Post-Easter installation

We have based our Lent-Easter worship loosely on resources from Sanctified Art, "cultivating and letting go." After letting go during Lent, we are now cultivating! This installation is simply brown butcher paper taped and hung in our narthex. There is a Bible verse from Galatians (5.22-23), and a simple question: what will you cultivate this season? One week in and there are few leaves popping out.

Pentecost stained glass

Our worship and arts team has been transitioning away from floral arrangements in our worship space for some time. We have had fewer people sign up to provide flowers, and the committee has been hesitant to spend money on weekly arrangements that didn't seem to speak to worshipers in the way they did in generations part. The committee has taken this as an opportunity to expand what we offer in our worship space, by including the visual arts. Our first foray into this was for Pentecost this year.

Member Barbara Brinson has been dabbling in stained glass for some time. As we developed our plan for worship art installations in the sanctuary she shared an interest in creating something in glass. Over the course of several months we shared in committee meetings her planning, design, and execution of the project, as well as the usual emotional work that artists endure as they create something. The end product was ready a couple of weeks ago, and we installed it late last week.

The piece is 28.5 inches square with zinc borders. One piece is chipped which we agreed was part of the charm of the overall work. The piece was well-received by both worshiping congregations yesterday. We intend to have the piece framed and later installed in our facility. We purchased a nice easel to support the piece, as those we had on hand were too flimsy to support. We hope to have other stained glass pieces to display similarly in the future.

In addition to Pentecost festivities, we designated 5/20 to be our own congregation's 110th birthday, so there were balloons and cake to round out the visual feast.

Floral arts at Lent and Easter 2016

This was the second year we did a slightly different take on floral arts during Lent. The concept was a progression for "poverty" to "abundance." The flowers in our two worship spaces began the season very starkly and evolved over the season to a glorious display for Easter Day. This year Ash Wednesday for us was a joint service with another congregation, so we didn't provide an arrangement. If we had, the plan would have been to drape the wooden urn in black fabric. We opted to use two separate arrangements for our two worship spaces, except on Easter Day. Fellowship hall had a brass urn and the sanctuary a wooden urn. Here is how the program developed:

The first Sunday of Lent was simply canes and twigs with moss, in unadorned urns.

For the second Sunday of Lent the floral arts team simply added eucalyptus branches, while retaining most of the material from the previous week.

We added alstroemeria to both arrangements for the 3rd Sunday.

Forsythia and other flowers added for the 4th week gave a hint at what was to come...This arrangement was striking simply for the height provided by some of the branches.

Palm-Passion Sunday saw the forsythia in full bloom, now with some white flowers and palm branches.

Sorry the light was bad for the Easter arrangement, but it was glorious. Lots of flowers in a trumpet-shaped glass vase.

We concluded the series on Easter Day with a reprise of our indoor Easter garden. It included a flowered cross. Individuals purchased plants in memory of or in honor persons, and were able to take their plants home after worship.

Easter garden 2015

One of the highlights for us this Easter was an indoor garden. I'm sure plenty of folks have done it before. I got the idea nearly 25 years ago when I had the pleasure of working with a really avid gardener in Richmond. We did away with Easter lilies one year and use seasonal flowers and a fake stone to make a garden in our chancel area. We did a similar thing this year, but incorporated our flowered cross. We also re-used a fabricated tomb stone and added fabric to replicate (somewhat) an empty tomb. We placed a simple placard with a verse from Matthew 28. I got a new pair of smaller-scale stones made. Where we have had 45-50 lilies in recent years, we had nearly 120 flowers and green plants. The queue for taking pictures was a sight to behold! With a few tweaks, we'll be doing this again. This pic is from Saturday's installation, before individuals had added flowers to the cross on Easter day.