Day 18
Hi there friends, I was under the weather for part of last week, so I’m just now starting to play catch-up after not posting for several days. I’m continuing to share little bits of writing from the various projects. I created the first stations series in 2010 and ever since then I’ve tried to take on some kind of writing practice, almost always related to the Passion, during the Lenten season. Very rarely do I actually end up using any of this writing. What I’m sharing in this post comes from a large Leuchtturm journal that I’ve kept for many years. The ideas for four series are in it. (And notes on a romance novel that I really will write one day.) I’m struck over and over by the polemical tone of so much of this writing that I never did anything with. It feels strange and vulnerable to share this writing, but my hope always is to use the Lenten season to stretch myself artistically.
This journal contains notes and sketches for four different Stations of the Cross projects.
Stations of the Cross and Lutheran Witness (2021)
Public witness is fundamental to a Lutheran understanding of both evangelism and mission. After all, Martin Luther didn’t hide his 95 Theses under his pillow at night. He sent them to the Archbishop of Mainz. And when called upon to defend his theology at the Diet of Worms he declared, “Here I stand, I can do no other.”
Making these paintings is an outpouring of myself as a Lutheran. I believe in the power of art to catalyze transformation. But, more than that, I believe there is a peculiar, powerful grace at work when we put our hearts to work and create. The Apostle Paul reminds us that while we are yet to see each other face to face, the promise of the resurrection is a visionary one. The coming kin-dom of God means a fullness of sight. Art, though, will always be bound in some way by the limitations of vision. In the case of this series of artworks, I cannot divorce it from my place of privilege I, a white, cis woman, inhabit. Yet, art-making will always remain at the heart of my life because it is an expression of who I am as a Lutheran. I can do no other.
The miraculous grace that finds us when we create is that art builds bridges between the limitations of our vision and the kin-dom of God.
There is always this tension in these projects - knowing that my vision is inherently limited, I create work about complex social issues anyway. Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing the final images in Stations of the Cross: Mass Incarceration and the first ones in Stations of the Cross: Mental Illness.