Intersections @ ECVA

"Jesus Our Brother" Exhibition at ECVA

2012-02-22T19:16:00.000-05:00

We invite you to share our newest exhibition during this season of Lent. Curator Diane Walker writes...

As we begin the long slow walk through the 40 days of Lent, who is this Christ who has promised to walk with us? Inspired by thoughts of Jesus as brother, the artists whose work appears in this exhibition responded with a variety of images, some traditional and some less so.

Spending prayerful time with each of the pieces in this exhibition, I felt faith and hope shine through, and found myself thinking of the words of Mother Teresa, as she looked upon the faces of those whom she served: “Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.” Each of these images, in its own way, offers a gentle reassurance — that wherever we may find ourselves, our brother Jesus is with us, just as the sun and the rain continue to feed, support, and nurture us, helping us to grow into what we are called by God and Christ to become.

Click HERE to visit the "Jesus Our Brother" exhibition.

A Call From Whitestone Gallery

2011-12-17T21:11:00.004-05:00

An organization in the Baltimore area needs to replace a solo exhibit spot for January through February. You need to have a full exhibit ready to go and able to be transported to Baltimore by January. A reception will be provided by the organization.

If you are interested, email info@whitestonegallery.com with a few images from your full exhibit. We will not share the organization's name to keep them from being bombarded with artists contacting them. If your work is selected, of course we will share their information with you. It is a beautiful space specifically for art exhibits in the headquarters of an international non-profit organization.

This is a last minute call. You must move fast.

Call For Entries: "Jesus Our Brother"

2011-12-03T22:25:00.001-05:00

Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you." He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers!" (Matthew 12:47)

We speak often of Jesus as Savior, Teacher, Messiah, Lord, and King. But we who are his disciples and followers can also call him Brother: the relationship we have with Jesus has the potential to become infinitely more personal.

This is a particular gift as we head into the season of Lent. It is no coincidence that Lent takes place in spring, when the seeds that have lain dormant over the winter are first struggling to break through the hard shell of being and the rough embrace of earth.

The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.
(Robert Frost: Putting in the Seed)

If we understand Lent as an opportunity to deepen our relationship with Christ, then the struggles we endure with whatever discipline we might be led to take on during this period of germination are struggles he shares with us. Our desert is his desert; our challenges his challenges.See the complete Call for Entries HERE.

New Exhibition for Advent

2011-12-01T19:08:00.002-05:00

We invite you to share our newest exhibition during this season of Advent.

Curator Ana Hernandez writes...

"Shining light on the issues that disrupt our love and bringing our most loving selves to the community is the work of becoming the serenity and peace we seek. In his book Music and Imagination, Aaron Copland writes: This never ending flow of music forces us to use our imaginations, for music is in a continual state of becoming."

"Our becoming is made possible by our experience and our quiet, patient work with the spirit. ...May we look deeply, confident in the gifts we have, and not let fear keep us from stepping out of our comfort zones, saying Yes! in our dialogues. May we see ourselves as the encouraging angels we are."

Image above by Linda Witte Henke, "Adonai" (from the Great O Antiphons).

Janet McKenzie: Holiness and the Feminine Spirit

2011-10-10T12:06:00.003-04:00

Holiness and the Feminine Spirit:The Art of Janet McKenzie, an exhibition of 21 paintings depicting Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and additional inclusive interpretations continues at Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA) through October 23, 2011.

Janet McKenzie has created masterful paintings that celebrate all people, and in particular, women and people of color. She challenges the predominant western interpretation of the Holy Family as blue-eyed and fair-skinned, suggesting that viewers of her work reconsider this standard. Since her “Jesus of the People” won the National Catholic Reporter’s competition for a new image of Jesus in 1999, we have seen the Holy Family and Saints emerge from her spiritual mastery of canvas and paint and we observe how these “transformed” images transform our own views of the world in which we live.

The Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the twenty-sixth Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church states in her essay "Epiphany," from the book Holiness and the Feminine Spirit, that Janet McKenzie has "invited us into yet another awareness of what it means that Jesus was born of the whole world."

Pamela Ambrose, Director of LUMA, stresses the emotional impact of these paintings. "For a city like Chicago, with a large international population, the paintings are reminders that we cannot be ethnocentric in thinking about the icons of the Christian faith."

The exhibition can be viewed at LUMA, 820 N. Michigan Avenue.

Also at LUMA on Tuesday, October 18, 2011, Janet McKenzie will lead a tour through her exhibition and give an informal talk, sharing insights into her paintings. She will discuss the ongoing journey with Jesus of the People, a work that has proven to be controversial. McKenzie will also sign copies of her book, Holiness and the Feminine Spirit: The Art of Janet McKenzie, which will be on sale in LUMA's museum shop.

