difficult time. Contributions are not tax deductible, but would be deeply appreciated. Please send your check to Poet Laureate Benevolent Fund, c/o Crane & Anson, P.C., P.O. Box 99, Mott, ND 58646.

The Work of the People
In case anyone missed it, liturgical art has now entered the technological age. The Work of the People (TWOTP) is a Houston-based company that produces media to aid worship. Though it derives its name from the Greek word for liturgy, TWOTP doesn't treat liturgy as something requiring only gold and incense. Rather, it employs film, music, and photography to create an emerging visual liturgy. "Visual Liturgy," in fact, is the name of its new line of products inspired and shaped by the Church calendar and Scriptural references from the Revised Common Lectionary. The first Visual Liturgy volume covers the weeks from Ash Wednesday through Easter, including films specifically for the weeks leading up to Good Friday (10 films altogether). The films are a compilation of reflective text pieces, some more "interpretive" shorts, worship backdrops, and a music video of The Choir (which is actually a band). They can be used to facilitate meditation in preparation for worship, during Communion, before, after, or during a sermon, or as a benediction at the close of a service. Here's how TWOTP reflects upon its mission: "It seems most of the media in churches are used to back up propositions; it would be cool to have more stuff that leads people into mystery instead of out of it. We hope our films somehow open up the capacity for one to search and discover by providing more questions than answers; to rediscover beauty and mystery." The folks at TWOTP have made an offer to Image Update subscribers: to receive one of its Easter videos, log on to the TWOTP site, enter "image" in the coupon box and you'll get the download for free-an interpretive piece backed by The Choir. Pretty cool.

To learn more about TWOTP, click here.

Derek Webb’s Mockingbird
Derek Webb writes songs on the outskirts of what has been labeled Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). Similar to the late 80’s critiques of Leslie Phillips (now Sam Phillips), Webb challenges the very industry of which he is a part. With direct lyrics, Webb takes issue with empty pietism and pre-packaged spirituality, issues usually left untouched by his immediate contemporaries: “We have this pre-thought idea. We're not interested in the ideas of other people or defending the dignity of the people we don't agree with.” Webb’s third solo album, Mockingbird, was released in December 2005. Sonically influenced by the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour, the album has received a good deal of attention, including endorsements from the likes of Stanley Hauerwas: “In general, I hate Christian rock music. But Webb’s songs are free of the pietistic sentimentality that usually characterizes it. His music, like the Gospel, is at once hard, edgy, and beautiful.” In the song “a king & a kingdom,” Webb counters issues of division by confronting the listener with human similarities: “we're all migrating to the place where our father lives / 'cause we married in to a family of immigrants.” On the album’s title track, Webb details the trials of honesty: “i’ve got no new song to sing / and i am like an amplifier / i just tell you what i’ve heard / oh, i’m like a mockingbird.” With shoot-from-the-hip lyrics that address issues such as social justice, politics, and war, Webb seems to be hitting a nerve in communities that sorely need it: “There's so many filters that I feel like it's tying the hands of our artists…they know they can't say certain things.” Whether or not Webb’s music—like that of Sam Phillips—will continue to gain a wider audience remains to be seen, but Mockingbird’s well-crafted honesty suggests the possibility.

Visit Derek Webb online: http://www.derekwebb.com/home/.

Faith is a Radical Master by Walt McDonald
It’s no wonder that Walt McDonald (Image #14, 29) is a Texan, born and bred. He has just the right laconic eye to make him a cowboy poet, the sort of fellow who takes life as it comes without a big fuss. Yet there’s much more in him than just the cowboy. His new collection Faith is a Radical Master follows on a lifetime of work exploring his native Southwest and his relationships with the people most dear to him. An Air Force pilot by trade, he came to poetry mid-life out of a desire to “strain to capture and save” the “splendors” of the everyday. McDonald was made Texas State Poet Laureate in 2001—and it shows. He makes marvels out of the simple pleasure of living in the physical world and the memories that fill the quiet space of aging—learning to hold a baby for the first time, touching the creases in his wife’s face decades later. Considering his marriage, he interprets the cynical, wondering gaze of younger men and women at a wedding: “how daring like monks to love only one / or to grow old together thinking it’s so.” Reaching even further back, he plucks a sea conch from, improbably, Civil War Alabama, urging us to “taste the dust at the mouthhole” where his great-grandmother, like some a mythic sea nymph, “blew this shell like a horn, / one steady roar to warn /of soldiers scouring Alabama pines.” Not all fond recollection, the grief of newer wars cuts into these poems as well, “the simple bitter sap that rises in me / like bad blood I need to spill”—a wound never fully closed. But it’s McDonald’s sense of place that lays the collection’s foundation. The “hardscrabble plains” of Texas are a theater for God’s grace, rain falling like manna in the desert. His portraits of expanse, from the horizon all the way up to the “buckshot of stars,” make us feel our own smallness and the kind of awe that must burst forth in praise.

