The Gardener: Bridging the Studio and the Sanctuary
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by Amy E. Gray
Amy E. Gray is a practicing artist. She teaches design and serves as program administrator for the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary. She holds a B.F.A. from the Columbus College of Art and Design and M.T.S. from Wesley Theological Seminary. She will complete her M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Art at Goddard College in 2017. In his 1924 lecture on modern art, Paul Klee compares the artist and the artistic process to a tree. He describes the artist as rooted below and reaching up. The tree trunk represents the artist as occupying the space between two realities.1 I have found Klee’s idea resonates with my experiences. A creature of the Midwestern woodlands, I too have used trees as subject, symbol, and metaphor in my work. I too see |
the tree as deeply rooted while simultaneously reaching up to the sky. It is been my experience, more often than not, to stand between—reaching simultaneously in two directions, seeking balance between the twin calls of faith and art and never fully standing in one domain in isolation from the other. My experiences are simultaneously both/and, working in multiple arenas, attempting to balance demands and expectations while still remaining true to my own path.
Over the last several years my work has existed in two different spaces. One, the work created specifically for the context of worship; the other, art for the secular context. The work exists on two drastically different scales, from miniature to installation art. The media used vary from highly permanent ones like silverpoint (drawn with silver) to delicate paper cuttings that are only created for the moment. Much of my current work focuses on the ecology of relationships. The work focuses on the natural world, particularly on how the presence (or absence) of various plants and trees affect the surrounding ecosystem. The Erosion Studies are a series of recent small silverpoint drawings focused on the landscape in areas where heavy deforestation has occurred.
This language of ecosystem applies to the church context as well. How can the arts integrate into the church environment? Are the arts an integrated component of the worship environment, or are they merely an unnecessary decorative add-on? Does it enhance the worship service? What art? Whose art? Is the work intended for a permanent installation or temporary seasonal event? All of these are important questions that must be asked, but to speak of the arts in this manner frames art as a product, a thing, or an object for contemplation with no consciousness of the process or experience of its creation. To speak only of the art object existing in the worship space eliminates the artist from the dialogue. It ignores the reality of process and experience as expressions of the faith of the artist. This focus on product removes the possibility of the process of creating artwork as a spiritual journey. It can be a little like looking at a forest, ignoring the seedlings that may be present, and forgetting that a mature tree spends decades growing—not emerging fully formed over night out of an acorn. By focusing only on the product, we remove living, breathing artists from having a place in the dialogue.
Truth be told, the same can be said of formal art education. In my undergraduate program at the Columbus College of Art and Design, both my illustration and fine arts classes focused on production, each with its own language and set of parameters. In the fine arts context, emphasis was placed on archival materials, such as pH neutral papers and the use of non-transient pigments. We were told that one must create work that will stand the test of time. On the other hand, in the world of illustration and commercial art, the primary concern was whether the image would photograph correctly. The painted image was not the final product. Therefore, transient ink and how long it would last was not relevant. The final reproduced image was most important in this context. These experiences focused on production—the processes used to create a product by choosing materials appropriate to their context—but, as in the discussion within the church, these discussions left out the experience of the artist. I should mention that during my studies, the mention of one’s religious or spiritual inner life was considered anathema. While there are signs that this is changing, the imprint of a separation of formal art concerns from an active faith life lingered.
From this production-based environment, I moved to North Carolina and into the world of commercial textiles. I can think of few things more temporary than fashion trends. At the same time, I continued to work with silverpoint, creating small scale drawings of trees struggling in their environment. The textile work was only expected to exist for the season. By contrast, the wild tree drawings used permanent materials that were meant to last indefinitely. Issues of faith continued to be segregated for me, however, from visual art.
