As Chapel services begin again, we wanted to highlight the chapel art that was created earlier this year and highlighted in the Summer Salt & Light. Each week we will share the story behind one of the banners:
Once a month in the chapel service, we participated in a worship practice that drew us into embodied participation with the Word. These embodied practices were tied to painting or drawing that now fill the banners in the chapel.
These banners were brought to life through the collaboration and leadership of Kari Miller, who, throughout the season of Lent and Easter, came to both lead and participate in worship; she helped to illuminate for us ways in which we could use calligraphy and pictography as a way of engaging the scripture.
Materials: Paper and Ink
Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1-14
Prompt: Ezekiel 37 contains the well-known vision of the “Valley of Dry Bones,” in which Ezekiel is shown an evocative image of death being transformed to life. We were prompted to reflect on the whole passage while painting with black ink, as inspired by such art forms as Japanese calligraphy. Our second prompt focused on verses 7–10 and God’s prompting Ezekiel to prophesy life’s breath over the dry bones “that they may live.” For this second, prompt we incorporated colorful ink and filled out the banner with more calligraphic icons and splashes of color.
What emerged was a flowing set of images that evoked both the hard lines of dry bones and the lyrical sweeps of the breath of life. The banner simultaneously speaks to the reality of exhaustion amidst waiting for God’s justice to come and the deep breath of relief when that justice is glimpsed.