ECVA - Catherine D. Kerr - Sacrament and Image

Cascade of Grace

Digital image

Artist Statement: The soulful sound of a saxophone flowed from the street corner where this musician stood with his instrument. Some people passed by without a second glance, while others including myself stopped to listen. His music bound us together in community, temporary but real. When we put all other demands on our attention aside, however briefly, and take time to share an experience of beauty, doesn’t that become a form of worship?

I’ve returned to the image of this saxophonist many times, asking myself what more it wants to be. I tweaked and adjusted, then added a picture of a waterfall behind the musician because I’d experienced his music as a cascade of something lively and refreshing.

Like water. Or like grace. Like a kind of baptism. Water is life but also death, chaos, a destructive force. And yet Paul tells us that although we are buried with Christ in the waters of baptism, we rise again from that same water with him in his resurrection.

We rise again, but not alone. We come alive as a community, perhaps not so different from those of us who stopped that day just long enough to let the music flood our souls.

Bio: Photography is my spiritual discipline. My first published photographs were taken to illustrate my work as a newspaper reporter and freelance writer, but later, as I followed a career path that led to ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church, my intent has shifted from showing what happened to exploring what matters. My work has been included in a number of juried exhibitions including a show titled "Essential Work 2020: A Community Portrait" last summer at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA. A video presentation of my photography was featured this spring in an online exhibit presented by New Hope's Phillips Mill Art. ckerr@databuzz.net