From August 8 until October 31, Art and Christianity collaborated with The Friends of Friendless Churches to create Vessel Art Trail. The Friends of Friendless Churches was established by a group of friends in 1957 to save redundant but beautiful places of worship from demolition, decay, and unsympathetic conversion. They believe that an ancient and beautiful church fulfills its primary function merely by existing.
Against the backdrop of the Brecon Beacons, these two organizations, with curator Jacquiline Creswell, hosted a groundbreaking exhibition called Vessel Art Trail, which offered a pilgrimage to several ancient and rural churches in the Black Mountains of Wales. This area in the Brecon Beacons (or Bannau Brycheiniog in Welsh) is famous for its dramatic peaks and stunning summit views. Nestled within this part of Wales are many hidden churches with outstanding visual and historical culture, including sgraffito wall paintings.
Vessel drew inspiration from these places of Christian worship, concurrently envisioning a vessel as a conduit for grace and spiritual nourishment. Art curator Jacquiline Creswell said of the Vessel exhibition, “Curating contemporary art in these extraordinarily intimate churches presented a unique set of challenges and opportunities. It required careful consideration of each place’s historical, spiritual, and architectural dimensions.” She was careful to select an artistic narrative that resonated with the themes and values of the ancient, rural churches, placing a single work of art that represented a vessel within each of these. Below are descriptions of the artists’ work written by the curator and a photo of their art in churches or churchyards.
Artist Jane Sheppard’s Grace Vessel sits quietly in the Church of St Michael and All Angels, Gwernesney. Grace Vessel embraces figuration while retaining the essence of a vessel as a container of the spirit. Jane explains the rhythmic and repetitive process of making art as a meditative state dictated by the form she produces. Her extensive research into ancient cultural artifacts revealed a sensitive appreciation of form, with an atmosphere and emotion that highlighted knowledge of line and space. Jane embodied this in Grace Vessel, pictured below.
Scripture uses vessels as a metaphor for the church; the nave, or navis in Latin, means ship. In this sense, the whole church is called to be a vessel of God’s love and grace and to carry these gifts into the world. Artist Barbara Beyer translates these ideas through her boat forms. These forms, titled Wiela, were created from adobe clay, recycled wood, and roof slates. These seemingly sturdy vessels with bare prominent cracks suggested they were also vulnerable to the elements despite the protective shelter of the slate roof tiles, which offered sanctuary. The vessels were moored in the quiet churchyard of St Cadoc, Llangattock Vibon Avel.
Artist Lucy Glendinning used the human form as a vessel for emotions, ideas, and consciousness. She comes from a medical family and is researching neuroaesthetics, a scientific approach to the study of the aesthetic experience when considering a work of art. Lucy incorporated light-colored feathers to remind us of our symbiotic relationship with the natural world. White Heart possessed an ethereal glow, glimpsed through the richly carved 15th-century medieval church screen. The sculpture’s eloquent stillness attracted visitors into the side chapel of St Jerome, Llangwm.
Vessels have a wider connotation in the biology of living forms as carriers of vital fluids and nourishment. They focus on nature and the vessel systems that transport nutrients from the root through the plant to sustain it. Situated in a 13th-century circular churchyard with ancient yew trees sits St David’s, Llangview, where Andrew Bick’s Compendium (Tree) tapestry was suspended above the West entrance. Andrew’s work complemented and disrupted the intimacy of the 18th-century interior with its austere spatially symmetrical wooden box pews and skeletal rood loft. The tapestry was created on an 18th-century loom, which contrasts its contemporary intensity of color and geometry echoed in the grid systems of the slim wooden beams in the barrel-vaulted chancel.
Robert George’s love of trees and arboreal experience allowed him to harvest his own timber, and his immense knowledge of wood allowed him to explore and experiment. Robert always pushes the boundaries of how he interprets the vessel form. Simmer Down offered a haptic experience in Urishay Castle Chapel. Smooth and rough textures allowed the viewer to reminisce about moments in nature, including entropy—the degradation from order to chaos. Simmer Down was a commanding and complex font-like vessel dramatically sited within the single cell building with a concrete nave altar; it was sparse except for its massive oak lintel. Robert’s vessel was comprised of hundreds of small, blackened, and burnt oak pots that encrusted a sycamore crucible. Each vessel was burnt, causing the oak to change from rich honey to dark and ominous black.
Artist Steinunn Thorarinsdottir reflected on the vessel as a symbol of the human body or soul, which is seen as a container for the Holy Spirit. The concept of the vessel illustrates the idea that Christians are called to be vessels of God’s love, grace, and power and to carry the message of the Gospel to the world. Centre by Steinunn Thorarinsdottir is an androgynous human form representing all of humanity. It is a solitary, graceful figure sited in the churchyard of St Mary, Llanfair Kilgedden. The figure in Centre has a contemplative gaze, raised toward the bell tower. The figure is both classical and abstract, devoid of any definition, yet its human size invites us to engage with it. Centre is created from rough cast iron, pierced with a glass circle at chest height, creating a window to the soul. The sculpture was placed so that light would shine through the glass at certain times of the day.
Artist Lou Baker navigates the tension between creating a vessel that is functional and one that carries conceptual or symbolic meaning. She explored the chalice, the vessel that holds the wine used for communion, representing the blood of Christ. Lou created a striking site-responsive installation at Dore Abbey titled Life/Blood. She threaded her red knit wool in the elegant east end of the Cistercian church, endeavoring to transform the site. She wove her knitted installation into the fabric of the building, reconnecting the broken, ancient, and discarded masonry to the elegant stone columns. Like a network of blood vessels pumping life back into the stone graveyard, her red yarn winds and knits elements back together.
Curator Jacquiline reflects on the art exhibition, saying, “The vessel is profound in its quotidian nature embedded in human experience. The different techniques and materials used by these artists were of the utmost importance to the overall expression, visual appeal, symbolism, and innovation of their works of art. This group of artists was carefully selected from different disciplines to enhance the creative vision and effectively communicate their interpretation of a vessel within the context of a church.”
To learn more about the exhibit, Art and Christianity, or Friends of Friendless Churches, visit https://friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk/ and www.artandchristianity.org. To learn more about curator Jacquiline Creswell, visit www.visualartsadvisor.org