Gillian Lever
Newly commissioned oil paintings underway
2022 is proving to be a rich time of re-connecting with old friends some of whom I haven’t been able to see over the past couple of years and some of whom I hadn’t seen for many, many years before COVID. It is energising to see people ‘in real life’ and share food and conversation once again. When visiting other people’s houses it has been interesting to see the artwork that they choose to live with and to become reacquainted with a few of my paintings that still hang on their walls. I’ve also enjoyed sending paintings off to new homes. This painting ‘Tranquility’ is currently settling in with a nephew and his partner.
Another energising pleasure of 2022 has been working on a number of new oil commissions for people wanting paintings to mark particular life events for themselves and others. I am really enjoying the process of meeting with people, listening to the stories inspiring the commissions, working up studies and then completing the paintings themselves. If you would like to commission a painting please do get in touch.
Here are some paintings currently underway.
Jake Lever
WASWASA
I was really glad to be invited to the community launch of WASWASA by my friend, artist Mohammed Ali last week at the brand new home of Soul City Arts in Sparkbrook, Birmingham. WASWASA – Whispers in Prayer will be an immersive theatrical experience created for Birmingham’s Hippodrome Theatre showing later this summer. It will explore the act of Islamic prayer and what that means in a modern, secular society. Mohammed writes,
“The physical act of prayer now extends beyond religious spaces to places such as parks and city-squares; it spills over into our everyday worlds. It is even visible in sports arenas with athletes prostrating to the ground or raising hands to the sky in moments of triumph. Can we draw parallels between an act of personal faith and our quest to achieve a higher state of focus?”
Jake Lever
Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge
Visiting the house recently that Jim and Helen Ede lived in during the 60s and 70s reminded me of just how inspirational this place is to my life and work. It has been one of those liminal spaces to which I have been drawn back to again and again since I first encountered it in the 1980s whilst a student. A few years ago I spent time photographing and writing in the house. “Lantern” is a short poem which captures my response to the light within the space and how it affected the objects within the space.
Lantern
This white world where light
bounced and flickered all day, slowly became hushed and still, a sea of low
whites.
Light faded until blacks expanded, horizons started to float, and modest
sculptures became strangely monumental.
Cloaked in a cosmic dim, the shells and
the furniture and the pebbles started up a mysterious new dance, free of all
inhibition.
Gillian Lever
Reflections on the Role of Art in Spiritual Accompaniment, with the art of Alfred Wallis
‘Sail away from the safe harbour, catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore, Dream, Discover.’
Mark Twain
In May Becky Morse-Brown and I facilitated an online session for the ‘Birmingham Forum of Spiritual Directors and Companions’ exploring creative approaches in spiritual direction through the work of Alfred Wallis. Alfred Wallis’s paintings of seascapes, harbours, lighthouses and voyaging offer a rich starting point for reflective conversation.
‘To come to the knowledge you have not
You must go by a way in which you know not.’
St John of the Cross
For information about future art and spirituality sessions and ‘Creative Quiet Days’ please contact Gillian.
Gillian Lever
ABBA AMMA - Improvisations on the Lord’s Prayer book cover
I am delighted that Nicola Slee has chosen to use my painting ‘Restore’ for the cover of her new book ‘ABBA AMMA - Improvisations on the Lord’s Prayer’.
Nicola has worked in theological education for the past 30 years, combining this with a freelance portfolio of writing, retreat work, spiritual direction and consultancy.
The Lord’s Prayer unites Christians of all traditions. It is the first and perhaps only prayer that people learn by heart. However, its patriarchal and kingdom imagery do not resonate universally today. How do we pray the prayer Jesus taught us in ways which are authentic and life-giving?
Nicola’s book, emerging from years of praying the Lord’s Prayer, offers a series of prayers and poems written in response to it. Each prayer uses the address Abba or Amma: Aramaic terms of intimate address to God as father or mother which reflect Jesus’ usage, drawing on the abbas and ammas of the Desert Tradition as well as our own parental relationships.
It aims to integrate our whole human journey into the vocation of being a follower of Jesus. An extended introduction explores why praying the Lord’s Prayer is significant, how it is problematic, and how contemporary theological reinterpretations offer fresh perspective on it.
Above all ‘ABBA AMMA’ inspires me to pray at a time when our world feels very weary and in need of honest prayer.
Books can be purchased from the publisher Canterbury Press.
Jake Lever
Printmaking and research
In recent weeks I have been developing colour studies for the ‘Do the Little Things’ map. I am now in the final stages of printing the triangular plates to make the print which will comprise 20 equilateral triangles. The locations of the map will be marked in gold and my hope is that it will tell a story of human connection during the pandemic, whilst offering a broader vision of global interdependence for the future.
Last week I visited Tate Liverpool Tate and spent time looking at Bruce Onobrakpeya’s beautifully tender ‘Fourteen Stations of the Cross’ Linocut prints. The apostles wear Adire prints from the Yoruba region while Roman soldiers are dressed in colonial-era police uniforms. As I embark on the printmaking stage of the ‘Do the Little Things’ map it was inspirational to spend time looking closely at Onobrakpeya’s sensitive and striking prints.
