Resources for Pentecost – Green

The Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost cycles are topical in a sort of historical context. The "long green season," it seems to me, is more about how the vision of Christ's Incarnation is manifest in the world, in a global, general way. Could we find a way to focus on images that put the vision in a life-in-the-work-a-day world context?

The Rev. Dr. Clayton L. Morris,
Officer for Liturgy and Music,
Episcopal Church Center

This long, relatively light-hearted season presents many opportunities for church art. As at Pentecost, many churches have doors and windows open during the summer months, so artwork that hangs from the ceiling and moves in the breeze is especially nice. You can leave those Pentecost doves up for a while, and maybe add some banners and ribbons in various greens, with a little teal and brown and dark red and gold, to suggest growing things.

In the late summer, some churches like to celebrate Creation. Creation artwork can easily allude to Biblical themes - the growing wheat, the fish waiting to be caught, the True Vine, the stars of heaven, the plentiful harvest.

About 7 years back, when I had studio space for painting with dyes on silk, I made Creation-season altar covers, pulpit hangings, and lectern bookmarks for the Cathedral in Baltimore, MD, and for Trinity Church, Princeton, NJ. These items were fun and not too hard to paint or sew, and they have a summery lightweight pastel feel and look. The altar covers, unlined and both for free-standing altars, have on one side a sun positioned top and center, with leaves and flowers growing from the edges toward the sun, and 3 red dragonflies heading toward the sun. The other side (less acceptable to many people and usually turned toward the back) shows a similar scene but underwater, with seaweeds and fish and starfish and jellyfish, all nourished by and centered toward the sun. For Trinity, I also made a processional banner, showing a wheatfield growing under the sun.

Unlined silk is very responsive to air, and the painting shows through both sides. You may not need to hem selvages. Interface top and bottom hems, using a lightweight sew-in interfacing. Ribbons can be draped around the top of banners, hanging down the sides. Sew a teardrop-shaped clear plastic bead to each bottom corner to add a little stability.

Other ideas?

Blessings and good wishes.

Betsy Porter
Oakland, CA

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