jonnybaker

lino water

a lino print of water from saturday's advent grace. the (intentional) blur gives it a sea like feel. 

treasure seeking

as promised following the last post about the pioneer student tiles this year's one is above. as ever it take s a new turn. iain explains it...

The carved path represents the journey of the pioneer. This year's path will appear more like an archeologist’s trench on the site of the tile. This is pioneering as a work of excavation searching for wisdom. The treasure is represented by a splash of gold leaf - perhaps spilling over the edge of the excavation into the landscape. 

interviewing artist iain cotton about his pioneer graduation tiles

it's a celebration at cms today for pioneers graduating today which is always a joyous occasion. from the first graduation we commissioned artist iain cotton to make a gift for each student. this has now had ten iterations - this year will be the eleventh. they have become a really interesting reflection on what pioneering is about. so i visited iain cotton in his studio to ask him about the graduation tiles he has made over the last decade. you can read the transcript here and see some of the tiles. i'll make sure i take some photos later of this year's iteration.

proost advent series

the phoenix rises from the ashes! proost has reappeared thanks to chris and rob. for those who are new to the blog proost was a platform that i created with friends jon and aad back in the late 90s to piublish music originally and then it was a digital platform for all sorts of artistry from people involved in alkternative worship and emerging churches. it was an incredible era really. i have very fond memories.

andy freeman then picked up the baton and ran it for a season, then it felt as though it was time for it to be let go.

but chris and rob felt a tug towards exploring with the community of artists who contributed what it might look like to do something. they have been running a podcast series. and for advent they are now posting a daily something on chris's blog this fragile tent. day one is a wonderful poem from chris called east of eden and day two is a brilliant illustration from si smith.

so do follow along. i like to have something daily to reflct on in the season of advent (advent is the season which runs up to christmas).

the image to the right is si smith's take on the virgin mary living in a flat in leeds!

i plan to be contributing later in the series.

lost in light

in 2023 i saw fourtet and he had an amazing light display of nearly 40000 light balls suspended - see this post for a photo. that lighting was done by squidsoup who currently has an exhibition in shoreditch, london of 5 installations - lost in light. i love that kind of immersive exhibition. we went in half term so there were lots of kids enjoying it and charging around touching the light hangings so i hope it survived that week! anyway here's a few photos to give you the idea. it is light and sound so you get half the idea probably.

music is sacred

this room is in the vinyl factory reverb exhibition at 180 studios. take your shoes off - a sure sign this is holy ground. sit in quiet in what feels like a sacred space and an album takes centre stage to be played for everyone to listen to. music is spiritual or can be. my own experience is that i find music has played an important part in the soundtrack of my life. It can speak to me, inspire me, help me express emotion, touch me, put into words what i don't know how to, be a prayer, accompany a prayer. i loved it - so simple, one to do at grace at some point. it got me wondering what a playlist would be of spiritual tunes. i may come back to that...

GET interrupted

had fun yesterday at a screenprint workshop at print club london - a present from jen for christmas. i took a design from a forthcoming app on creativity which we are working on at GETsidetracked . i know i said it would be out last summer but we will get there. this image is from the prompt 'GET interrupted' - a key thing in the creative process. they came out wonderfully well - thanks to joel for the idea for this image and jon for drawing it. i wasn't expecting this but i now have a limited edition print run numbered 1-7 which feels very artist like!

homeless jesus

a sculpture by tim schmalz. this is in the middle of mayfair - could not be better placed! it is a really amazing sculpture, wonderfully made.

message to world leaders

wild fire

this week we celebrated cms pioneer students achievements graduating with a range of awards from durham university. i teach a module on worship and worked with students on that module to curate the celebration as part of the assesssment! they did an amazing job exploring the theme of the pioneer journey. it was in two parts. part 1 was a series of installations to interact with. part 2 was a fireside celebration. it was so joyful. it's amazing to work with pioneers - i love the way they see the world and seek to catalyse new things, new projects, new communities invariably with those at the edges of their communities. 

every year iain cotton, an artist and sculptor has created a gift representing the pioneer journey. this was actually the tenth iteration. each year is different and each tile is unique. i hope to find all ten and blog about them all at some point. this year's one was just perfect in so many ways. the image is of a chiseled journey which is incomplete. it's also an open circle - a place of gathering but in which others are welcome and out of which the life can spill outwards. at the heart is a fire - the fire of the great spirit which too breaks out of the circle. 

we also admitted several pioneers as lay workers in the church of england.

congratulation to all those who completed awards! 

synchronicity

i have several shows by uva. synchronicity was at 180 studios which is a wonderful setting for their work. i had seen a few of the pieces before. it's impressive and looks wonderful in the dark. we discussed afterwards how art is at its best when the ideas have something to get into that is below the surface. some of their work looks great but doesn't do that deep dive. i have added an album of a few photos - synchronicity.

