tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83958635312249043322024-03-14T02:16:11.615-04:00A Studio Incarnatethoughts about art, faith, culture, and the artist's life from
the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion
at Wesley Theological SeminaryAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05833120193751004249noreply@blogger.comBlogger91125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-27364347929182753792014-11-03T14:33:00.000-05:002014-11-03T14:33:00.954-05:00Dancing with Art by Faith: A Tribute<!--[if gte mso 9]>
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Kathryn Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08647543375983317969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-4898942593366927782014-10-23T13:48:00.001-04:002014-10-23T13:56:43.445-04:00A Message from Bruce BirchEarly in my studies at Wesley Theological Seminary, I took a class called "The Hebrew Bible and the Arts" from Bruce Birch, in which he encouraged seminarians to look at artworks as primary theological texts. Later, during his long tenure as Dean, I often heard him say that his hope was that everyone who taught at Wesley would be able to talk about the arts as easily as they talk about the Bible.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-47354954774543733622014-10-21T15:18:00.001-04:002014-10-21T15:28:11.717-04:00More than Bread and Rosesa sermon for Oxnam Chapel at Wesley Theological Seminary
on the occasion of my installation as Full Professor on October 21, 2014
More than Bread and Roses, 2014
copper and acrylic on panel, 16" x 16"
"The
world is full of problems: war, homelessness, global warming, domestic
violence, AIDS, hunger, drug abuse. The list goes on and on. In a world that
seems to be always on the brinkAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-23972848546518568902014-03-10T16:05:00.003-04:002014-03-13T08:20:33.800-04:00On Beauty and Saving the World
Matthew Adelberg, Rosary, 2013, oil on panel, 9" x 12"
I have noticed that several people have understood my chapter on beauty in Sanctifying Art
to mean that I do not believe in beauty. On the contrary, I believe
very much in beauty. I believe in beauty as an experience that is so
deep and moving that it changes peoples lives. Experiences of
transcendent beauty feel like being in the Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-62342843067921639092014-03-04T19:54:00.000-05:002014-03-05T10:31:54.767-05:00Ushering In<!--[if gte mso 9]>
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Kathryn Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08647543375983317969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-1959490182686714452014-01-28T16:01:00.000-05:002014-01-28T16:01:55.043-05:00Matthew Adelberg: Lineage<!--[if gte mso 9]>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-60444040153482428282013-12-24T10:18:00.001-05:002013-12-24T17:30:27.540-05:00A Christmas Gift of Chagall Windows in a Country Church
All Saints Tudeley
We were visiting my daugher's inlaws in Tunbridge Wells, about an hour outside of London, and after lunch the first day the talk turned (not surprisingly) to art in churches. Did you know, said someone, that there is a little country church with a full set of Chagall windows just a few minutes from here? No, we said, much surprised, we had no idea! So, after breakfast Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-70233328874378915342013-11-27T16:05:00.000-05:002013-11-27T16:05:21.863-05:00Giving Thanks for a Life in Art
Memories of Coatlaxope (Guadalupe), 1993,
acrylic and copper on wood, 24" x 24"
Twenty years ago, I was in a deep depression. I had left the school where it was clear that I would never get tenure, and had no vision of where to go or what to do next. I felt that I was in a very, very dark place. Then, one day, it seemed to me that God had shone a small spotlight in front of me, illuminating Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-41226527237461732782013-11-23T00:25:00.001-05:002013-11-23T00:25:58.732-05:00Wild ArtToday at the American Academy of Religion, I attended a session on Outsider Art. Because the session was presented by the Psychology, Culture, and Religion group, and not art historians, much of what was said about the relationship between what in France had been called "art brut" and the early Modernists was very familiar to me. As they ran over the early 20th century territory in which artists Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-28200291411232690752013-11-11T00:42:00.001-05:002013-11-11T00:42:56.542-05:00The Arts, Money, and the Future of the Church
My father with his twin brother
and my grandfather in 1931
More than 25 years ago, one of my daughters was accepted as an acting student at the then-brand-new Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. At the orientation session, a teacher waved her hand in the direction of the students gathered in front of her, and said, “Parents, you are looking at the future of the American theater!” Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-36366315704802730152013-10-31T13:55:00.000-04:002013-10-31T13:55:21.389-04:00Eileen Guenther |at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Yesterday, my colleague and friend Dr. Eileen Guenther owned the Kennedy Center Concert Hall stage, playing a masterful one-hour program on their new, Rubenstein Family organ. The organ console was placed front and center on the otherwise bare stage, so that everyone could see as well as hear the confidant hand- and footwork with which she drew such beautiful sounds out of a beautiful Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-69407695325736365492013-10-22T10:43:00.002-04:002013-10-22T16:14:48.983-04:00The Extravagant Gift
a view of the gallery,
with paper lace trees and silverpoint drawings
Our own Amy Gray's extraordinary, lovely, peaceful, and mysterious installation, The Extravagant Gift will grace the Dadian Gallery through the end of the semester. Although I could add my own inchoate and extravagant thoughts, I think that Trudi Ludwig Johnson, our clever, insightful, hard-working Curator has alreadyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-41259161304449298412013-10-14T16:00:00.001-04:002013-10-14T16:08:41.739-04:00Another Offering
All the elements are waiting to find their proper place.
