Art: Image Journal
By Sharon Fujimoto-Johnson
Intruding Upon the TimelessI’m reading Intruding Upon the
Timeless, a collection of meditations on art, faith, and mystery by Gregory
Wolfe, founder and editor of Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion.
In this collection of essays, Wolfe explores the profound, vibrant intersection
between art and spirituality. His is a refreshing and thoughtful probe into two
cultures that have long been estranged.
“Religion and art share the capicity to help
us renew our awareness of the ultimate questions: who we are, where we have come
from, and where we are going. In their highest forms, religion and art unite
faith and reason, grace and nature; they preserve us from the twin errors of
superstition and rationalist abstraction,” he writes.
Wolfe and his
wife, Suzanne, began publishing Image in 1989 as a journal in which the
sublime, and not the blatantly religious, in art and faith would be explored.
Today, Image is a door into a thriving world of artful
spirituality/spiritual art that, in addition to Image, includes Seattle-area cultural events, books, workshops, a low-residency MFA in writing through Seattle Pacific University,
and the Milton Center, dedicated to nurturing creative writing through fellowships.
The Glen WorkshopOf particular interest is The Glen Workship,
an annual summer festival for “artists, writers, and wayfarers.” The 2006
workshop features a wide range of classes, in a variety of disciplines such as
poetry, fiction, art, and songwriting. This year’s workshop faculty includes,
for starters, scholar and theologian Eugene Peterson, poet Scott Cairns, author
Bret Lott, artist Barry Moser, and musical group, Over the Rhine.
The Glen Workshop, Santa Fe, New
Mexico
Love and Affliction: Art and the Paradox of
Suffering July 30 – August 6, 2006
Read more about Gregory and Suzanne Wolfe in
a Seattle Times feature.