LUMA is located in historic Lewis Towers on the Magnificent Mile, the heart of Chicago's cultural and shopping district.

Loyola University Museum of Art

820 North Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611
312.915.7600

Image above: "Woman Offered #5" by Janet McKenzie

A Stand For Peace

2011-09-04T07:37:00.011-04:00

Bishop Paul Jones is commemorated on September 4 in Holy Women, Holy Men: Calendar of Saints. Born in 1880 and following graduating from Yale University and the Episcopal Divinity School Paul Jones accepted a call to serve a mission in Logan, UT. In 1914 he was appointed Archdeacon of the Missionary District of Utah and, later that year, he was elected its Bishop.

His stand that “war is unchristian” and the accompanying reaction caused a commission of the House of Bishops to investigate and eventually recommend that Bishop Jones resign.

“It was after much prayerful thought, imagination and contemplation” that The Rev. Robert Two Bulls (Oglala Lakota) created an Icon honoring Bishop Paul Jones as a peace maker. Inscribed around the Icon’s halo are the words from Bishop Paul Jones’ farewell speech “Where I serve the Church is of small importance, so long as I can make my life count in the cause of Christ.”

The Icon created by The Rev. Two Bulls is featured on the Episcopal Peace Fellowship web site.

ECVA Call For Entries: Imaging The Sacred Art Of Chant

2011-08-29T19:32:00.003-04:00

God speaks the light into being. Day! Night! As a musician, I put great stock in the tools of the trade; listening, practicing, singing or playing alone or with others. Many of my artist friends have told me that they listen to music, specifically chant, while they work. I can't imagine such a thing, because although God might be able to create the earth while the wind is sweeping over the face of the waters, I need quiet in order to hear a new chant into being. However, I see the possibilities, in the chants I sing repeatedly year after year, when I look through the lens of my camera and glimpse what I think the composition wants to be, where the parts might come together to create consonance, or dissonance, or when I really see the colors of a particular vista at a certain time of day.

In his book "Music and Imagination," Aaron Copland says, "This never ending flow of music forces us to use our imaginations, for music is in a continual state of becoming." So are we in a continual state of becoming, and I use chanting to help me to become the most loving and compassionate person I am capable of becoming.

The pianist Glenn Gould put it a little differently: "The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline, but is, rather, the lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity." When I look at the masters of Chinese brush painting and see the skill with which one line can be rendered, in addition to the brevity (which I admire), I see healing, spirit, wonder, and serenity — I think of it as a melody, like the ones I'm sure have been with us since the first setting and dawning.

Chanting is to me what I imagine a well-executed brush stroke must be for a painter: a line we return to our entire life, always the same yet never the same, by turns supple, solid, rendered in haste or patience, best when we pay enough attention to honor the energy of the material, alive when we don't over think it. It's as if we find our voice and become who we are meant to be line-by-line, tune-by-tune. This process of becoming and knowing ourselves may take us over familiar ground, but then we are never the same person we were when first we began.

I invite you to select a piece of music, in whole or in part, and with line or camera or collage, bring us a construction of "wonder and serenity" or passion or peace. And to begin this construction, I offer a chant called "Om Namah Shivaya" (I honor the divine within). To hear this chant, click HERE.

Ana Hernandez, Musician
Curator, Imaging the Sacred Art of Chant

To see the complete Call for Entries, click HERE.

Deadline for entries is October 24, 2011.

Ruminate Visual Art Prize

2011-08-23T15:30:00.001-04:00

Ruminate magazine announces that they are accepting entries for the first annual Ruminate Visual Art Prize. The entry deadline has been extended to Midnight September 1, 2011. The finalist juror for the prize is award-winning artist Sandra Bowden.

Guidelines:

• The submission deadline for the visual art contest is midnight August 26th, 2011.
• The entry fee is $15 (includes a free copy of the Winter 2011/2012 Issue).
• You may submit up to three images per entry fee--please submit a sampling of images from a larger body of work.

Complete details are HERE.

Art, Prayer, and Meditation

2011-08-12T18:11:00.002-04:00

Wednesday, August 17, 2011 7:00 - 8:30 p.m.
Christ Episcopal Church, 503 E. Walworth Ave., Delavan, WI
Interactive Assemblage Art Show with Prayer & Meditation

Roberta Karstetter uses found objects in ways that create sacred spaces, and offers art as a meditative prayer, in a conscious connection to the Creator. In so doing, she offers new and unique ways to discover the divine.

