Calling All Artists!
This is a unique and important ASK. Please read to the end.
As a fellow visual artist, I was intrigued by a request I received in recent months from professional artist, James Tughan, who was introduced to me by a dear Fellowship friend, Glenn Taylor.
James is Executive Director of “Portage”, an arts group made up of Christian visual artists and art educators. James attended a Fellowship Baptist Church for decades in southwestern Ontario and has taught art at Redeemer University and McMaster Divinity School, among other institutions. Check out James’ amazing work online. His current exhibit, “Nine Faces of Christ”, is inspiring.
Along with other Christian artists, James is embarking on a massive effort and we are invited to join them! I’ll let James explain this exciting project:
In February of 2023, after a couple close calls with two heart attacks and kidney failure, I found myself having to think about my own mortality, about the possibility of an imminent death. Hospitalization with all the attached tubes and inconvenient dress code was not a welcome antidote to all the creative work I dreamed of getting done as a Christian artist. I have so many dreams, about our work in the spirituality of artmaking in the Church, that remain unfulfilled. By that I mean helping the Church value and involve artists of all kinds again, in direct proportion to the artistry of Jesus Himself, and also helping Christians in the Church rediscover the emotionally therapeutic properties of creativity and artistry.
Laying in the ICU, I suddenly found myself thinking about King Hezekiah, surrounded by Assyrian armies, gravely ill, praying to God for 15 years so he could fulfill his calling to protect his people. The Lord honoured his request and what he hoped to do. He got well and got to work. While God protected the city, he dug a tunnel between the Gihon Spring and the Pool of Siloam, a mile-and-a-half long through very hard rock, dolomite, to help preserve the city’s water supply (2 Kings 18, 19 and 2 Chronicles 29). That tunnel aqueduct is still working today. I have walked it. It is a testament to a man’s faith turned creative and practical, in the realm of God’s provision.
The Portage Arts Group is a group of professional Christian visual artists and art educators, who have in common the love of artmaking as a therapeutic exercise indispensable to Christian community, biblical revelation, and allegiance to Christ the original Artist. We are guardians of visual language, with a special interest in mental health, education, and the beauty of the Canadian wilderness.
Our group, Portage, would like you to consider a simple idea: artists are part of God’s provision to His people, just as the Pool of Siloam was, a fact honoured by Jesus, by association, in His own ministry (John 4:14, 9:7-11).
The Thirst Project Concept
We are launching a touring exhibition that will recreate Hezekiah’s tunnel, using the metaphor of water moved between Gihon Spring and the Pool of Siloam. We are doing this both in visual art in different media, and in an engineered, fabric-based, above-ground tunnel maze. We are taking advantage of a common Old and New Testament theme of thirst, also used by Jesus Himself, asking the question: What do we thirst for, and where do we go to have it quenched and satisfied? This metaphor is as relevant to us in an age of brokenness and confusion in our culture, as it was (is) to the heat and desert of the Holy Land. As trauma survivors who became artists, we are also linking this quenching to the emotional healing made possible in relationship with Christ, as symbolized in the Pool of Siloam. We believe that the arts can be part of that healing process.
The ASK
I am asking YOU to get the word out to the artists, crafters, seamstresses, and creative types in your local church. I’m praying this will be an opportunity for our churches to esteem the creative people with in our congregations.
We Need Your Help
“This tunnel made up of customized fabric sections has been designed and engineered by James Tughan and Fellowship Baptist member Jim Huszti (of Georgetown’s Maple Avenue Baptist Church). We are inviting persons who love to sew to participate in helping us create sections of fabric that will be used to tell the incredible story of Hezekiah who sought God’s help in saving the water supply of the city in the face of Assyrian encirclement.
Important Dates
“In the lead up to the first show in November 2024, we need to distribute entry kits (brochures) and launch promotion starting in February 2024, receiving fabric entries by September 2024. Following the show opening in Oakville in November, we are looking for opportunities to use this display to interact with your faith community in Canada. Simultaneously, we will be displaying this exhibit in the ‘public square’ as a witness to the truth of Christ.
“We look forward to answering any questions you may have about this venture. I can be reached at tughanj@gmail.com. You can check us out at portagesemaphore.ca."
Thirst Project Brochure
Click here to discover further details on the Thirst Project including specifications on the panels, media that can be used, theme, and design ideas and deadlines.
I Have a Dream
I have a dream – that our Fellowship would be a movement that celebrated our artists. An association of churches that esteemed the wonderful creative types in our midst. I visited one of our churches a few months ago to preach and was thrilled to find special public space to showcase the visual art of their church members, with pieces changing each month.
Pastors, please take the time to send this email to the seamstresses, artists, and creative types in your church. Please send it THIS WEEK!
Our Summer 2024 THRIVE Magazine
The summer 2024 edition of THRIVE is entitled Patron: Recapturing the Arts, sharing stories how our local churches, global missions work, and seminary education is or should be capturing the arts as a means to advance mission. To re-capture the Church’s role as “patron of the arts” – let me encourage you to dream with me.
HEZEKIAH’S TUNNEL – a poem by James Tughan
I turn to the wall;
all the arrow-shaped dials
of my hospital gurney side-bars.
I’m wrapped in tubes, wires and intravenous lines
that feed and calm my racing heart: the Ketamine
voyage that dissembled me at the brink
of leaving this world.
I turn to the wall,
all the Assyrians are at the approaches to my city,
a world of images and dreams that feed
my soul and the village I inhabit, and
all the gateways passages I have not finished,
but where I toil extending the boundaries, in moving
the very edges of this world.
I turn to the wall,
and like Hezekiah, see a way through;
a tunnel of years through stone,
and a disease threatening my very heart. I see the grace
for His pathway for Gihon’s waters,
carved by His hands
to reach the pool of Siloam where
we will disturb the world of waters.