Worship Arts July August September 2022

L ife-givers, seed-sowers, vision-bearers, truth artists have a critical role within the church today. Ours is the responsibility to help others learn the spiritual practices of looking closely, seeing with new insight, and opening the “eyes of our hearts” 2 to the beauty of God in all things. With the power to disrupt our blindness to truth and goodness, beauty can open us to visions of hope and creative possibility. Through beauty, art has the tellers ... In a world which seems filled with visual noise, alternative facts and blatant injustices,

focus, intentionality and discipline. And courage , too. Because each time you venture to join the dance, you risk becoming a contemplative prayer or a burning bush. ByWater and the Spirit: a banner for Riga FUMC T his spring, I was commis sioned to create a banner for Riga First United Methodist Church, Latvia, in celebration of 25 years of ministry. Originally found ed in 1912, the church reopened in 1992 following Soviet occupation. The banner was to be a gift from a coalition of United Methodists in the U.S. and Europe known as the Friends of Latvia, celebrating a 20 year partnership with the churches in Latvia. My creative process began by researching as much as I could about this unique congrega tion and its complex history. Next, I created a Pinterest page to collect reference materials including everything from pictures of the sanctuary to daisies (the na tional flower) to traditional painted Easter egg patterns. While these images sparked lots of directions, my work is typically grounded in a scriptural text. So I began scrib bling verses that resonated with the church’s story of resurrection and rebirth. According to choreographer Twyla Tharp, a good idea is one that generates more – and better – ideas. She defines this stage in the process as “scratching” for ideas which “take flight and begin to defy gravity.” 6 If you are a musi cian, you search for ideas by testing

internal vision into external form through color, shape and texture, I find myself on a pilgrimage that offers glimpses into my innermost being and leads me into Holy Pres ence. To be creative is also an act of faith . Author Madeleine L’Engle notes: “[A]rtists have always been drawn to the wild, wide elements they cannot control or understand ... To be an artist means to ap proach the light, and that means to let go of our control, to allow our whole selves to be placed with ab solute faith in that which is greater than we are.” 5 To give oneself over to the creative process requires the faith to journey where the process leads, trusting where God will lead. And with each work there is a blessing and breaking open: a pouring out of self, of imagination, of possibility in order for some thing new to come into being. For me, each creative act plumbs the depths of both the self and the divine and becomes that place where deep calls out to deep; that place where call and response meet one another in a dance of deep communion. Like prayer, journey ing into this intimate and sacra mental space of meeting requires

power to shock, challenge, delight and ultimately to transform. Much like grace, beauty calls to us at the depths of our souls. It invites us to respond by opening our hearts, “seeing Christ and imagining the reign of God he came to usher in.” 3 When our eyes are graced with beauty, our souls are awakened and inspired to further the dreams and desires of our Creator. Entering into the dance A s a liturgical artist, part of my calling is to help others recognize and celebrate beauty by making images. I create to glorify God and in response to “a deep need to pay attention, to give honor to the world in which I live and from which I derive life itself by making something special.” 4 When I enter into the creative process – the journey by which something seen in my imagination is birthed into physical being – I enter into a prayerful dance which brings me to the very edge of Mystery. To create is a mystifying, exhilarating, sometimes chaotic and frustrat ing process that can never fully be articulated, mapped or contained. Each time an image moves from

___________________________________________________________________________________________________ 6 July-August-September 2022 • WorshipArts • umfellowship.org