Drawing in-church and drawing-in to joy

ABSTRACT

This paper explores what can be learned about the possibilities for joy when the private practice of drawing is located in public experience of Sunday worship. A case study identifies distinct phases of making, being with and seeing art, all integral to the process of aesthetic theological inquiry, as mechanisms for drawing in both artist and viewer to participate in creative conversation. In the immanence of honesty, the experience of making and seeing art in church offers an experience of joy characterised by an embodied experience of ‘emotional attunement between the self and the world’ (Volf 2015). Whilst the experience of drawing in-church extends our capacity to see God at work when it happens, the emerging work of art is drawing-in (the) church, inviting us to participate in a process of honest reflection that transforms the way we understand what it means to belong in a life of faith.

KEYWORDS:

• Art and theology
• practice-led
• embodied liturgical practice
• drawing in church
• art making in worship
• joy in public worship

Acknowledgement

This project was made possible with a Field Development Grant from the Yale Center for Faith and Culture's ‘Theology of Joy and the Good Life’ project, funded by the John Templeton Foundations. The author would like to thank Prof. Miroslav Volf and Rev. Angela Gorrell for the inviation to contribute to this project and acknowledge Assoc. Prof. Frank Rees for his wisdom and work in supervisory conversation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Libby Byrne works as an artist, art therapist, theologian, writer and researcher exploring new ways of being with art and people in liminal spaces. Within her studio practice Libby works with ideas, images and experiences to extend the way we think, perceive and respond to questions of meaning and existence. Having worked as an Art Therapist in palliative care and trauma recovery her current research addresses the nature and significance of art, both made and received, in the process of healing that is required for human beings to flourish and live well with illness and in health. Libby teaches in the Master of Art Therapy Program at La Trobe University whilst developing a growing body of research in the emerging field of Practice-led Theological Inquiry. She works as an Adjunct Lecturer and Honorary Research Associate with the University of Divinity. Libby is a member of the Centre for Religion and Social Policy (RASP).