For more on Walt McDonald and to purchase a copy of the book, click here.

Gallery Watch

Avoda: Objects of the Spirit
The Jewish Museum of Florida and Braman Family Foundation present 42 pieces of Jewish ceremonial art created by internationally renowned painter and sculptor Tobi Kahn. This exhibit explores the rise of spirituality in America and the personal relevance of ritual and tradition in daily life. Avoda: Objects of the Spirit will be on display from March 7 – August 20, 2006. The Jewish Museum of Florida is located on 301 Washington Aveune, Miami Beach, FL 33139. For more information, visit http://www.jewishmuseum.com/.

Upcoming

NYCITA: At the Crossroads of Theatre and Faith
Join Christians in the Theater Arts June 15-17, 2006 in New York for a fast-paced journey to the intersection between Christianity and theater. A first-rate group of scholars, pastors and artists will offer intellectual challenge each morning in plenary sessions at Calvary Baptist Church 123 W. 57th Street in the heart of New York City. The afternoon will be reserved for a variety of excursions into the city. Over the weekend, we'll explore every facet of theater, faith, and the experience of working and living in the Big Apple.

For more information, email nycita@cita.org or call 877-277-CITA.

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.

Inscription Conference: Call for Proposals
The Inscription Conference, the Southwest Conference on Christianity and Literature, and Abilene Christian University will host a conference for Christian writers and teachers September 28-30, 2006. Plenary speakers are David Lyle Jeffrey, Jill Baumgeartner, and David Naugle. The ACU English department seeks proposals for papers and panels that explore the intersections between faith and learning in literature, composition, creative writing, and teaching. Abstracts are due by March 31, 2006. The event is a joint meeting of the Southwest CCL and a new conference called Inscription, focusing on the Christian teaching of writing, rhetoric, and literature. See details at www.acu.edu/inscription.

“The Church Has Left the Building”: An MSA Conference in Seattle
Those who have followed the writings and works of Tom Sine over the past couple decades know that he has his eye on the future—but only to help us live more fully in the present. He is the author of numerous books, including the provocatively titled Mustard Seed vs. McWorld and Cease Fire: Searching for Sanity in America’s Culture Wars. Sine believes that Christians need to change in order to preserve a living faith. Sine’s organization, Mustard Seed Associates, undertakes a number of projects, but the one we’d like to focus on today is an upcoming conference in Seattle—with yet another stimulating title—“The Church Has Left the Building.” Christians from all over the world will gather to attend this event, to be held April 28-29 in Seattle at Trinity Methodist Church. While this is an intergenerational conference, it will primarily feature a new generation of those involved with the new monasticism, as well as emerging and missional church movements.

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

Seeing God: A Call for Entries
Seeing God, a nationally juried show sponsored by The Dadian Gallery of the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion and the Washington Printmakers Gallery, announces a call for entries. Selected artists will have their work shown at the exhibition from October 23, 2006 to December 15, 2006. Seeing God invites printmakers to consider what it means to them to see God, whether in their studios, in the natural world, on the street, or in any other place. They are interested in how contemporary artists of varying religious backgrounds envision the sacred in, or encounter the holy through, their work. Don’t miss the May 15, 2006 deadline to submit your work. The entry form is available at www.washingtonprintmakers.com, www.luceartsandreligion.org/seeinggod,  or from the Dadian Gallery, 4500 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20016.

Creative Congregations in Minneapolis/St.Paul?
I am part of a congregation seeking more “diversity in worship.” We currently worship in a traditional style and feel that a move towards straight-up contemporary worship will not scratch where it itches. Having seen a number of interesting church web sites in and around Minneapolis, we want to plan a weekend field trip to visit churches in the area. The intent of this trip is to visit churches that might stretch and diversify our understanding and practice of worship—beyond traditional hymns and CCM music. We would like to visit churches that use technology in creative ways, churches whose music bridges or moves beyond hymns and contemporary praise music, and churches that are exploring and encouraging a greater use of visual art and creative writing in their worship. If you belong to a congregation like I’ve described and wouldn’t mind a group of 5-10 guests making a visit, please email me at phil.grace@shaw.ca or call me at (204) 326-3707.