It was a harpsichord that changed everything. In 2003, I was asked if I would be willing to do decorative work on an instrument that was being purchased for my church. It was this project that would irrevocably change my trajectory. The instrument would reside in the sanctuary. In preparation, I sought out guidance for an artist working in the church. At the time, there were fewer resources. My search lead me to Paul Tillich and writers such as John Dillenberger and Jane Daggett Dillenberger. While these authors and others opened my eyes to a conversation between religion and art that was new to me, there was still a piece of the dialogue that was missing. It was not until several years later that it occurred to me that artists were missing from the conversation. The majority of these books approached the subject from the standpoint of art that already existed. Images and sculptures were to be contemplated, but these authors were not providing guidance for living, breathing artists engaged in creating work for the church. The writings prioritized the experience of the viewer to the exclusion of the experience and practice of the maker.
Two things happened as a result of the harpsichord. My questions propelled me into engaging the theoretical and theological dialogues that captured my imagination and attention. More importantly, I experienced the process of making art as a form of prayer. Feeling called to follow these questions, I left the Carolinas to attend Wesley Theological Seminary to pursue a Masters of Theological Studies with an emphasis on religion in the arts. At that time, I was still working in permanent media at small-scale. Upon arriving at Wesley, I was presented with opportunities for large-scale work in Oxnam Chapel. Tiny detailed silverpoint drawings were simply not going to be functional in that context. Inspired by the work of Nancy Chinn, I returned to a technique I had not used since long before my undergraduate studies. Cut paper was a medium more suited to filling large spaces. The paper panels were made to be recycled. These works were crucial to my understanding, and have dramatically changed how I approach my work both for the church and for much of my personal work.
Artwork created for the context of worship has its own set of parameters. All work for worship spaces begins with the shape of the building, and what is physically present in the space. What will work in a tall narrow space is not typically appropriate for a space that has a more horizontal format. Work that is designed for modern architecture may not work in an ornately designed historic church, and vice versa. Works created for worship need to be integrated with space, but also must consider the season as well as the scriptural focus. Art is not there to be decorative, nor is it there to be pretty. Perhaps it is the voice of my Calvinist upbringing that asks if the work is edifying. My objective is to enhance worship. Whatever I create must integrate into the worship space visually, theologically, and scripturally.
Examples of the type of work I created for Oxnam Chapel include banners for worship service celebrating the arts at Wesley, and a tracery design for a chapel drama. Intended for one-time use only, the banners were created for a service celebrating the arts at Wesley. After confirming that the structure of the service would be based on the lectionary readings for the day, the banners were created using an abstraction of the imagery taken from the story of the Transfiguration, as well as 2 Kings 2:11 in which Elijah is taken up in a whirlwind. Flaming chariot wheels flank the cross in place of Elijah and Moses. The long narrow shape and size of the banners were determined by the physicality of the chapel. Another set of banners were created for a chapel drama based on the play “Murder in the Cathedral.” The large traceries reference Canterbury Cathedral, the setting for Thomas Becket’s death. In both cases, the paper banners change the space by virtue of their presence.
Designed for a particular, one-time use, these two installations also illuminate one of the challenges of creating works for the sanctuary. There is a tendency for a congregation to fall in love with the new item because it has changed space and made it fresh. While this is not a bad thing in and of itself, I am often faced with dismay when people learn that the fate of the banners will be the recycling bin. This has prompted me to think about issues of transience in worship spaces. It is an unfortunate reality that sometimes objects made by a congregant with the best of intentions can end up staying far past the lifespan of the object’s context or lifespan of its materials. We are seeking the eternal, but when this unconsciously transfers to objects in the worship space, the results are not always aesthetically appealing. Residual artifacts may not reflect the current theology or life season of the congregation. This may also prevent the possibility of others offering their gifts. These observations have prompted me to engage congregations in conversations about the lifespan of an object when I speak in churches.
There is nothing wrong with permanent installations in the churches, but it is important to be intentional. Things change, time moves on, some objects are only with us for a season. This is the natural order of our world. When it comes to items in the sanctuary, it can be easy to forget that the grass withers and fabric or construction paper eventually fades. It is important to honor both the “forever and ever amen” aspects of worship, but also not to get trapped by making unconscious decisions about the temporary. At times, I have wondered about the hubris involved in thinking that a work of art will last forever. Is this tendency toward attachment the basis for charges of idolatry that are often leveled against the church?
