Wonder, Joy, and commentary on two works of art

It has slipped my mind that I need to post about my two works In the mornings, I put on my cross and Communion. So here I am months after I have made them, writing about them.

In the mornings, I put on my cross and Communion are a pair of pieces done in yellow and pink (my favorite colors) that use the same materials: marker, pen, glitter, and rhinestones on bristol paper. Both pieces are drawn from photo references of my own body. Originally drawn out and completed in a sketchbook, I really intended for them to be a break from painting. However, after hanging them outside my senior studio space, I received the comment from my Professor that I should play with size in the pieces. She explained that I should either make them miniature, or to real life scale, instead of an awkward in between. I decided to remake both to a life-size scale. 

In the mornings, I put on my cross

In the mornings, I put on my cross measures 12” x 14”. The cross featured is a marker, glitter, and paint pen drawing of my own cross pendant. This pendant is a cross from the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, an Anglican Episcopal order of monks (visit their website here: https://www.ssje.org/) While I have never met them in my memory, this cross was given to my father, and he gave it to me after our associate rector passed away. It had been lent to her from him for her to wear during her sickness. I wore it daily throughout middle and highschool, stopped in sophomore year of college, but have picked it back up in the past year. 

The hands and face in this piece are connected by the paper string of the cross necklace, which is also covered in black glitter. Sadly this thin portion did not survive moving out of Mount Holyoke, and has been torn. However despite it’s delicate nature In the mornings, I put on my cross,  was a meditative piece on joy and I loved making it (and remaking it), and I look forward to fixing or making it again! 

Communion

Communion on the other hand measures 18” inches horizontally and is vertically variable, though the one time I measured it was actually 18” x 18” inches. I made this piece after In the mornings. . . , and originally it was meant to be a humorous affair. 

In short, this piece is about, well, taking communion. However I added my own twists in referencing how my communion experience personally differs: my wafers have to be gluten and wheat free. On my wrists are my medic alert bracelets (and yes I have pink and yellow silicon medic alert bracelets) that say “Celiac Disease.” Above the hands are 13 plastic packets. They each have a brown cross with the words “Gluten Free” underneath, and inside are round paper wafers, with rhinestone crosses and glitter. 

The plastic packets themselves were collected throughout the school year from the church I attended while at Mount Holyoke: All Saints South Hadley (https://www.allsaintsallwelcome.org/ ). These are in fact the plastic packets that my individual communion wafer was wrapped and blessed in to avoid cross contamination. So, in a way, they may be blessed too. 

I collected them for a few reasons, one being that at some point I knew I wanted to do something art related with them. But, primarily I collected them because I think they're funny. For whatever reason, an empty plastic packet with just a cross and the words “Gluten Free” is peak comedy to me. I think I laughed out loud three years ago in church when I first saw it. So really Communion was meant to be a make-fun of my own condition.

It did not come across that way. 

Before or during critique (I can’t remember), My professor spoke about the idea of making a relic out of ordinary objects. There were also comments on the repetition, the color, and the joy. Sadly, the “Gluten Free Cross” wasn’t as funny to others as it was to me. 

And I think that’s important. This reminds me that art isn’t always interpreted how the artist intends. More importantly though, this reminds me how the sacred or holy can be filled with joy and humor. But it also shows me comparingly that acts of humor and emotions of joy can be holy in turn. 

In fact as I’m writing this I am in a library in London, having visited the Art Gallery/Exhibit Frameless (https://frameless.com/ ) a few hours ago. Frameless is an interactive and immersive art exhibit that takes famous works of art and makes you a part of them via amazing technology. And going through the four galleries it exhibits, I was so happy and amazed that I nearly cried. 

I know this is because of the wonder I felt, the awesomeness (in the classical sense that it was awe-inspiring). And this is wear my brief pondering on wonder comes in.

Last week we visited Canterbury Cathedral. Upon arriving and entering the building I immediately began to feel annoyed, tense, and out of place. After talking with my mother, we ended up abandoning the main floor in favor of the crypt and I did not calm down or feel welcome until I spent a good 15 minutes in a crypt side chapel (I believe St. Gabriel’s). During this time, watching people come in and out as I breathed and sat in silence, I realized something. The noises of people whispering in the crypt, talking in the nave, and oooing at the stained glass was not just bland tourism. The phrase “expressions of wonder” popped into my head, and I felt ashamed at how judgmental I had been of the space, and my own emotional state.

When my mother and I went back to the main floor, a Canon was leading a prayer, and offered to those gathered in the cavernous space, an opportunity to talk. In the few minutes I heard him lead prayer, I was struck by his calm demeanor and respect to those listening. So when he offered the chance to talk at the base of the pulpit I went to thank him, and also just talk as I felt guilty for being so negative emotionally toward the space. And as we spoke, one thing he said, paraphrased, was that ‘the Cathedral is such a special place, people come and are filled with wonder’. And I thought, there’s that word “wonder” again!

And of course it has appeared again at Frameless, this time not as a solemn and silent wonder but as a joyous one. 

This is all to say that despite a number of my artworks thematically dealing with the holy and the sacred in grief. And despite a multitude of Christian artworks, theologies, and lifestyles focusing on suffering, I think joy and wonder have the ability to be equally as sacred.

In peace,
Xi