Did you know that the Diocese of Dumfries and Galloway has an official Makar?
In this inaugural honorary post, spanning an initial term of four years, Kirstin will mark events in the life and witness of our Diocese by the creation of bespoke pieces of art that will encourage our congregations, communities, and individuals to interact with new directions of creativity and mission throughout the Diocese and further afield.
It’s the week before Christmas and the canopy of Angels is almost complete. I’m writing on the sunny side of the solstice having just installed many Angels made at Dumfries High School.
This has been a collaborative work! We have had angles made in pubs and cafes. Angels sent in by post and online. Angles crafted from exquisite origami paper and precious thoughts folded into Angels made from scraps.
All symbols have many meanings. It is as much their vagueness which makes them powerful, as is the particular meaning they carry for a particular person. The rainbow represents hope, inclusive society, beauty seen in nature where sunlight and rain mingle and a link between heaven and earth. I could continue, but as I continued I would move from the public sphere into my personal views and story.
Each Angel has been made by a person folding paper. Some have written their thoughts, hopes, or prayers on the Angels. Others have simply let the folding mark the moment. All these moments have been gathered into one work of art that is bigger than any of us could have managed on our own. All those moments and meanings mingle and are lifted up. Now we can sit back, and become aware of something bigger.
Perhaps when people look at the canopy they will wonder about what each angel could mean for the person who made it? Some will pray, and some won’t. But here is a symbol within which, for this Christmas, we have all met and shared some space.
Hopefully as the sun returns we will soon be able to share physical spaces again! When we do, hopefully we will remember to respect and value each persons particularity, and take time to discover the language that let’s us live diverse lives in unity. A glorious rainbow of life.
There is still time to get involved and contribute your Angel!
Due to Covid precautions the building is open to walk in less often than usual, but we will arrange some times for people to view the canopy during January. You are, of course, also welcome to the services – details here
This year, we are folding Angels. Angels are often described as messengers of God. In Nativity plays children will dress up as Angels and sing songs of good news. They will represent a message of peace and hope.
For some, this will be enough. For others there is a need to think more deeply about it.
Do Angels carry messages both ways, are they looking out for us? When Jesus is recorded scolding his followers for turning away parents with their children, he is also recorded as saying “…For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven…” Matthew 18: 10
To me, that sounds like Angels are holding open a hotline to God, and guess who gets priority?
Perhaps people are more used to the idea that we can all communicate with God directly, or that we should be able to. Political terms such as ‘kingdom’ are often used to describe concepts like heaven, and God is often described as something like a king. Our politicians are in our houses on TV screens, we can e-mail them and vote for them or not. They want to create an image of accessibility. How many people seriously think that they could have a direct line to the UK prime minister though? Or that if they did, that the occupant of that office would take time to listen to them?
Pause for a moment and imagine a world where such access is possible and think about what that would be worth. Is this what Jesus is saying Angels provide with the creator of the cosmos?
There is an obvious gap between our experience of life and what we hope the ideal life would be like. Heaven to come, and the life we experience now. This difference has been described as the presence of sin. You have read this far, so take a moment longer while I explore this technical term. I’m not going to try for a definition, but in order to better understand this, both intellectually and emotionally, here is a medieval thought experiment.
Imagine a person in Hell for committing one sin. A criminal in prison for one crime, or a person knotted up in their mind with regret for a mistake. Then contemplate the many things we have done wrong in thought word and deed, and in what we have failed to do. As your awareness increases, remember that this what you have been set free from. The purpose of the experiment is not to beat yourself up, or wrap yourself in guilt – rather it is to remind you of the value of forgiveness and freedom.
As an artist, in the course of folding angels, and teaching others to do so I have discovered that this is helping me examine my life through the frustration involved in creating. This is less about personal guilt and more about the creative process. The canopy of Angels bulges, pregnant with the potential of creation – but in any birth there is a messy time of frustration. (here is a passage you may not have connected with childbirth before)
There is an obvious gap between a sheet of paper and a folded angel. If you want the angel you need to fold some paper. As you fold you become aware of the gap there is between where you are now and where you want to be. If you are teaching someone, especially with reduced physical contact to to Covid, then you become aware of the desire to reach over and just fix it for them.