The church does better with the temporary if it is bracketed by a liturgical season. The Advent installation at Bradley Hills Presbyterian is an example. The installation was made of card stock, washers, and fishing line. The installation began with a small number of paper stars made by children in the congregation. As Advent progressed, more stars appeared, until the night of the Christmas pageant when the large star appeared for the first time. The installation stayed until after Epiphany. The large star was removed for the first Sunday after Epiphany and the other stars were removed over the next two weeks. The arrival and eventual disappearance of the stars marked time, making it special. The stars could not stay beyond their appointed season, but could possibly return for future Advent seasons.
These experiences of working at a large scale with a temporary medium have influenced the work that I do outside of the worship context. The Extravagant Gift was an installation for the Dadian Gallery. Because the gallery is not a worship space, it does not have the same restrictions as church sanctuaries. At the time, the lack of the kind of parameters I had grown accustomed to in preparing installations for worship presented a challenge. The question became: what did I want to say in this space where I was well-known, both as a former student and as a current member of the staff? It was a casual comment made by Michael Patella, OSB, during his presentation about the St. John’s Bible at the SARTS meeting in 2012 that provided the kernel of an idea for this installation. Patella mentioned Proverbs 9, where Wisdom builds her house on seven pillars and sets an elaborate feast for all. I began to think about using trees for the seven pillars of Wisdom’s house. But an even more important idea was approaching the exhibition as a gift. Historically, I had struggled with the language of the church which asks us to bring our time, talents, and offerings—but the church rarely meant artistic talent. This phenomenon has reminded me of the character Julia Roberts plays in the 1990 film Pretty Woman, when she returns to Richard Gere’s character after her first attempt to buy a dress: “They wouldn’t take my money.” I had something to offer, but the church did not seem like a welcoming place for it. Or there was an unspoken idea that the arts are one of those “childish things” we gave up when we became an adult in the church.
The harpsichord had been the first opportunity that I had experienced to make an offering out of the depths of my gifts. The work for Oxnam Chapel continued from that idea. However, the exhibition was different. Despite being outside of the worship space, I felt there to be an imperative to create out of this idea of gift, to honor the community that had supported me, and that had created fertile space for me to grow as a Christian and as an artist. Extravagance was evident in the time taken to prepare the show. Much like the elaborate French meal served as a gift to the community in the 1987 film Babette’s Feast, the moment was there to be savored, and then it was gone.
The exhibit consisted of three unusually large silverpoint drawings, each one depicting a tree in a dreamlike landscape. In the center of the gallery, emerging from existing architectural features in the ceiling, were four trees made from cut paper. Each consisted of three 4 by 25-foot pieces of paper which were then twisted and stitched into place with silver thread.
It took an entire week to install the trees. Much more time was spent in the studio preparing the cuttings and punching holes in the black paper that created the starry sky supported by the trees. Like the harpsichord, the exhibition created from the idea of a gift shifted the focus from the object to the action—both mine and the community’s. The space was created to be entered and moved through, rather than simply designed to invite viewers to contemplate an image on the wall. The overall sense of space was an integral part of this project. Having typically created work that hangs on the wall, moving into three-dimensional space and engaging the viewer in this way was a new challenge for me. These works ask the viewer to see a space differently than one normally encounters it. Dimensional space and how it is handled continues to be a question for me as I move forward.
At the artist talk for this show, I received a tremendous amount of positive feedback. But what stands out in my mind were the looks of shock and horror on the guests’ faces when they were told that the paper trees would be recycled. They could not fathom the idea of investing that much time on a work that was temporary. During the week that I sewed the trees into place, I had been thinking about the sand mandalas made by Buddhist monks, the most elegant example I can think of for art as prayer resulting in a temporary work that is completed by sweeping away the sand, often offering it to the sea. The disconnect between my experience and the response of the community highlighted the need for more conversation about the place for the transient in art as well as in worship.
