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Church of the
Covenant
Boston, MA
2000
LENT PROJECT
CHALLENGED PARISHIONERS
Rev. Richard
Spalding of the Church of the Covenant in Back Bay says
his congregation of 250 takes pride in fresh ways of thinking.
Still, nobody really knew what they were in for when flamboyant
artist Michael Dowling was asked to lead them in development
of a public installation for the observance of Lent.
"Someone in
the congregation suggested we should bring in photographs
and clippings and do a collage," says Dowling. "I said,
`Well, that's an arts and crafts project. Do we want to
do that or do we want to make a piece about transcendence?'
They did, but I'm speaking the language of art and they
are speaking another language. So part of it was we had
to learn a language together first, and then speak in that
language as a community. Dowling, best known for his annual
Medicine Wheel installation at the Boston Cyclorama to honor
AIDS victims, rarely does anything small. The final plan
involved many new experiences unusual to church members,
such as a fire pit on Newbury Street where members of the
congregation brought tree branches to be blackened and later
covered with gold leaf, and performance art-like services
where a gilded tree was carried through the church aisle
on Ash Wednesday and hung above the altar.
"We think of
people on the receiving end of art as being an audience,"
says Spalding, "and mostly I think the job description of
an audience is to be pretty passive. Well, a congregation
is not an audience, they are participants. So that's what
links it to performance art. Everything we did was designed
to grab people by the lapel and pull them in. We knew there
would be a certain amount of resistance, and there were
a few angry people for a while, but their anger ended up
blossoming into a much larger conversation, a lot of it
happening through e-mails between everybody."
Church members
all participated in bringing the branches for Lent, and
about 65 volunteers spent long hours varnishing the branches
and then covering them with the tissue-paper-thin sheets
of gold leaf. The branches were eventually hung in the doorway
of the church.
"It was a 36-hour
vigil that started at noon on Good Friday and ended at midnight
on Easter morning," says Dowling. "We invited people to
live in the church during the period to do the work of transforming
the branches into golden boughs. They had to all be painted
twice, then varnished, then the leaf was put on. One parishoner
who was blind tied filaments on the branches. Fourteen people
ended up sleeping in the church. It became like this physical
meditation. It was very magical."
Observe the
artwork at the church and join a conversation about art
and spirit with Dowling, Carole Anne Meehan of the Institute
of Contemporary Art, and Robin Jenson, program director
of Theology in the Arts at Andover Newton Theological School
on Wednesday at 6 p.m. The installation will be dismantled
and distributed following the service on Pentecost Sunday,
next Sunday, 10 p.m. Church of the Covenant is at 67 Newbury
St., Back Bay, Boston. Call 266-7480.
written by
David Wideman
Boston Globe, City Weekly
June
4, 2000
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