NOTEBOOK SPOTLIGHT: Wing of Life commission Commissioned by the PCC of All Saints Church, Lydiard Millicent, Swindon, part of the church reordering project with Benjamin & Beauchamp, etched by Leadbitter Glass, 2024-2025. Featuring drawings by pupils at Lydiard Millicent CE Primary School: Cassidy, Pavith, Xanthe, Esme, Teddy-James, Beatrix, Jacob, Quinton, Mia, Kenza, Lily, Alfie, Isla, and […]
Taking flight through a church door Read More »
NOTEBOOK SPOTLIGHT: Genesis and The New Passage Genesis was created from 60 photographs, taken from incrementally different angles, of butterfly wings suspended in a fish tank; The New Passage was created from 12 photographs taken at half-hour intervals from this spot on the Severn Estuary, UK. In each case the images are interlaced by a computer programme which
Lenticular lenses in view Read More »
NOTEBOOK SPOTLIGHT: Face-Off 25 March 2007 marked 200 years to the day that a Parliamentary Bill was passed to abolish the slave trade in the British colonies. Set All Free, an exhibition held that year at the Grant Bradley Gallery in Bristol, displayed work by 11 contemporary artists presenting individual responses to this anniversary. Here
Set All Free: revisiting an exhibition in 2007 Read More »
NOTEBOOK SPOTLIGHT: Scriptorium The text below is adapted from publication in ‘Photography as the Bible’s New Illumination’, in Transforming Christian Thought in the Visual Arts: Theology, Aesthetics, and Practice (Routledge, 2021), pp.55-58; and also from VT Issue 1, pp.16-17. Scriptorium consists of sixty-five pages of unbound biblical text, printed white on blue with the cyanotype
Running the script for a blueprint Bible Read More »
But now thus says the LORD, / he who created you, O Jacob, / he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; / I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; / and through the rivers, they shall not
Advent sermon with Isaiah Read More »
Some quotations this month from Oswald Chambers’ ‘My Utmost for His Highest’, originally published in 1927 by his wife, and still a global bestseller. Chambers trained at the Royal College of Arts, before turning to theological training and a life of church ministry. I’ve found his unflinching single-mindedness awe-inspiring, a trait and habit that I
Oswald Chambers and walking the line Read More »
My father died on the 16th April. He had Parkinson’s, and was in a care home in Oxfordshire where, despite isolation, COVID-19 took away his breath. Parkinson’s took away other things, shading my last year with him in other ways: his frustration, his failing speech, his intent on leaving the wheelchair behind (but definitely not
In memory of Dr Tom Gledhill, my Dad Read More »
This week, the churches closed. The coronavirus spreads worldwide, and in line with a governmental announcement curbing all social gatherings on the 23rd of March, the Church of England confirmed the closure of all church buildings on the 24th. There are so many ripples and ricochets felt as the doors are pulled shut. Permit me,
The day the churches shut up shop Read More »
This month I’ll be speaking at the University of Oxford’s seminar series ‘The Bible in Art, Music, and Literature’, with a talk entitled ‘Pick & Mix: the non-linear Bible as modern artists visualise it’. I’ll be exploring a few artists discussed in my recent journal articles, but also introducing some thoughts on Francis Frith. Frith’s
A flurry of Frith photographs Read More »
This year once again I’m delighted that one of my Advent images, Joseph’s Angel, is being used by Bishop Martin as a Christmas card for the Chichester Diocese. It was originally produced as part of several annual designs, which were initially for personal use, but subsequently became prompts for mini-research projects. Here I reproduce the
Christmas card reflection Read More »
