Some oldies in every way!!!! A lot of you know that I’m an artist, and you know that from my visual theology days. Before I was called to ministry (right from stewarding an exhibition BTW), I’d been a professional artist since my teens. My first degree was fine art and I’d expected to teach. I was even accepted to do a teaching Masters in art. Which, I am shocked to say, I turned down. There were other things in store clearly, and not at the Columbian School of Fine Art in Washington DC. The UK whispered to me and a few years after settling, I was illustrating. These very fuzzy, very old (on so many levels) cards were for Ebony products in Milton Keynes. They wanted images of non-white people and I was delighted to oblige. Very delighted. These days, I’d say, “can’t you find a black artist?” But that was then. I see many things differently now.
Despite, We Stand
I wondered what on earth I would blog about this week, considering that our dear earth is in trauma itself from all of its changes as a consequence of rapidly changing climate. More than that, our dear earth holds the bodies of those who have died at the hands of unjust people. Our dear earth intently hears the lies of greedy people using the produce of earth for themselves and creating arbitrary boundaries that they say others can’t cross. Since I’ve lived in Australia, I have a new respect for everything earth knows about us, no matter how important we feel ourselves to be. In the battle of which of us will survive the longest, there is no battle we humans will win, though Australian First Nations people have been holding their own for over 60,000 years. Yes, that number keeps growing, if you’ve been following my newsletter and seen smaller numbers. More and more research, in partnership with Aboriginal people and their knowledge, informs us daily.
In the meantime, we have life crafted by our Divine to live preciously with earth. Part of that living preciously is paying attention to where life in all its forms is not regarded as precious. We are urged by Love itself to face the facts of brutality, cruelty and more. But fact? Where can we find that? This blog is to give you some links to who and what I follow/read to give me facts – if you feel you need help. I read daily, but only until my body says, “enough for now.” I listen for the enough. We’re not called to hold it all, but to hold what we can, to speak truth with whomever will engage and to continue to feed hope. Here’s my list:
1. Substack, particularly the subscriptions pages of Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Reich, Robert Hubbell, and Marianne Budde. I also read my Substack homepage, as it contains important information from a wide range of people. To state the obvious, I also check who I’m reading if I’ve not heard their name and like what they say. I use a search engine and enter ‘Name Name’ Reviews. That tells me relatively quickly if I can trust their media.
2. My homepage on Bluesky because I post articles from Substack which will point Bluesky in the direction of things I’m interested in. But as you’ve picked up, that could keep in me in a silo, so I also read headlines (at least) from
3. News outlets Washington Post, New York Times, The Guardian, Sojourners, the BBC and Al Jazeera.
4. Podcasts (when I’m at the gym): Nomad, The Rest is Politics [US and UK], Soul Search.
I keep up with politics and progressive religion (the Nomad podcast with Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Pastor and theologian was eye opening).
This picture is a little postcard size from the Twitter Art Exhibition in 2017. It was meaningful for me in the first full year of D J Trump’s first “presidential” term and the first full year of dealing with Brexit. Titled Despite, We Stand, it means far more now:
Appreciating Church
Every now and then, I let you know of commissions I’ve done. This particular one was a fabulous partnership between Appreciating Church and Appreciating People. The United Reformed Church had wholly adopted the principles of Appreciative Inquiry and as an artist and project manager, I’d been doing work based on the principles for quite some time.
The happy collaboration culminated in a book and website in 2016, designed for people in churches who wanted to change the narrative of future planning to future possibilities. Looking rather to what are the strengths of groups of people instead of looking at difficulties, Appreciating Church helps people tell true narratives of their past and apply those truths to dreaming new futures. I was privileged to illustrate concepts and ideas - my very happy place!
The below images are just snippets from the whole book. Appreciating Church itself continues to offer training and support to people who want to practice positive organisational development in church environments. A member organisation meets online monthly to share information and good practice. You can contact them here.
Torch, Victoria, Australia
I’ve writeen a lot in my newsletters about the work of Torch, but realised that it would be good to share their work more widely. Torch says of itself “We provide art, cultural and arts industry support to First Nations people currently in, or recently released, from Victorian prisons. Our aim is to reduce the rate of reoffending by encouraging the exploration of identity and culture through art.” Torch has put on two exhibitions which have taken our breath away by their truth and the evidence of the transformations from their work.
The first experience we had was seeing the Blak In-Justice Exhibition at Heide Gallery, just on the eastern outskirts of Melbourne. We were speechless, often in tears, as the artwork told the story of person after person who experienced prison and who, in the middle of that experience, were encouraged to tell their stories. I encourage you to read through the website to undersand the spelling and meaning of the word Blak. This painitng, Brush with the Lore, is the best illustration I’ve ever seen of the negatice impact of Colonial Missionary work:
For some who are incarcerated, contact with the Torch program has helped them trace their ancestry; a significant number ot people in Australian jails are First Nations People. The website reports, “First Nations Australians make up 3% of the Australian population yet represent 32% of the national adult prison population. Indigenous men are 17 times more likely to go to prison than non-Indigenous men and First Nations women are 25 times more likely to go to prison than non-Indigenous women. Since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991, incarceration rates for Indigenous Australians have more than doubled and deaths in custody have continued to increase.”
