ALL-PARISHIONER LENTEN ART SHOW

Tess Vonfeldt-Gross

Last autumn, I found myself in a pretty dark mood, coming to terms with medical anxiety and unease at the state of the world. I ultimately decided to embrace my own mortality to help me live each day like it’s my only day, dispelling the negativity that haunted my mental health.

I began a series of “Memento Mori” drawings and paintings, incorporating the uncomfortable symbols of the sarcophagus and the burial shroud, the absolute quiet and solitude of the tomb. This brought to mind the garden in which Jesus’s tomb was chosen, where his physical body remained for three days in this aloneness, where his beloved friends sought to retrieve the sanctified fullness of his humanity for anointing. Instead, they were met with the fullness of his divinity, no longer entombed.

Especially with the piece “Don’t Be Fooled”, I wondered what keeps me entombed? Injustice, inhumanity, cruelty, obsessive negative thoughts, toxic energy, unfair judgment, gaslighting… While acknowledging these strong straps/pipes that hold me fast, I still search for ways to disarm them, break their hold on my spirit, and to empower me to do my part in quashing them.

Find Tess on Instagram: @tgvscribe and @letter_zest

Juniper O’Malley

Lent begins with the reminder: “Remember that you are dust.” This piece lingers in the second half of the story. Dust is not the end. Dust breathes. The Creator enters flesh. The Word takes on our brokenness. God inhabits what will die.

The rocket, the police car, and the fractured typography represent a world shaped by power, fear, and striving. Against that backdrop, our breath becomes holy resistance. The open hand at the base of the image gestures toward both surrender and gift, with flesh held tenderly, without violence.

My work tries to hold the tension between mortality and mercy. It is a confession of human vulnerability and a proclamation of divine nearness.

Pat jackson

I began this quilt several years ago, ran into some problems lining things up, so threw it on a pile of panels, never intending to continue.  However, I recently uncovered it and decided finished was better than perfect. To me, it is testament to the redeeming power of the resurrection.

Erin Milan

"Dead Fish" is part of a series of paintings called "Life is Long." That series is an exploration of the magic and mundanity of daily life: the extraordinary within the ordinary. I am fascinated that the deep longings and desires of our interior lives take place against the backdrop of repetitive daily tasks in everyday spaces like our homes. "Dead Fish" is based on a self portrait taken in my kitchen in Seattle. I had just learned that one of my children's pet fish had died, an unremarkably commonplace household tragedy that nonetheless stirred in me real existential meditations on our own mortality, the inevitable presence of pain in the lives of the people I love, and the sweetness and poignancy of children growing up in a world of both glorious life and death. Dust to dust.

"Before Chemo" comes from a collection of work I made when my mom was sick and dying of cancer. In this particular painting she is shown seated in a chair near to the door leading to our garage. She struggled greatly to breathe in her final weeks, so much so that we placed chairs periodically along the hallway and corridors leading from her upstairs bedroom to the garage where we could help her into the car to make it to doctor appointments and treatments. She would stop and sit every few feet, using her portable oxygen tank, to recover her breath. My stepdad Kirk, her constant, indefatigable support, has a hand on her shoulder. One of the greatest gifts of art, whether painting, film, music, literature, or otherwise, is that it provides us a place to process the depths of our human experience. Making work about Mom helped me survive her death-it was a safe place for me to feel all of the fear and love and grief and doubt. One interesting aspect of this painting is the vibrant, almost violent color and brush strokes. I found myself unable to make the work about Mom "pretty" or "tidy." Everything got messier and more unpredictable in the studio and on the canvas. And yet the result was that there is so much life and movement, even in work about death and sickness. 

Visit Erin’s website here and find her on Instagram: @erinmilanart

Mary Clifton

I started taking photographs to see what the camera saw.  I am interested in looking at anything/everything from a different perspective (there are so many facets to each moment of our lives — photography helps me to see many more than I used to), and I am fascinated at the ongoing daily dance between light and shadow.  I am drawn to the spiritual aspect inherent in each moment of life; I am blessed when I’m able to capture and share the Spirit in my photograph.

Mary’s pieces in this show are entitled Dust and Plans.

Deb Talley

My little painting is called Nagasaki Tears and embodies my sorrow when confronted by the tragic loss of innocent lives caused by the atom bomb in World War II. The collage image is from a museum catalogue and the found objects of tin I picked up on one of my walks.

Sharon Rose Chinn

Painting in a garden or in the mountains with a few friends is my idea of a good time. I often start a painting outside and finish it in the studio, but when the last brushstroke is on the canvas, my hope is that the scent of the flowers and the freshness of the mountain air draw the observer into the scene.

Homes, paths, and gardens appear frequently in my art. The spiritual nature of these symbols may engage the viewer on various levels. My paintings ask you to stop and smell the flowers, to think about where you have been and where you are going, and to enjoy the present moment.

I have been painting for 30+ years. I studied for two years with Mark Elder, art instructor and University Public Art Coordinator, at Chicago’s DePaul University. I have also studied at the Art Student’s League in Denver, Colorado. I have participated in numerous juried art shows, and have won awards in oil and acrylic mediums.

Sharon’s pieces in this show are My Sheep Hear My Voice and Promises to Keep.

Joanna Bearden

My training began at thirteen with my father who had attended art school in Philadelphia as a young man. He taught me the fundamentals of figurative and portrait painting. Later, I earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in fine arts.

Joanna’s pieces in this show are Bali Morning and First Communion.

Visit Joanna’s website here.

Mark Bell

Mark’s photo Follensby Long Pond at Dawn, Adirondacks includes the text of Ranier Maria Rilke’s poem “God’s True Cloak”