Given another opportunity to serve the community in the spring of 2015, I created a prayer wall. Inspired by the process of building the trees for the community in The Extravagant Gift, The Prayers of the People began with 40 copper-wrapped threads that ran from floor to ceiling in the gallery. Next to the threads but outside the chapel, we wrote a message inviting the community to write prayers on the paper provided, and to leave the prayer in a bowl. For six weeks, my daily practice became retrieving the prayer papers from the bowl, and sewing them into the wall. Some days only one prayer was added; on others, as many as ten would appear in the bowl. At first, the installation was almost invisible, but over time the threads and prayers began to create a tangible reality. Many prayers responded to current events. In addition to the earthquake in Nepal, the events in Baltimore surrounding the death of Freddie Gray shook the Wesley community. Located in Washington, DC, Wesley Seminary is a part of the Baltimore-Washington conference of the United Methodist Church. Many of our students live and work in Baltimore, some in the very neighborhood where the unrest occurred. As I stood in the gallery each morning, sewing prayers in silence, I was deeply honored by the opportunity to hold space for reflection as a gift to the community. At the same time, I was troubled by an overwhelming sense that I lacked an ability to do anything to effect change in the crisis.
The continuing challenges that face our country over race relations have been haunting me. Late in 2014, I encountered an article in The Atlantic that compared the current situation with violence against the African American community to the lynchings that occurred after the Civil War. The Silver Tree was my response, returning to a permanent medium of silver leaf on black Plike, a sulfite-based, artificial paper. The tree stands as witness to the violence. It is scarred, bearing marks of past trauma. The silver is permanent, but there is an element of transience in this work. Over time, the silver will oxidize, changing in color to anything from a warm dark brown to a cold blue black. It is a natural process that I want to take its course. In recent years, as I have focused more on transience and our humanity, silver has become a dominant element in my smaller works. Gold in my work tends to represent the divine, but silver with its flawed tarnish speaks to humanity’s frailty. We are imperfect, and I intend the silver medium to represent tarnished reality rather than working with a medium that retains perfection. These new works in silver and Plike are beginning to develop into a language to speak to the pains of the world. They represent the trajectory of my work as it moves forward.
None of these issues: issues of race, the environment, and even artists trying to find a space in the church exist in a bubble. We are all part of the same created whole, interconnected and interdependent. In my work, I have been looking for ways to integrate these concerns and contexts, many of which may appear disconnected, working through temporary installations or more permanent works, engaging the questions as the arise. We are human and impermanent. We need to honor the seasons in our lives, and to find the truths in both impermanence and the eternal.
Outside my office at Wesley is a sculpture made by former Artist-in-Residence Lauren Raine, which she created during my first semester at Wesley. The Weavers consists of thirteen panels. Each panel is made of a terra cotta cast of the hands of a member of the Wesley community. Some are students, others staff or faculty. With each set of hands there is a motif and a title that Lauren felt represented that particular person’s place in the community. At the time, I was puzzled by Lauren naming my hands positioned in a gesture of offering surrounded by plants The Gardener. She knew I despised getting my hands dirty! By the time this article appears in print, I will be at the halfway point in my MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at Goddard College in Vermont. Among my degree requirements is a call to interface critically as an artist engaged with the world. Contrary to my previous experience with formal training in the arts, the program focuses on artists maintaining a sustainable studio practice, situating themselves in relationship, fully engaged within the context in which their work is located.2 As I continue to move more deeply into my studies, perhaps Lauren saw a glimpse of something that I could not. Although I still believe that the title of “gardener” belongs to Christ, not to me, my deep passion is to care for and nurture the surrounding environment, to make space for and nurture the growth of others, to make the world around me hospitable not just for myself but those who will follow. My dual calling is to the church and to art, which exists beyond the institutions of church, gallery, and museum. Like Klee’s image of the tree, I am rooted deeply into my faith tradition while continuously growing and reaching upwards.