The work of Torch helps people connect to their own First Nation, connect to their country, connect to their totems and to their hope. If you visit Victoria, please find an exhibition . We await We Sit in Circle.
Arrival
Here we are. My first signed new painting in Australia. Called Arrival, it started in the UK and took years (!). It started as a copy of a drawing I did whilst being Artist in Residence, but that’s always a bad idea for me. The inspiration was too long a time before a reworking. I changed ideas, painted them out, changed it to portrait, changed it to landscape, even gave it a working name. Then I wrapped it up to come to Aus, with no idea of what would happen to it. If you follow my newsletters, you know that in February I made space to paint which I really love. By April, no painting. Then a plasterer arrived to work on our ceiling and asked me if I was the artist in the house (my work is all over the place). I admitted it, then he asked to see my studio. Well, I had to go and properly unwrap my brushes, paints and tools, didn’t I? Then I decided to warm them up on the big canvas…just to see how it would go. Suddenly it all started to happen and got its name. The next few times I keep going, confirming the dots, a traditional central Aboriginal motif, and realised that what I call the Divine, Aboriginal people call the Dreaming. I knew that I was being called to live in Australia for a whole host of reasons and the painting became my depiction of call, of travel, of arrival. One last change of direction, to upside down, and it all made sense.
The photo of the whole piece is from my phone in the studio, so a good shot will arrive in due course. Here we are. Arrival.
PCKorea's Living Word
Over the years, I’ve been commissioned to create a wide variety of artwork, from book and web illustration to event illustration, to Biblical interpretation, to worship theme, to gifts for other churches and more. Today, I pick out Living Word, an artwork I created in pencil and ink as the URC’s gift to the Presbyterian Church in Korea for a special visit to Korea in 2015. I still love it. Below is the image followed by my narrative of how I saw/see it.
Living Word
Uniting every church is the Gospel, found in the Word of God, Jesus Christ. The logo of the Presbyterian Church of Korea focusses on this most particularly, overlaying the cross of Christ on the scroll of the words in which we have found His story. I rested with this symbol for quite a while and then realised how uniting the Word is. I thought of the scrolls of the Hebrew scriptures, read by Jesus to proclaim his identity. From that Word is the life blood of all of our Churches. The scrolls in this piece are not so like the Hebrew scrolls with their wonderful holders and cases; they are more open scrolls, shining with warm light, indicating the Light which comes from the Word. The writing on these scrolls works across one scroll and down the other, hinting to the variety of written language we use to share the Word with each other. The scrolls almost look alive and the words on the scrolls eventually mingle, almost falling off; our words help us meet and mingle with one another.
The cross of the United Reformed Church has taken on a life of its own, reaching in and growing out of the Light of the scrolls. Both crosses are vibrant, both logos are almost alive in themselves, losing the symmetry of their original design. Rather than flat two dimensional shapes – present on letterheads and books – the logos have become three dimensional, brimming with life, sending Light in all directions. The relationship between the United Reformed Church and the Presbyterian Church of Korea is fluid, open, and ready for more life. A Living Word is lived and proclaimed.
Living Word
Watercolour, watercolour pencil and ink
2015
©Elizabeth Gray-King and The United Reformed Church
And It Was Good
As my last blog mentioned, we couldn’t bring anything wooden to Australia if the wood was rough or not constructed into something by a carpenter or factory. This meant that 300 year old untreated Yew was definitely off the list! As that is some of the canvass stretcher for And It Was Good, that meant we needed to find a home. We chose with about 2 seconds of thought as the recipient was so clear. A dear friend who camps out in the woods, lives on the canal and adores nature and all things ‘real’ popped into our brains and there remained. We passed over the treasure on a dark night in Cambridge in September last year. It feels forever ago and we are delighted that And It Was Good has such a perfect home.
And It was Good was painted a while ago now and was what I was working on at Oxford’s Artweeks in 2007. Sitting at my stool with paints outside Oxford Prison was an amazing experience and I always think that painting outside inspired a lot of what eventually grew on the canvas. You can read about it here. The photo on the website is not very good (!) because though Pete did a fine job with the camera, I did a terrible job of removing the background! The painting is very three dimentional and removing my old brick studio wall was a task too tricky for this not very good Photoshop user.
The prints Clear Start, Night Sky and Creating Wand are details from And It Was Good and not only sold well during the 2023/24 tour, are still available for order. Do see my prints page.