In an "Art as Prayer" interactive meditation evening, you are invited to experience God, in art, scripture, prayer, and meditation as Roberta shares how God has inspired the art assemblages she creates. (Assemblage: A 3-dimensional artistic, often eclectic, composition made from putting together found objects.)

Bring a friend! For more info and to register call Christ Church at 262-728-5292 or email us at christchurch@pensys.com with your name, address, and phone number. ALL are Welcome!!

Digital Art and the Worshipping Community

2011-06-14T15:43:00.004-04:00

Visual art is a vehicle in which ordinary observation can lead to personal insight. In Christian community gathered for prayer and worship, visual art can support a reading of the Word, seeing with the eyes, listening with the heart, and responding in prayer and in action. Can these relationships continue when the art is transmitted in digital form and the community is facing a stadium-sized projection screen?

This was precisely the challenge when ECVA was asked to use art in the main convention hall of the Anaheim Convention Center as a sanctification for 10 days of Episcopal worship. The worship committee of the 76th General Convention included the Rev Canon Carol Wade, the Rev Frank Wade, the Rev Gabri Ferrar, and ECVA Board member Mel Ahlborn.

Ahlborn has been invited to address the Scholar's Track at the CIVA Conference on June 18, 2011, at Biola University with her paper: Digital Art and the Worshipping Community: The Ubuntu Reredos, a site-specific Digital Altarpiece installed at the Anaheim Convention Center.

G. James Daichendt, the CIVA session chair of Thinking Through Art in the Digital Age, notes that “a host of digital means for publishing and disseminating aesthetic experiences has made the arts more accessible and potentially less meaningful.” It was the “potentially less meaningful” that occupied and intrigued (and at times plagued) Mel Ahlborn, for six months while at work creating what became The Ubuntu Reredos, a digital, multimedia, multi-lingual collaborative altarpiece. Drawing from her experience in planning, designing, and producing The Ubuntu Reredos, Ahlborn's session will briefly outline digital art as it was used in this site-specific installation.

For additional information: email Mel Ahlborn.

Seven Palmer Artists Open EDOT Show

2011-05-24T10:31:00.011-04:00

Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church’s Creative Artists’ Community opened a group show at EDOT (Episcopal Diocese of Texas) Gallery for seven artists on May 10, 2011. The show features an eclectic mix of paintings and quilted fabric art; fresh watercolor still lifes; edgy and contemporary portraits; cut-paper collages inspired by nature; and exuberant landscapes reminiscent of outer space and inner peace.

Palmer’s artistic community, organized only recently, has illuminated many gifts and much talent from members of the congregation. Featured artists include: Patricia Hinojosa, Sherry and Randy Byrd, Jacquelyn Campbell, Kelly Bourgeois, Kaytee Esser (seen above, "Bottom Feeder"), and Fran Wallis.

EDOT Gallery is located in the Episcopal Diocese of Texas Center in Downtown Houston and is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Exhibitions are curated by a group of ECVA Diocese of Texas Chapter members, and shows have been scheduled through Spring of 2012.

In other EDOT news, members of the ECVA Diocese of Texas Chapter have been asked to donate a piece of work to the Diocesan retirement community, St. James’ House, in Baytown. Many have stepped forward and those pieces of art will be featured in the EDOT Gallery in January 2012, as well as in an exhibition at the Diocesan Council in February, 2012 before being hung at St. James’ House. Several of the artists will also be featured in next March’s issue of the Diocesan magazine: “Diolog.”

ECVA Call For Entries: Under Abraham's Tent

2011-05-17T18:59:00.005-04:00

Abraham… sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. (Genesis 18:1-2)

Abraham, first named Abram—called Ibrahim in Arabic—is considered the Father of monotheism and of three great religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. God made a covenant with Abraham saying: I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. (Genesis 12:2)

Abraham argued with God over the fate of Sodom, and he radically obeyed God, offering his son Isaac to be a sacrifice. He traveled all over the Middle East (through an area that includes modern-day Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Palestinian Territories, and Egypt) with his wife, Sarah, and extended family (Lot, Hagar, Ishmael, Isaac, Keturah, and others). Abraham encountered all manner of people (from pharaohs and priests, to angels and armies) in each place where he pitched his tent.

Today, four millennia after his journeys, more than fifty percent of the world’s people are affiliated with religions that trace their roots to this man of faith—Abraham.