NOTES
Amy Gray
Murder in the Cathedral Set
2015
4’ x 25’
Paper
Amy Gray
Bradley Hills Stars
2010
small stars: 4” and 8.5” diameters;
large star: 48” diameter
Paper
Amy Gray
Extravagant Gift
2011
10’ x 10’ x 12’
Paper and thread
Amy Gray
Prayers of the People (in progress)
2015
4” x 1” x 10”
Paper and thread
Over the last several years my work has existed in two different spaces. One, the work created specifically for the context of worship; the other, art for the secular context. The work exists on two drastically different scales, from miniature to installation art. The media used vary from highly permanent ones like silverpoint (drawn with silver) to delicate paper cuttings that are only created for the moment. Much of my current work focuses on the ecology of relationships. The work focuses on the natural world, particularly on how the presence (or absence) of various plants and trees affect the surrounding ecosystem. The Erosion Studies are a series of recent small silverpoint drawings focused on the landscape in areas where heavy deforestation has occurred.
This language of ecosystem applies to the church context as well. How can the arts integrate into the church environment? Are the arts an integrated component of the worship environment, or are they merely an unnecessary decorative add-on? Does it enhance the worship service? What art? Whose art? Is the work intended for a permanent installation or temporary seasonal event? All of these are important questions that must be asked, but to speak of the arts in this manner frames art as a product, a thing, or an object for contemplation with no consciousness of the process or experience of its creation. To speak only of the art object existing in the worship space eliminates the artist from the dialogue. It ignores the reality of process and experience as expressions of the faith of the artist. This focus on product removes the possibility of the process of creating artwork as a spiritual journey. It can be a little like looking at a forest, ignoring the seedlings that may be present, and forgetting that a mature tree spends decades growing—not emerging fully formed over night out of an acorn. By focusing only on the product, we remove living, breathing artists from having a place in the dialogue.
Truth be told, the same can be said of formal art education. In my undergraduate program at the Columbus College of Art and Design, both my illustration and fine arts classes focused on production, each with its own language and set of parameters. In the fine arts context, emphasis was placed on archival materials, such as pH neutral papers and the use of non-transient pigments. We were told that one must create work that will stand the test of time. On the other hand, in the world of illustration and commercial art, the primary concern was whether the image would photograph correctly. The painted image was not the final product. Therefore, transient ink and how long it would last was not relevant. The final reproduced image was most important in this context. These experiences focused on production—the processes used to create a product by choosing materials appropriate to their context—but, as in the discussion within the church, these discussions left out the experience of the artist. I should mention that during my studies, the mention of one’s religious or spiritual inner life was considered anathema. While there are signs that this is changing, the imprint of a separation of formal art concerns from an active faith life lingered.
From this production-based environment, I moved to North Carolina and into the world of commercial textiles. I can think of few things more temporary than fashion trends. At the same time, I continued to work with silverpoint, creating small scale drawings of trees struggling in their environment. The textile work was only expected to exist for the season. By contrast, the wild tree drawings used permanent materials that were meant to last indefinitely. Issues of faith continued to be segregated for me, however, from visual art.
It was a harpsichord that changed everything. In 2003, I was asked if I would be willing to do decorative work on an instrument that was being purchased for my church. It was this project that would irrevocably change my trajectory. The instrument would reside in the sanctuary. In preparation, I sought out guidance for an artist working in the church. At the time, there were fewer resources. My search lead me to Paul Tillich and writers such as John Dillenberger and Jane Daggett Dillenberger. While these authors and others opened my eyes to a conversation between religion and art that was new to me, there was still a piece of the dialogue that was missing. It was not until several years later that it occurred to me that artists were missing from the conversation. The majority of these books approached the subject from the standpoint of art that already existed. Images and sculptures were to be contemplated, but these authors were not providing guidance for living, breathing artists engaged in creating work for the church. The writings prioritized the experience of the viewer to the exclusion of the experience and practice of the maker.