Amy hangs up the backdrop
The time has come again for the Center for the Arts and Religion to make another offering into the life of the
Seminary community. The Day of the Dead ofrenda
has become a much-anticipated annual event over the years, since Artist-in-Residence
Lauren Raine first invited us to help her create a temporary Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-76962920309728756862013-10-09T17:05:00.000-04:002013-10-09T17:05:39.351-04:00ProcessArtist-in-Residence Peggy Parker graciously invited me and another faculty member to sit in on a recent session of her course, Drawing to Woodcut. As I told the students, I was there because somehow I missed learning woodcut when I was in art school. Ever since I watched Trudi Ludwig Johnson work on her huge plate for “Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time”, which I wrote about here and here, my hands Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-70786003499253996262013-09-16T18:39:00.000-04:002013-09-17T13:19:56.171-04:00Alison Saar: Still at the David C. Driskell Center
Alison Saar, Hankerin' Heart
Last Thursday, I drove across town in rush hour traffic as a spectacular
downpour sent huge streaks of lightening flashing across the sky. I was
trying to get from my office to the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts of African Americans and the African Diaspora in time to hear Alison Saar talk about the extraordinary, enigmatic, moving, Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-29158951357177999172013-09-13T11:34:00.001-04:002013-09-27T17:12:51.469-04:00Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion, part 2
Cynthia Angeles, "Grief", oil on linen, 31" x 25"
A few days ago, I attended the opening reception for the Watergate Gallery portion of Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion. Owner and Curator Dale Johnson showed the work of 33 artists. Of course, Cynthia Farrell Johnson and Helen Zughaib, as the instigating spirits of the show, were represented, but since their work is so familiar to me, I spent Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-60689309782933702442013-09-05T16:52:00.000-04:002013-09-05T16:52:19.982-04:00Towards Ontario
Jeffrey Lewis, Towards Ontario/mirus caelum I, encaustic on linen, 1998
Christ Pantocraterencaustic, 6th century. Sinai
In 2004, Jeffrey Lewis spent a few months in the Center for the Arts and Religion studio, patiently laying tiny dabs of hot, colored wax onto a stretched, linen canvas. In his quiet, patient presence, time seemed to stretch into eternity. Even when I stood watching for Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-9742066919911331662013-08-29T11:36:00.000-04:002013-08-29T11:36:19.228-04:00Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion
Cynthia Farrel Johnson,
Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion, mixed media 2012
When Cynthia Farrell Johnson gave us her mixed-media piece,
Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion, at the end of her year as
Artist-in-Residence, all I could do was laugh. Here was a woman with downcast
eyes, a serene expression, and her hands in a position of prayer, but her hair
was standing on end while all around her Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-20220964802087208442013-08-20T11:16:00.000-04:002013-08-20T11:16:08.856-04:00Saving the World
"I Love Typography" by Zachary courtesy of http://ilovetypography.com/love/
Every month, I receive an email that asks nothing of me but rather brings me a very quiet, intellectual kind of joy. As those who know me well can attest, I love words and all the things that make them sing – not just poetry and elegant prose, but also punctuation, grammar, spelling, and that most subtle yet necessary Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-84357943949059289362013-08-13T15:26:00.003-04:002013-08-13T15:26:42.080-04:00Peace and Goodness at the Portiuncula GuildLast week, printmaker Peggy Parker and I attended the opening reception for the Portiuncula Guild. Located in the small town of Bedford, Virginia, the Guild is a community gallery and a meeting place for artists who are working at the intersection of faith, spirituality, and creative expression. It is also the site of production studios for Mitchell Bond’s fused glass and Patrick Ellis’ Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-53848611469380942512013-08-06T15:37:00.001-04:002013-08-06T15:37:28.844-04:00Life Stories
preparation for "My Soul Look Back and Wonder"
(photo courtesy The Theatre Lab)
Although it seems like a lifetime away, just three short weeks ago I was at a reception in Antigua, Guatemala, where one of my fellow pilgrims mentioned her connection to the Theater Lab, an important school for actors here in Washington, DC. As she began describing an event called "My Soul Look Back and Wonder" Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-18522499544924039672013-07-25T11:19:00.001-04:002013-07-25T16:05:49.269-04:00Sanctifying Art, hot off the press!
Here it is, hot of the press! I can't quite believe it, even now, but a copy of my new book, Sanctifying Art: Inviting Conversation between Artists, Theologians, and the Church, is on my desk, looking about as beautiful as I could ever have imagined! I am beyond grateful to my editor, Chris Spinks, who shepherded the project and patiently answered all my questions; to the designer, Amelia Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-13018137951700381982013-06-25T12:10:00.002-04:002013-06-25T12:10:40.401-04:00Art Car<!--[if gte mso 9]>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-74912629051857978292013-06-20T10:42:00.000-04:002013-06-24T11:56:44.506-04:00Wonder Coupled with Joy, by Kathryn Sparks<!--[if gte mso 9]>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395863531224904332.post-90146509327052675062013-06-19T10:37:00.000-04:002013-06-19T10:44:52.711-04:00Take my Hands, by Kathryn Sparks<!--[if gte mso 9]>
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