portal

i really enjoyed marina abramovic's show at the royal academy. her performance art has really pushed the edges of interaction with audiences and indeed her own self.

one of the things that caught my attention were a list of rules that guide her practice. i often think the ay artists and pioneers think is very similar. this could easily be from a pioneer journal on how they might approach their practice!

red moon rising

i think i have been to more art in london in the last monthy than the rest of the year. it was great to see the latest turbine hall installation. i have loved seeing what people do in that space over the years.

halo

i called in to see halo, an installation at st stephens walbrook as part of the london design festival. a pendulum loops round henry moore's altar with a light that moves up and down completing loops. a long exposure photo creates the halo effect. above are ambient projections looking like the northern lights. it was well done. for what it's worth my own take was that it would be interesting to expand this project conceptually by exploring notions of the sacred elsewhere - locating the halo outside the church walls.

i took a video of halo in case you want to see the pendulum in real time as it were or get a sense of the ambient projections overhead.

barbie

all the buzz around barbie reminded me of this photo from a student graduate show back in 2007!

triptych

at the ealing lip photography group ray presented some triptychs and issued a challenge to thr group to have a go at producing some. this is one of my attempts using some abstract photos from lou baker's social scaffolding.

grenfell

grenfell by steve mcqueen is a moving powerful film on at the serpentine gallery. it is a remembering of the horror of the burnt tower. the opening sequence takes around 7.5 minutes, at least by my guess, slowly moving in from afar. it's bill viola like in its slow motion. and then in silence the charred building circled multiple times before coming to rest on a still that fills the screen. that's it. a lament, a memory, a needless tragedy. there's a good review of it here by adrian searle. everyone leaves in silence pausing to read the names of those whose lives were lost. 

resistance

i called in today with harvey kwiyani to the exhibition that is on at fulham palace on resistance. it's full title is the bishops of london, colonialism, transatlantic slavery and resistance. scroll down on the exhibition page to find info. fulham palace was the residence of the bishop of londion until 1973 which is the connection. i had not been there before. the fulham palace trust have been researching the link between the bishops of london and slavery. one of the outcomes is this inspired project which is curated/led by a poet adisa the verbaliser who worked with schools and community groups around it. the angle it takes, as well as being very informative (see for example this timeline), is to explore acts of spiritual and physical resistance that ultimately brought an end to the slave trade. do have a look at this page and click on the links on the right hand side which has loads of really interesting information and stories. it's no surprise of course to find that the research demonstrates historic involvement of the bishop of london and the church of england in colonialism and transatlantic slavery. 

the acts of resistance reminded me of the writing of michel de certeau in his book the practice of everyday life who shows how people resist strategies through what he calls tactics. 

we went on to the serpentine to see the grenfell movie by steve mcqueen but failed to do so because i hadn't thought to get tickets - doh! turns out it is full. so if you go to that book ahead. i hope to go back.

all this of course is very poignant and relevant as at cms we seek to work out what post colonial mission might be or mean or look like. harvey leads our african christianity programmes so is a good friend and colleague - it was great to hang out and talk about this stuff today.

julian opie vr exhibition

if you are in london anywhere near paddington swing by the lisson gallery and see the julian opie exhibtion. the main feature is a vr headset experience of a virtual exhibtion. it's pretty well done. i am a big fan of his work - just the simplicity of it. if you've got kids and are looking for easter holiday things to do for free then i think they'll love this. btw this photo is not the vr part of the exhibition!

another year another celebration!

pioneers graduating this year had the disruption of COVID and training being online for much of the journey. they have done amazingly well. what a gift for the church and locale to have people with energy, passion, imagination, wanting to be good news in their neighbourhoods, and growing new communities of disciples in the borderlands (as bishop lusa put it). we also admitted some lay pioneers into lay ministry in the church of england. i love what I do for a job and am so thankful to church mission society for being such a great community to hold this in. and for a brilliant team.

it is truly extraordinary and so encouraging to hear students say that this has changed their life (I assume they meant for the better!!!). if you are interested in imaginative mission, have ideas for starting new communities, enterprises whether in youth ministry, chaplaincy, new housing areas, your home, your parish, or any place else. if you are dissatisfied and want to do something about loneliness, poverty, injustice, the state of the planet, food, the disconnect with church, refugees, reclaiming the commons, inequality and so forth then jump on board .

every year at graduation pioneers are given a gift created by the wonderful iain cotton . Eech year is a different take on the idea of making a new path in a landscape. this one has a river flowing where the path has been made and a gold leaf, a sign of flourishing maybe? it’s also a riff on the scripture that was read of a river flowing and leaves of healing for the nations. it’s become an amazing series.

natalie has written a reflection on the graduation on the pioneer blog here