Two things happened as a result of the harpsichord. My questions propelled me into engaging the theoretical and theological dialogues that captured my imagination and attention. More importantly, I experienced the process of making art as a form of prayer. Feeling called to follow these questions, I left the Carolinas to attend Wesley Theological Seminary to pursue a Masters of Theological Studies with an emphasis on religion in the arts. At that time, I was still working in permanent media at small-scale. Upon arriving at Wesley, I was presented with opportunities for large-scale work in Oxnam Chapel. Tiny detailed silverpoint drawings were simply not going to be functional in that context. Inspired by the work of Nancy Chinn, I returned to a technique I had not used since long before my undergraduate studies. Cut paper was a medium more suited to filling large spaces. The paper panels were made to be recycled. These works were crucial to my understanding, and have dramatically changed how I approach my work both for the church and for much of my personal work.
Artwork created for the context of worship has its own set of parameters. All work for worship spaces begins with the shape of the building, and what is physically present in the space. What will work in a tall narrow space is not typically appropriate for a space that has a more horizontal format. Work that is designed for modern architecture may not work in an ornately designed historic church, and vice versa. Works created for worship need to be integrated with space, but also must consider the season as well as the scriptural focus. Art is not there to be decorative, nor is it there to be pretty. Perhaps it is the voice of my Calvinist upbringing that asks if the work is edifying. My objective is to enhance worship. Whatever I create must integrate into the worship space visually, theologically, and scripturally.
Examples of the type of work I created for Oxnam Chapel include banners for worship service celebrating the arts at Wesley, and a tracery design for a chapel drama. Intended for one-time use only, the banners were created for a service celebrating the arts at Wesley. After confirming that the structure of the service would be based on the lectionary readings for the day, the banners were created using an abstraction of the imagery taken from the story of the Transfiguration, as well as 2 Kings 2:11 in which Elijah is taken up in a whirlwind. Flaming chariot wheels flank the cross in place of Elijah and Moses. The long narrow shape and size of the banners were determined by the physicality of the chapel. Another set of banners were created for a chapel drama based on the play “Murder in the Cathedral.” The large traceries reference Canterbury Cathedral, the setting for Thomas Becket’s death. In both cases, the paper banners change the space by virtue of their presence.
Designed for a particular, one-time use, these two installations also illuminate one of the challenges of creating works for the sanctuary. There is a tendency for a congregation to fall in love with the new item because it has changed space and made it fresh. While this is not a bad thing in and of itself, I am often faced with dismay when people learn that the fate of the banners will be the recycling bin. This has prompted me to think about issues of transience in worship spaces. It is an unfortunate reality that sometimes objects made by a congregant with the best of intentions can end up staying far past the lifespan of the object’s context or lifespan of its materials. We are seeking the eternal, but when this unconsciously transfers to objects in the worship space, the results are not always aesthetically appealing. Residual artifacts may not reflect the current theology or life season of the congregation. This may also prevent the possibility of others offering their gifts. These observations have prompted me to engage congregations in conversations about the lifespan of an object when I speak in churches.
There is nothing wrong with permanent installations in the churches, but it is important to be intentional. Things change, time moves on, some objects are only with us for a season. This is the natural order of our world. When it comes to items in the sanctuary, it can be easy to forget that the grass withers and fabric or construction paper eventually fades. It is important to honor both the “forever and ever amen” aspects of worship, but also not to get trapped by making unconscious decisions about the temporary. At times, I have wondered about the hubris involved in thinking that a work of art will last forever. Is this tendency toward attachment the basis for charges of idolatry that are often leveled against the church?
The church does better with the temporary if it is bracketed by a liturgical season. The Advent installation at Bradley Hills Presbyterian is an example. The installation was made of card stock, washers, and fishing line. The installation began with a small number of paper stars made by children in the congregation. As Advent progressed, more stars appeared, until the night of the Christmas pageant when the large star appeared for the first time. The installation stayed until after Epiphany. The large star was removed for the first Sunday after Epiphany and the other stars were removed over the next two weeks. The arrival and eventual disappearance of the stars marked time, making it special. The stars could not stay beyond their appointed season, but could possibly return for future Advent seasons.