…You knew how to do this last week! how can you have forgotten… How can I make this symmetrical? … I can’t do this!… crafts are not my thing …
When you fold, fold the feelings and prayers you have for people into the paper. If learning the origami and following the instructions fristrates you in this simple task, let that become awareness of the feelings we all experience in the complicated task of living well. When you teach allow your awareness of your frustration, and desire to make things right, to help you imagine God’s desire to make things right. Let yourself imagine and feel the frustration in creating humans who can find their own way, rather than just being playthings.
If it all gets too much, rest. Humans are far more precious to God than paper Angels, and yet all of these are numbered and identifiable in the level of detail at which God is creating. Let yourself become aware of the experience of God carrying you when you can’t walk. Or sitting with you if you don’t even have the energy to be moved. You have a hotline to heaven.
As the motley crew of folded angels spread along the net in the roof of the St Johns building many small moments are becoming a rainbow of colour. The thoughts, frustrations, hopes and prayers of many people with different political views, metaphysical beliefs, and approaches to spirituality are combining to make something memorable.
We are folding a Canopy of Angels this Christmas. We are doing this to invite people to mark moments from the past couple of years, and to mark this moment in time entering Christmas 2021. All are welcome to join in, and by working together our personal thoughts can be carried up as part of something bigger.
This has a myriad of meanings for Christians, but is also something we can join in with the wider community in doing. The building can be used to help carry everyone’s thoughts and form a whole community art installation. Who knows what it will look like? We have an idea, but this is a collaborative project that will be shaped by everyone who gets involved.
To help give an idea of what it might look like, ands how what we can do if we work together, we are posting some of the ways we have used the canopy idea in St Johns and working with other groups in the past. The first is “The Canopy of Flames” in 2015
The Pentecost “Canopy of Flames” was our first experiment. People wrote their passions on flame coloured ribbons. The flames were lowered as the congregation took communion together. It (and other uses of fire by Quartz) even features in this Phd thesis by Rebekah Dyer of St Andrews University.
We worked with St Ninians Primary School to help the pupils reflect on how they could express their passions, or things that made them feel good about being alive, using words and art.
The flames were woven into a banner at a later “Interweave” event
When I am physically illuminating a text with ink, I use pigments like ground up soil, or oak galls and Iron salts. When I am digitally illuminating I use a colour pallet from a photograph of a place. Alison makes paper where the leaves become one with the page, and has a catalogue of colours where fabric has been dyed through using the plants and water where she lives.
This artist uses sound. Here is a short introduction:
We come from dust, we return to dust – but every grain can be where the substance of life finds a home.
In what ways will the potential placed by God within you be revealed? Do you dare to seek out a conversation with the source of everything, and co-create as a child of God?
Read more in the air you breathe and the texts which we have inherited.
There are many words used for Love. Some of them hide the power of the emotion in the everyday, some are kept for special occasions to release the power of a moment.
How many words do you know? (How many unspoken actions!) How many could you add to this video 🙂
It takes time to become aware of it. If your awareness is raised by one instance though, you become aware of an issue for a moment. Small as a mustard seed. Take time out to recognise the moments and your understanding deepens.
A life of prayer is made up of many moments, and can become a whole new way of relating to the world you live in. A new way of seeing, which leads to new ways of being.
It all starts with taking time out to become aware.
One of the reasons to set up this website, and move away from the facebook page Quartz has had since 2013, is Doomscrolling. The technology underlying social media is cutting edge. The long term effects are barely understood by the people using it, and ultimately whilst they exist because they provide a public service they fund this by “mining” human behaviour and selling the information gathered. Sites like facebook will personalise the images and attention grabbers they are using to maintain your attention as long as possible. They will use AI technology to calculate a profile of you based on your reactions. There are artists exploring the ways in which this can ” emphasises the subliminal consequences of such controlled information … “Uncontested bias and racism can be deliberately or carelessly embedded in or perpetuated through algorithmic systems, big data and artificial intelligence (AI).”
On a more immediate level for an informed opinion about the effects of “Doomscrolling” have a look at this short feature (From a company wanting to sell their services)
So, by having a less catchy home online for Quartz we hope to provide a place where people can read, relax and create community without needing to engage with facebook etc. Of course, we will still have a presence on several social media platforms, hopefully providing a nudge to people to stop doomscrolling, tune in to the meta reality of God and practice #SensingSpirituality.
