My title is
Bishop's Officer for Ministry through Creative Visual
Arts. In effect, that means I am full-time curator of all
events, workshops, exhibitions, and experiences that take place at
Burning Bush Barn.
Burning Bush Barn
is a contemplative art space situated in Rockland St Mary,
a village six miles south of Norwich. It is a restored stable or
barn that used to belong to the Old Rectory, but it's now retained
in the grounds of the new rectory, where I live with my husband,
John. He's the Rector of this six-church benefice.
I'm paid
part-time, but, of course, I'm working here full-time,
because it's my life. It's a resource for the diocese and beyond.
We have a Christian foundation, and, as a priest, my concern is
holding the core sacramental tension between the arts, creativity,
and spirituality.
The idea had been
forming over many years' thinking about art, healing, and
prayer. It's "contemplative" because we are running out of
places where we can be silent, undisturbed, ask questions, and
ponder the mysteries. It's "art" because it's non-verbal,
expressive, ancient, and inclusive. It's "space" because life needs
to be more spacious, simpler.
Less is
more, and that's a daring thing to say these days. We are
not a big project, and we're not trying to be a big project.
We tried driving
around trying to meet people's needs in other parts of the
diocese, but the depth at which we were trying to work was
impossible to set up in a church hall, full of clutter. We'd spend
an hour trying to make these spaces more visually pleasing and
warm.
Just as we came
to the conclusion that we needed a permanent space, this
vicarage came up. We had an obstruction from the planning
department to begin with. It's in a narrow lane, used by a school,
and there were obvious traffic issues. But we asked the man to come
and stand in the Barn as it was then, wet and damp, and he did - a
miracle in itself. There's such a presence there, he said: "I get
it now." That sense of safety is beyond anything we can provide.
Some spaces are just like that. We got permission because we said
we wouldn't encourage any visiting between school-traffic
times.
People come for
our foundation days from Canterbury, Devon, Sussex, Norwich,
Cambridge. . . And every Thursday the local community of
artists, some driving for 40 or 50 minutes to get here, have a
breakfast here, break bread informally, break open our lives
together, talk about our work and struggles, encourage each other.
Three exhibitions have come out of it.
We honour process
above product. We are a growing collective of visual
artists, weavers, sculptors, musicians, photographers, ceramicists,
poets, writers, filmmakers, and sound artists, and we all have
"process" in common. We all share the same struggles, isolation,
emptiness, and celebration. That process can be a spiritual
experience.
But we're not a
gallery; we're not a church. We're more than that. Local
people are very proud of it, and have been very supportive in terms
of upkeep.
It's quite a
struggle to hold that space between the arts and the
church, and I think it needs a priest to do that. It is
the sacramental part which is in the space between the two. It's
not a church - "let's make a body of people" - nor a school of
artists. We are about sticking in the middle.
Why should we box
something by giving it a classification? Perhaps we'd call
it a school, or a para-church, or "Fresh Expression" in order to
say that we know it, determine what direction it will take, or who
will participate. But I dislike boxes. They are restrictive to
creative growth, uniqueness, and individuality, and also, in a
sense, relate to permanency. I prefer to acknowledge layers, where
different identities can merge and overlap making something new.
Maybe the Barn is none of those classifications, or maybe it's all
of them.
Living creatively
is a way of life, not a thing that we do. It's a movement
in time, constantly changing with the people that come.
The sacrament is
very important. We do this in a very informal way here. We
use the art or a piece of sculpture, and out of that come the
eucharistic words - and that changes every time. I have people here
who are not Christians, might be on the edge, might feel that the
Christian faith is not for them, but they are happy to be here.
Our rule of life
is that we live for what we have, not what we haven't.
Everything is a gift. We give thanks for that.
It can be very
lonely. Most pioneering ministers would say that. We're
always on the edge. But it's OK if we don't understand and we don't
know.
Our different
gifts and callings were carefully considered by our bishops here in
Norwich. To find the right placement, however, took
courage to wait, and enormous trust in something unique, unknown,
and emerging.
If you want
people to stick around and be contemplative, they need to
be warm, comfortable, have a drink, feel that they're loved. I
guess there's a feeling here of coming home, a bit. We have to look
after our bodies - they are the house of our spirits. It makes my
heart sing if I walk in and find someone asleep here.
Eric Gill said:
"Not every artist is a special kind of person, but every person is
a special kind of artist." I think that that is what is
intended, as we are made in the likeness of God who created, still
does, and will do through us all. The trouble is, through unhelpful
education and judgemental attitudes, we've lost the confidence that
creativity is our nature. The Barn is about enabling people to
reclaim that creative identity.
A childhood in an
inner-city pub taught me how to listen and to serve,
albeit in a very harsh way. Teaching profoundly deaf children
taught me about non-verbal, visual ways of communication.
Theological study and consequently ordination to the priesthood is
teaching me about the God who loves to play, create, make, mend,
shape, carve, weave, colour, in and through our lives.
My short-term
ambition is to raise £75,000 for a common room, with space
to locate the developing library of art and spirituality books,
DVDs, and image-loan service. Long term? I'd like to chill out in
that space.
My childhood
ambition was to go to art college. I haven't made it
yet.
Alongside my
immediate family, John, Jo, and Jake, I have been most
influenced by Cicely Jellyman and her husband, Don, who were my
art-teachers at secondary school in Worcester. They taught me the
meaning of creativity in life situations. Like: a problem isn't the
end: it's an opportunity for something more.
Important
books: A Way of Life, by Jim Ede; My Name is
Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok; The Artist's Rule, by
Christine Valters Paintner.
My home is my
favourite place: a door to close, a feather bed, a hot
bath, and food on the table. It is where I belong and I am
loved.
I love the
Visitation in Luke 2, and, of course, the Burning Bush in
Exodus 3. Both of these narratives underpin our work here.
The phrase "We've
always done it this way" makes me angry. And
exclusiveness, particularly in the Church. We do things in ways
that mean some people can't participate, and we can be so reluctant
to change to accommodate them.
Usually, for me,
happiness is related to being centred, at one with myself,
content in the moment wherever or whatever is happening.
Yes, I do
pray. But to me prayer is more like a place that I enter
rather than a doing or an asking. My practice is to pray
non-verbally with colour, mark, and line. The American painter
Edward Hopper said: "If I could say it in words I wouldn't need to
paint it." Prayer is a realm beyond words for me, and so I cannot
use words to describe it, but I know that I am changed, and release
happens by being in that place.
I'd like to be
locked in a church with Bill W., the founder of Alcoholics
Anonymous. Richard Rohr says: "The New Testament called it
salvation and enlightenment, the twelve-step programme of AA calls
it recovery." The same things, but different language: suffer to
get well, surrender to win, die to live, give it away to keep it.
AA is a programme that I've seen help change people's lives and
bring them to their higher power. It may not be the same higher
power that we experience, but it still takes them on a journey. I'd
love to know what he looked like, have a conversation with him,
explore this further. Bill would be able to help us with some of
the unnecessary patriarchal power addictions we have in the Church,
and would echo Mary's song, "He has lifted up the lowly and brought
down the mighty from their thrones of power." But, then again, I'm
not sure Bill would come. He would probably choose to stay in the
inner room.
The Revd Wendy Shaw
was talking to Terence Handley MacMath.
bbbarn@gmail.com
burningbushbarn.blogspot.com