These experiences of working at a large scale with a temporary medium have influenced the work that I do outside of the worship context. The Extravagant Gift was an installation for the Dadian Gallery. Because the gallery is not a worship space, it does not have the same restrictions as church sanctuaries. At the time, the lack of the kind of parameters I had grown accustomed to in preparing installations for worship presented a challenge. The question became: what did I want to say in this space where I was well-known, both as a former student and as a current member of the staff? It was a casual comment made by Michael Patella, OSB, during his presentation about the St. John’s Bible at the SARTS meeting in 2012 that provided the kernel of an idea for this installation. Patella mentioned Proverbs 9, where Wisdom builds her house on seven pillars and sets an elaborate feast for all. I began to think about using trees for the seven pillars of Wisdom’s house. But an even more important idea was approaching the exhibition as a gift. Historically, I had struggled with the language of the church which asks us to bring our time, talents, and offerings—but the church rarely meant artistic talent. This phenomenon has reminded me of the character Julia Roberts plays in the 1990 film Pretty Woman, when she returns to Richard Gere’s character after her first attempt to buy a dress: “They wouldn’t take my money.” I had something to offer, but the church did not seem like a welcoming place for it. Or there was an unspoken idea that the arts are one of those “childish things” we gave up when we became an adult in the church.
The harpsichord had been the first opportunity that I had experienced to make an offering out of the depths of my gifts. The work for Oxnam Chapel continued from that idea. However, the exhibition was different. Despite being outside of the worship space, I felt there to be an imperative to create out of this idea of gift, to honor the community that had supported me, and that had created fertile space for me to grow as a Christian and as an artist. Extravagance was evident in the time taken to prepare the show. Much like the elaborate French meal served as a gift to the community in the 1987 film Babette’s Feast, the moment was there to be savored, and then it was gone.
The exhibit consisted of three unusually large silverpoint drawings, each one depicting a tree in a dreamlike landscape. In the center of the gallery, emerging from existing architectural features in the ceiling, were four trees made from cut paper. Each consisted of three 4 by 25-foot pieces of paper which were then twisted and stitched into place with silver thread.
It took an entire week to install the trees. Much more time was spent in the studio preparing the cuttings and punching holes in the black paper that created the starry sky supported by the trees. Like the harpsichord, the exhibition created from the idea of a gift shifted the focus from the object to the action—both mine and the community’s. The space was created to be entered and moved through, rather than simply designed to invite viewers to contemplate an image on the wall. The overall sense of space was an integral part of this project. Having typically created work that hangs on the wall, moving into three-dimensional space and engaging the viewer in this way was a new challenge for me. These works ask the viewer to see a space differently than one normally encounters it. Dimensional space and how it is handled continues to be a question for me as I move forward.
At the artist talk for this show, I received a tremendous amount of positive feedback. But what stands out in my mind were the looks of shock and horror on the guests’ faces when they were told that the paper trees would be recycled. They could not fathom the idea of investing that much time on a work that was temporary. During the week that I sewed the trees into place, I had been thinking about the sand mandalas made by Buddhist monks, the most elegant example I can think of for art as prayer resulting in a temporary work that is completed by sweeping away the sand, often offering it to the sea. The disconnect between my experience and the response of the community highlighted the need for more conversation about the place for the transient in art as well as in worship.
