Stations of the Life of Christ Images for Faithful Worship and Practice Westmont College Fall 2005 A proposal to the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship Submitted by Andrea Stout, Stephanie Williams, and Michelle Wolff, students in Art 129: Art and Worship, Fall 2004I. SUMMARY The Stations of Christ’s Life project is intended to generate a series of fourteen images interpreting moments in Christ’s life that speak to our identity as a Protestant liberal arts college. Rooted in the word, understood in art historical perspective, used in public worship, and placed around campus, we aim to create images that invite more intentional practices of visual piety, practices that are congenial to Protestant sensibilities but rooted in a pan-Christian devotion to the imitation of Christ. II. PROJECT DESCRIPTION The Stations of Christ’s Life was developed by students taking Art 129: The Arts in Christian Worship (see the attached syllabus). We envision fourteen students from Westmont’s art department, working under the supervision of a visiting artist. Each student will each choose one of fourteen moments in the life of Christ, beginning with the Annunciation, and ending with the Ascension. We have chosen the following stories from Christ’s life (Baptism, Temptation, Miracle at Cana // Mary and Martha, the Woman caught in adultery, Tempest // Raising of Lazarus, Entry into Jerusalem, Cleansing the Temple // Thomas’ Doubt, Supper at Emmaus, Miraculous Draught of Fish) for their narrative coherence, and because of their resonance with themes in the life of a college student. You will notice that the stories of Christ’s passion are not listed above. This is intentional. Participants will research where Stations of the Cross are available in Santa Barbara and Montecito since these narratives are already well represented in our wider community. The Westmont community will be pointed to those cycles for imagery of the Christ’s passion. Preparation for the production of each image will include textual analysis, lectio divina, research into historical and contemporary evocations of the theme, and the diligent use of a sketchbook/notebook. Each artist will be encouraged to select at least four friends with which to reflect on the meaning of the text. Emerging from prayer, contemplation, study and conversation, each artist will seek to interpret a key aspect of their story in visual form, and choose a meaningful location for their image on our campus. There are no restrictions on style, medium, or placement—in fact, we believe that stylistic diversity will be a healthy part of the exploration encouraged in this project. The only restrictions will be that the resulting pieces should be 1) physically accessible to the entire community [i.e. no pieces for the women’s locker room] and 2) be able to remain intact for at least the remainder of the school year. Students will need to get permission from our campus architect for any installations that might alter the campus environment. For each piece, the artist or a member of his/her study group will write a brief, one-page devotional for the use of the community based on some realization that took shape during the process of study and creating. These devotionals, along with an explanatory ‘map’ will be included in a small, xeroxed devotional booklet. Each piece (or a part of each piece in the case of an installation) will be photographed for projection during our common Chapel worship and reproduced on a four-color postcard. The back of the postcard will include the scriptural reference, the name of the artist, and a sentence or two excerpted from the accompanying devotional. These postcards will be available in the art department and the Campus Pastor’s office for a small fee (to recover some printing costs), for all members of the campus community. Thus, the completed pieces will be available in the original on campus, via projection in chapel, and via reproduction in the devotional booklet and postcards.Westmont College Stations of the Life of Christ 2 2 III THEOLOGY OF WORSHIP Westmont believes that worship is at the heart of all we do as human beings created in the image of God. While we gather three times a week to worship in community, we also believe that we worship and glorify God in our studies and in our fellowship. As students in the art department, we are eager to try new ways to worship through our art and also wish to encourage our college community toward a wider visual vocabulary of praise, lament, and proclamation. Over the course of our semester of reading, visiting churches, and discussing our findings, we came to appreciate the lively, integrated and theologically grounded visual practices in the Catholic and Orthodox Christian traditions. We also came to appreciate the significant differences between those practices, and what is accepted and found useful in a Protestant community. Whereas the emphasis in the Orthodox visual tradition is on Christ’s incarnation, and the emphasis in the Catholic visual tradition is on Christ’s suffering, the traditional Protestant emphasis is on our atonement through Christ—a doctrine symbolized by one image, the empty cross. Seeking to amplify the imagery of faith on our campus in ways consonant with the evangelical tradition, we decided to use the format of the “Stations of the Cross” to emphasis aspects of Christ’s earthly ministry—creating the “Stations of the Life of Christ” to encourage us in our desire to imitate Christ—a desire shared by all Christians. We will also link this cycle of images to local “Stations of the Cross” available in Catholic Santa Barbara—building a healthy connection to our fellow Christians, about whom many of us are fairly ignorant. We have intentionally embedded these images in study and contemplation of the word, individually and in small groups, in order to give these images deep roots in our community and in our current worship and devotional habits. The resulting images—even if they turn out to be very abstract or surprisingly interactive--will very likely be more easily received if it is clear their genesis is in scripture and community. IV. PROJECT DIRECTOR/SUPERVISING ARTIST Project Director: Lisa J. DeBoer, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Art History will act as project director. Lisa has long been interested in the intersections of