Sunday, 21 September 2008

Pax - giveaway art as a sign of God's grace?

I was intrigued by Maggi Dawn's post about Michael Radcliffe's PAX art project and the whole concept of Free Art Friday. PAX (part of which is pictured) was the artist's response to having witnessed an act of violence outside his house, trying to put something with a different message back into the community.
I found reading about the project very moving. Putting art freely into a troubled local community over the summer months spoke quite deeply to me of God's grace; allowing it to get kicked around and roughly used and hoping that somehow some of the essence of its message might get through speaks of real commitment to witness - and also of Christ's own passion.
Through reading I discovered that Michael belongs to Moot which describes itself as creative and explorative Christian activity in the city - just shows I need to get out online more.
The other reason I was interested in putting artwork with the word PAX on it out in the community is that most of my recent calligraphy has been of the word peace in various languages. Now I'm inspired to try and do something a bit more creative both with my own daubings and with the many works of art colleagues painted as part of our international day of prayer for peace service last year, now I know why I couldn't bear to throw those precious pieces of paper away. I't's also good inspiration as today is one year on and once more the international day of prayer for peace.
Thank you Michael for this creative approach to practical theological witness and art, good luck to you and to Moot. And hattip to Maggi Dawn once more.
You can see more of the Free Art Friday works here.
Photo by Michael Radcliffe.

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