Given another opportunity to serve the community in the spring of 2015, I created a prayer wall. Inspired by the process of building the trees for the community in The Extravagant Gift, The Prayers of the People began with 40 copper-wrapped threads that ran from floor to ceiling in the gallery. Next to the threads but outside the chapel, we wrote a message inviting the community to write prayers on the paper provided, and to leave the prayer in a bowl. For six weeks, my daily practice became retrieving the prayer papers from the bowl, and sewing them into the wall. Some days only one prayer was added; on others, as many as ten would appear in the bowl. At first, the installation was almost invisible, but over time the threads and prayers began to create a tangible reality. Many prayers responded to current events. In addition to the earthquake in Nepal, the events in Baltimore surrounding the death of Freddie Gray shook the Wesley community. Located in Washington, DC, Wesley Seminary is a part of the Baltimore-Washington conference of the United Methodist Church. Many of our students live and work in Baltimore, some in the very neighborhood where the unrest occurred. As I stood in the gallery each morning, sewing prayers in silence, I was deeply honored by the opportunity to hold space for reflection as a gift to the community. At the same time, I was troubled by an overwhelming sense that I lacked an ability to do anything to effect change in the crisis.
The continuing challenges that face our country over race relations have been haunting me. Late in 2014, I encountered an article in The Atlantic that compared the current situation with violence against the African American community to the lynchings that occurred after the Civil War. The Silver Tree was my response, returning to a permanent medium of silver leaf on black Plike, a sulfite-based, artificial paper. The tree stands as witness to the violence. It is scarred, bearing marks of past trauma. The silver is permanent, but there is an element of transience in this work. Over time, the silver will oxidize, changing in color to anything from a warm dark brown to a cold blue black. It is a natural process that I want to take its course. In recent years, as I have focused more on transience and our humanity, silver has become a dominant element in my smaller works. Gold in my work tends to represent the divine, but silver with its flawed tarnish speaks to humanity’s frailty. We are imperfect, and I intend the silver medium to represent tarnished reality rather than working with a medium that retains perfection. These new works in silver and Plike are beginning to develop into a language to speak to the pains of the world. They represent the trajectory of my work as it moves forward.
None of these issues: issues of race, the environment, and even artists trying to find a space in the church exist in a bubble. We are all part of the same created whole, interconnected and interdependent. In my work, I have been looking for ways to integrate these concerns and contexts, many of which may appear disconnected, working through temporary installations or more permanent works, engaging the questions as the arise. We are human and impermanent. We need to honor the seasons in our lives, and to find the truths in both impermanence and the eternal.
Outside my office at Wesley is a sculpture made by former Artist-in-Residence Lauren Raine, which she created during my first semester at Wesley. The Weavers consists of thirteen panels. Each panel is made of a terra cotta cast of the hands of a member of the Wesley community. Some are students, others staff or faculty. With each set of hands there is a motif and a title that Lauren felt represented that particular person’s place in the community. At the time, I was puzzled by Lauren naming my hands positioned in a gesture of offering surrounded by plants The Gardener. She knew I despised getting my hands dirty! By the time this article appears in print, I will be at the halfway point in my MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at Goddard College in Vermont. Among my degree requirements is a call to interface critically as an artist engaged with the world. Contrary to my previous experience with formal training in the arts, the program focuses on artists maintaining a sustainable studio practice, situating themselves in relationship, fully engaged within the context in which their work is located.2 As I continue to move more deeply into my studies, perhaps Lauren saw a glimpse of something that I could not. Although I still believe that the title of “gardener” belongs to Christ, not to me, my deep passion is to care for and nurture the surrounding environment, to make space for and nurture the growth of others, to make the world around me hospitable not just for myself but those who will follow. My dual calling is to the church and to art, which exists beyond the institutions of church, gallery, and museum. Like Klee’s image of the tree, I am rooted deeply into my faith tradition while continuously growing and reaching upwards.
NOTES
- Paul Klee, On Modern Art (London: Faber & Faber LTD, 1948), 13.
- Goddard College Handbook Addendum: MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts Program.
Amy Gray
Murder in the Cathedral Set
2015
4’ x 25’
Paper
Amy Gray
Bradley Hills Stars
2010
small stars: 4” and 8.5” diameters;
large star: 48” diameter
Paper
Amy Gray
Extravagant Gift
2011
10’ x 10’ x 12’
Paper and thread
Amy Gray
Prayers of the People (in progress)
2015
4” x 1” x 10”
Paper and thread
