Examples of the artwork on display. Photo: Courtesy of North London AM.
Eye - 01 June 2018
From expressing Quakerism through art to greeting the dawn
Experience and inspiration
Friends’ creative juices were flowing as Winchmore Hill Meeting hosted an art exhibition of works inspired by Quaker experiences. The exhibition, on 14-15 April, featured fifty-eight pieces from Friends in North London Area Meeting, including sculptures, photographs, mosaics, word clouds and paintings.
Over 160 people visited and Anne McNeill-Pulati, an artist and one of the organisers, told Eye: ‘It was very successful, both as outreach and inreach… lots of Friends said that it gave them a sense that they were not utilising their personal creativity enough, and they wanted to do more creativity sessions… It was also good sharing each other’s work and seeing what people had come up with.’
Friendly in five
Friends General Conference in the USA has posed a challenge to concisely-creative Quakers online: ‘How did the Quaker way find you? Tell us in five words or less! #Quakerfaithinfive’
Whilst some shared moving stories that defied a word limit, some compact contributions included:
‘We’re going tomorrow. Wanna come?’
‘Came for research, stayed forever’
‘In the clarity of silence’
‘Through my daughter’s Quaker education’
‘Internet quiz said I’m Quaker’
‘My parents abandoned organized religion’
‘With the film Friendly Persuasion’
‘Spiritually-parched seeker discovers waiting worship’
‘Met Quakers, borrowed meetinghouse chairs’
…hip hip hip hooray!
Behatted Friends at Brentford and Isleworth Meeting House are developing quite a display of straw boaters, as can be seen in the collection that accumulated when Friends gathered on 22 April to prepare for Yearly Meeting (see photo).
However, Friends were not in need of protective headgear on 13 May when they experimented with a ‘Meeting for Worship to greet the dawn’. It began just before the sun had got its own hat on – at 4:30am!
Local Friend Anne van Staveren joined nine others who ‘settled in stillness in darkness’.
She told Eye that: ‘So many birds were greeting the day! A couple of foxes… maybe a hedgehog… and a curious cat.’
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