jonnybaker

le tour commence aujourd'hui - come on bradley!

when i first started watching the tour de france the thought of a british rider ever having a chance of winning was almost impossible to entertain! cycling in britain was seen as somethng of a joke by the likes of france, italy and spain. yet today's tour kicks off with bradley wiggins suely as one of the favourites for the tour and mark cavendish as such an exciting sprinter. i can hardly wait... it's a race fraught with difficulties that runs over three weeks with time trials, road stages, the impossible muntain stages and the final run into paris. anything can happen - one fall and it's over as wiggins has found out before. but if he avoids accidents he has a fantastic chance of pulling on the yellow jersey in paris - come on bradley!

grace take part in waterloo festival sunday 15 july

grace have been invited to lead a grace worship service at st john's waterloo as part of the waterloo festival. it's on sunday july 15 at 7pm. it would be wonderful to see a load of people there - it's a big venue! remember the blah... and london zoo gatherings of years gone by. perhaps this could be a gathering of friends across the alt worship, emerging networks in london amongst other things and go for a drink (or stay for a drink) afterwards? we'll be exploring the theme 'another world is possible'. hope to see you there...

on cancer

a friend nic dying of cancer blogs on the journey - it's brutal and sad.

nic was involved on the scene in london in abundant, vaux, greenbelt, and even designed the grace logo way back when because we cheekily asked him to. he is creatively brilliant and has been an inspiration and role model in design and typography in particular for joel...

co-missioning prayer

mark berry has written a co-missioning prayer for cms

wonderful

wonderful is the title of the final show of chelsea art college's graphic and design show. the work produced by students is quite amazing . they all have portfolios online here if you want to have a browse through movies, photo, fashion, type, web design, branding and so on.

the show was put together and curated by a group of the students. joel had two pieces in the show. one was an amazing 3d neon sign saying 'amen' which was part of a design for a poster campaign for the nightclub ministry of sound. set on a wooden stand in a perspex case it made me think that someone with some vision and space should buy it or get one made to be a communion table! it would look incredible...

his other piece is colloquy - his final project which is a web site of affective text - i.e. text that resonds to mood/emotion. go and try it out... and his portfolio is here. next step - the big wide world! 

i took some photos here if you want a browse. the show is on all week...

[update: creative review do a write up here]

this looks like fun...

york minster have been having fun it seems

chelsea art college graduate show

it's hard to believe but joel is almost through university! this next week is the final show at chelsea art college of the various degrees including graphic design which is what he has done. he has two pieces in the show. if you are in town this weekend or next week do call in...

walking the labyrinth

here's a photo from grace at the weekend - i do love the labyrinth. such a simple thing in many ways. this time round the design we had was a bit more complex with turns on all four quadrants which i liked - made it a bit more confusing to know where you were!

copyright free images

i quite often get asked where you can find photos to use in presentations. neil haydock has compiled a list of 10 sources of copyright free images here on prayerscapes

world champion slam poet - harry baker!

harry won the world cup poetry slam final in paris last night and is now WORLD CHAMPION! amazing. here he is performing in round 1.

[update: two of harry's final poems are in this movie - round about 8mins and 25mins. and in this one he gets the trophy...]

good luck harry for tonight!

so here's last night's footage (part 1 and part 2 here) of the deuxieme semi final of the world cup poetry slam which has three of harry's poems in. having come last in the votes after the first poem he then nails it with 99 problemes and brings it home with paper people! so that's through the first round, through the semis and tonight is the final with the last 5 - england, usa, canada, quebec, sweden. good luck harry!!!!

Coupe du Monde Slam 2012 - deuxième demi finale... by slam

walk a grass labyrinth at grace this saturday

this saturday 8pm grace will be walking a grass labyrinth mown in the grounds of st marys church ealing. if the weather today is putting you off the idea the forecast tomorrow looks good at the moment with a sunny day in store! we will gather outside by the labyrinth. there will be a café afterwards in st marys... hope to see you there. 

if you've not heard of or walked a labyrinth before it's a space to be prayerful and reflect on your own journey of faith - it's a journey of three parts - a) towards the centre letting go, quitening down b) the centre - holy space to be still with god c) the journey back out - reflecting on life back in the everyday.

we have mowed a new design for the labyrinth inspired by a church in earlsfield. i passed by it last week when visiting a friend and took a photo of it and have copied their pattern (which is a bit more complex than the one on the photo above).

if you are interested in mowing your own it's easier than you might think - i have written up how to go about it here

somnia and two other new releases from dubh

i absolutely love the music made by dubh. we're really excited this month on proost to have added dubh's latest somina along with two from the last year or two that we hadn't caught up with gentle sabotage and the insurrection ep  i listen to a lot of instrumental and quite chilled electonic music anyway and jonny's (jonny mecewen that is a.k.a. dubh) is right up there for me. i've been listening to it non stop since i got it. it's emotional and for me has a warmth and a longing in it. I can't quite find the words to describe it - aching, beautiful, haunting. perhaps the title of his firet album fractured broken and beautiful is as good a summary as i can think of. i also think this music makes a great atmosphere for worship/art installation type events. i asked jonny a bundle of questions. one was how he thought this music connected with worship to which he replied

Music helps create a mood, gives hints of what is to come. It fills the gaps, creates a coherence, fills awkward silences, or insures that any silences are intentional.I started creating music in the context of ikon, because I had a hunch that, like Lebowski’s rug, it would tie the whole thing together.

we've had a really good year on proost so far - it's always a little unpredictable who is going to come up with what each month but we are definitely on a roll. if you subscribe which is only £60 for a year you get access to the whole back catalogue and new content each month. we'll be reviewing the price later this year and putting it up a bit as it's been that since we relaunched a few years back. but for the time being the price remains the same and if you subscribe you will be able to access all of dubh's music as part of that (and as ever it's available as individual items).

slam coupe du monde!

this week in paris harry baker gets to represent the uk in the world poetry slam finals. jen and i are heading over for a couple of nights to cheer him on - it would be rude not to! should be fun...

quite how you judge between different languages in such a nuanced word dependent art form i have no idea?!

let's reclaim the jubilee

well it was a pleasant surprise to find this article on the jubilee in the comment is free section of the guardiuan - let's reclaim the jubilee

nova chill

the creators of the original big chill festival have a new festival nova festival in the south downs from 5-8 july. i don't think i can make it. the big chill festival was bought by a bigger organisation and pretty quickly lost the wonderful vibe of the oriiginal festival so it's great to see something new landing...