Only a Few More Days Left to See Taproot Theatre’s
An Inspector Calls
Taproot Theatre kicks off “A Season to Celebrate” with J.B. Priestley’s compelling mystery, An Inspector Calls. In Priestley’s riveting thriller, an inspector unravels the secrets of a powerful, wealthy British family. News of a young woman’s tragic death changes their lives forever in this compelling, unconventional whodunit. The 1991 favorite returns to the Taproot stage for our 30th Anniversary Celebration. An Inspector Calls runs now through March 4. All performances are held at Taproot Theatre at 204 N. 85th Street in Seattle. An Inspector Calls is sponsored in part by The Tux Shop. Taproot Theatre’s 2006 Season partners include ArtsFund, KUOW, The Seattle Foundation, and The Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences.

Go to Taproot Theatre http://www.taproottheatre.org/.

Register Now for the 2006 Glen Workshop!
“Love and Affliction: Art and the Paradox of Suffering”
July 30 – August 6, 2005

The Glen Workshop is Image's illuminating conference on the arts and religion, where participants practice and strengthen their craft and vision in community. This weeklong event combines the best elements of a workshop, an arts festival, and a symposium. By exploring this year’s theme, “Love and Affliction: Art and the Paradox of Suffering,” participants will share a common ground for discussion during the week. Morning workshops are small enough to allow the faculty to give close attention to each participant—to beginners as well as those advanced in their craft. This year’s faculty includes illustrator Barry Moser, playwright Arlene Hutton, poets Scott Cairns and Jeanine Hathaway, Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist of Over the Rhine, fiction writer Bret Lott, mixed-media artist Barry Krammes, porcelain artist Ginger Geyer, and others. Afternoons and evenings at the Glen feature faculty readings, lectures, and presentations. Each evening concludes with an ecumenical worship service that incorporates the arts. This year’s musician-in-residence, Pierce Pettis, will be giving a concert as well as playing during worship throughout the week; Eugene Peterson will be the homilist. Free time offers participants opportunities for writing, conversation, hiking, and exploring the stunning scenery and cultural treasures in and around Santa Fe. Surrounded by the stark, dramatic beauty of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the Glen is hosted at St. John’s campus and is within easy reach of the rich cultural, artistic, and spiritual traditions of northern New Mexico. Please note that class sizes are limited: don’t wait too long to register!

If you are on the Image subscriber list, you’ll automatically receive a brochure. If you’d like to have one mailed to you, send us an e-mail by clicking here.

To register for the Glen Workshop, click here.

And for a personal perspective on the Glen experience, read Roz Dimon’s brief reflection here.

Subscribe to Image On-Line and Pick Up The New Religious Humanists FREE!
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: if you subscribe on-line now, we’ll send the anthology The New Religious Humanists (normally $25) for free, just to thank you for subscribing. Assembled by Image editor Greg Wolfe, this anthology offers a great grounding in the vision behind Image and ImageUpdate. Religious humanism, Wolfe notes, is “a way of seeing the world that transcends ideology by striving to balance change and permanence, the individual and the community, human realities and divine imperatives, a tragic sensibility and authentic hope.”

A one-year subscription to Image offers four issues of thought-provoking essays, revealing personal narrative, unusual and beautifully crafted fiction and poetry, and gorgeous visual art, as well as writing on dance, theater, film. Find out why novelist Mark Helprin says, “In looking over Image, I confess, I felt a sense of grace, something borne in the air, something wonderfully and almost inexplicably buoyant.” At a time when the American public square is increasingly dominated by polarized and highly ideological forces, the essays in The New Religious Humanists—by Annie Dillard, Kathleen Norris, Robert Coles, Wendell Berry, Gerald Early, Richard Rodriguez, and many others—offer a compelling vision for cultural renewal.

Click here to order a one-year subscription under the special offer, or here to make it a two-year subscription. When you get to the “Payment/Shipping” screen, type the words “New Religious Humanists” in the “Shipping Instructions” field. We’ll mail the book right away, and your subscription will start in three to six weeks. (If you try the link above and see a note that says the 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 only available with internet orders and expires March 15.

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

Subscribe (and a whole lot more) Online
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