Christ Church Gallery Night: a Story, a Theology, and an Invitation

By Greta Kelly

    Before I came home to Christ in college, I spent my childhood building a house in the humanities. Fortunately I’m blessed by parents who nurtured my artistic interests. They gifted me oil pastels which I used to draw the messiest, most colorful animals I could manage. I received a copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein for my seventh birthday, inspiring pages of my own silly rhymes. They enrolled me in Irish dance lessons which I continued for ten years, and even now Celtic music runs in my blood. I sang in choir, took guitar lessons, tried my hand at photography, painting, cello… if you could take Martha out of the kitchen and put her in a studio, that was me.
    Unfortunately, the studio proved to be a shaky house. Over time, I quit a lot of my hobbies because there was no more joy, only comparison. My drawings lacked dimension, my rhymes sounded childish, I plateaued in dance. If I wasn’t any good, no, if I wasn’t the best, what was the point? So I stuck to reading, and studying, and I found Christ along the way. In the Church, I tried to do everything right. Go to Bible study, serve on Sundays, do daily devotionals, say my nightly prayers, and so on. I found myself exhausted, disdaining my role as hospitality lead as I prepared communion bread in the kitchen— Martha made her way back.
    Worn out and bitter is how I showed up to Christ Church in 2022. I kept at my same restless habits, not knowing what to do with myself until we came to our summer sermon series on Exodus a year later. In the midst of all the Israelite’s failures, we stopped to discuss beauty. Father Scott preached on Bezalel and Oholiab, describing how they were filled with the Spirit of God, how they used their talents to create the Tabernacle, and how it was a gloriously beautiful work of art. A fitting place for the glory of God to dwell. He tied this holy work of beauty to our own set up and worship at Christ Church which got me thinking that perhaps my own art could be worshipful. 
    I sat with the images from Exodus, dreaming of deep blues, reds, and golds. I imagined the pomegranates, almond flowers, and bells outlining the priestly garments as well as the Garden they harken back to. I saw the image of busy songbirds pausing their flight to rest in the trees, and I started painting. My summer evenings melted away until a few weeks later my tabernacle bird was finished. I had to laugh when I realized how God brought me full circle, creating colorful animals! 
    But more important than painting, I had come to rest at the feet of Jesus. I didn’t create for anyone but the Lord, and for once, I didn’t care what anyone else thought of the product because I knew it was good for my soul. I have since taken up painting and other childhood passions as forms of prayer. My hope now is to set aside a space in the Church where others can create worshipfully. A space where the people of God can rest or wrestle with ideas, and where we can point each other to the glory of Christ by giving our beautiful gifts back to God.

    As the old anglicanism goes, matter matters. Our worship is already deeply informed by beauty and art, from the hand crafted cross that presides over each service to the melodies poured out by our musicians. Our setup team and Sacristan follow the way of Bezalel as they resurrect our space each Sunday. And God Himself is the artist, the Creator who formed the whole of the earth and all therein. Not only this, but He was gracious enough to grant us dominion in His image so that we might also take part in the shaping of and caring for creation. Art, and even more broadly craft, is a way in which we can image our divine Creator, worship Him, and offer up His good gifts.
     Art is also formational and missional. As anyone who participates in our Easter Vigil can attest, worshipful art becomes a seasonal discipline that forms the maker as much as the maker forms it. And even more beautifully, the sharing of that art can be a grand witness to the glory of God. Vigil is our biggest service of the year for a reason: culture allows those outside of the church to enter in, to see, converse, question, and store up. What a beautiful way to witness the Gospel story for the first time! 
    Ultimately, art has always had a place in the Church as evidenced by the Creation story in Genesis and the building of the Tabernacle in Exodus. Until recent history, the Church has been a center for art and culture, producing Bach’s organ music, the Sistine Chapel, Eastern Iconography, and the list goes on. In his letter to artists (1999), Pope John Paul II writes that the Church needs art. She needs artists, musicians, and architects to make the message of Christ, the invisible world of the Spirit, perceptible. Christian artists can and should be using their gifts!

    While Vigil is a wonderful first step in artful worship, participation is necessarily limited. We want to create more artistic opportunities across a wider breadth of media for those who are unable to participate during Holy Week. Do you write poetry? Do you paint? Do you dance, decorate cakes, sew, or whittle? Would you like to apply your gifting to a liturgical theme and share your work?
    We will be hosting a liturgical gallery night themed around the Three Great Feasts (Ascension, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday) on Saturday, June 13th. Anyone in the church is eligible to submit a piece, including children. The event will involve a soft start children’s viewing for our artists with early bedtimes, followed by a time to view other art installations, and closing with performed art like music, poetry, and dance.

   Participation involves choosing one feast to meditate on and create around. The gallery will have a section for each feast (see creative prompts below). If you are interested, we are asking for general idea submissions like a brief sketch or explanation of the piece you’re envisioning, and one or two examples of similar work you have done. 
    Submissions will be reviewed anonymously by an art board, and any vetting process will depend on the number of submissions we receive along with a general eye on keeping the event family appropriate and theologically sound.
    Please note that we will have a limited number of spots given time and space constraints (aiming for twenty visual artists and ten performers). If you are creating/performing, please also be prepared to provide anything needed for display like a frame, vase, or easel.
    If you want to get involved, but aren’t sure how, we will have a congregation-made installation involving origami. Come to our folding party (Date TBD)! We will also recruit volunteers closer to the event.

2/18 – General submissions due
early spring – Vetting process
5/1 – Progress check ins/final edit conversations
5/17 – Final pieces and artist statements submitted for bulletin printing
6/13 – Gallery Night!