Understanding that we live in an increasingly interconnected world, this ECVA exhibition asks: When have you been touched by the realization that we share a common father, Abraham? When have you run out of your tent to meet the strangers sent by God? As you turn to make art that answers these questions, we invite you to consider:

Travels to the places where Abraham pitched his own tent, or anywhere the spiritual descendants of Abraham worship God today.

Encounters with another Abrahamic faith through a person, a sacred object, experiences in your own faith journey, etc.

Abraham and/or his descendants as reflected upon in the Torah, the New Testament, or the Koran.

Bowie Snodgrass, Curator
Executive Director
Faith House Manhattan

This exhibition is open to artists who are members of The Artists Registry @ ECVA.

You may submit up to three (3) images for consideration by the Curator this exhibition. These images must be in either GIF or JPEG file format and sized so that they are at least 600 pixels (8.33 inches) on the SHORTEST side, when displayed at a resolution of 72 pixels-per-inch (ppi).

DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES IS JULY 17, 2011

Complete details are HERE.

ECVA's Open Studio 2011 Is Now Online

2011-05-16T19:49:00.002-04:00

Click HERE to visit ECVA's Open Studio 2011 exhibition.

Note: As always, in addition to the links in this newsletter, you can find a link to the Current Exhibition on our home page at http://ecva.org. Previous exhibitions are archived HERE.

The Heavens: Art at the Cathedral, Call for Artists

2011-05-11T10:30:00.013-04:00

Art at the Cathedral Call for Artists
THE HEAVENS: Meditative Spaces

Date: Sep 4--Oct 23, 2011

Gallery Hop Reception: Friday, Sep. 16, 2011

www.ccclex.org

Art at the Catheral, a gallery at Christ Church Cathedral in Lexington, Kentucky, opens the exhibit to water color artists responding to the theme: "The Heavens: Meditative Spaces, under the direction of Cindy Flora. See more here: http://www.ccclex.org/Art/CallsforArtists/tabid/164/language/en-US/Default.aspx

For artists outside the Lexington area who will be shipping, there is no entry fee. You must send digital images no later than August 3, 2011 for selection into the exhibit. This will give you time to prepare shipment to 166 Market Street, Lexington KY 40507. Select shipping date so that art will arrive by Wednesday, August 31, 2011 The return shipment of unsold items will be by November 2, 2011.

Contact jespmark@insightbb.com for additional information.

Salt Of The Earth Calendar Invitation To Artists

2011-05-07T08:38:00.005-04:00

Artists are invited this month to send in their visual submissions to illustrate the 2011-12 Christian Seasons Calendar http://www.thechristiancalendar.com/sample.htm. As the calendar is broken into the traditional Christian seasons (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, etc.), the selection committee is particularly interested in art that reflects the spirit of these seasons.

Art that interprets scripture readings from the upcoming year¹s lectionary http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/ will also be given particular consideration. Images of work will be published on a 9-inch by 12-inch landscape format. No more than ten images can be submitted for consideration.

Info can be found here: http://www.thechristiancalendar.com/submissions_2011.pdf

The deadline for submission is May 31, 2011, and all submissions and inquiries can be sent to edsearcy@shaw.ca. Artists who are chosen will receive $300 for each image used and five complimentary copies of the calendar.

Call For Entries From White Stone Gallery

2011-04-22T03:08:00.004-04:00

White Stone Gallery announces a national call to contemporary artists for the 2012 Fine Art & Faith Exhibit, to be held January 14 - February 4 at the gallery's location in Philadelphia, PA. The faith expressed in the submissions must be supported by the Bible. A selection of works from the exhibit will be featured online for one year. One artist will receive a year contract as a represented artist with White Stone Gallery. The size limitations that were on some of our previous Fine Art & Faith exhibits are not on this exhibit. The works in their shipping materials must be able to fit through the gallery door (79 x 35 inches).

DETAILED INFORMATION & ONLINE ENTRY FORM - Click here for details on the submission process and to start your entry.

IMPORTANT DATES:
July 15, 2011 - Submission deadline
July 22, 2011 - Late submission deadline
September 10, 2011 - Accepted artists and titles list posted online
November 30, 2011 - Gallery starts receiving deliveries
December 16, 2011 - Arrival deadline for accepted works
January 14 - February 4, 2012 - Exhibit

Open Studio 2011 Call For Entries Closed

2011-04-19T11:52:00.006-04:00

The Call For Entries for ECVA's exhibition: Open Studio 2011 has been closed. The exhibition will be launched in the near future. Watch for it.

ECVA News

2011-04-19T11:01:00.006-04:00

This is the place to find news and items of interest to friends of ECVA, members of The Artists Registry @ ECVA, and ECVA Chapters.