Let the Church Say Amen
I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. Psalm 37:25
First and foremost, giving honor to God, to Grace and Holy Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, clergy, the ministerial staff and congregation, thank you for embracing me with open arms, and thank you for allowing me to express my love of the Holy Spirit through my craft. Thank you for blessing me and allowing my light to shine, my soul is satisfied. Hallelujah, thank you Jesus!
Grace and Holy Trinity Episcopal Cathedral is a treasured jewel in Kansas City, their Arts Ministry is a powerful tool which has established itself as a brilliant light for creative imaginative minds in the arts. They are not only ministering to the soul — they are providing a spiritual creative balance to the community they serve. Churches do not just set in our communities; their ministry is worldwide, from the shores of South Africa to the Irish isles. Their ability to effect change with human beings through a ministry in the arts is compelling. Art is scriptural, and it has a bright future with assistance and support of Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral’s Arts Ministry. I am very glad to have been invited to exhibit my artwork in such a splendid edifice. It is my hope that the support from our community will continue to assist in their efforts to build a positive arts ministry program.
I am humbled and grateful to be an artist, to have the ability to express what I feel without saying a word; the words I would have expressed are in the work that I create.
I was knitted together in the womb of my mother from the seed of my father, I am a child of God, my gifts and talents come from Him. My mother taught me how to thread a needle and sew together fabric, my daddy taught me the importance of being true to myself — loving who I am and the people I come from. Together they taught me the strength of prayer and religious invocation; their lessons have served me well.
It has always been fascinating to me how life began with dirt and a tree — that fascination found its way into my artwork early in my career. My artwork is ever changing and evolving; what has remained constant is my use of nature, I have used trees and leaves as a basis to illustrate my inner most feelings about life’s conditions, therefore it is appropriate that the images of trees and leaves in my fabric collages describes how I feel about my Creator.
The scriptures I used to create leaves in my fabric collage, Genesis, are from pages of disposed bibles that were discarded like old shoes, torn and tattered pages from books that clearly had been marked as rubbish to be thrown away like irrelevant waste.
I have incorporated and immersed my cloth collages using rich African textiles and marvelous batiks in an age old practice of joining paper and fabric with needle and thread as I share my relationship of creating with help from God.
I have long been a lover of poetry, spoken word and story telling performances. I have a great respect and admiration for the works of the Harlem Renaissance literary community. For me, it enhances and fulfills the art experience. Therefore, I have created pieces present and past dedicated to the writings of some of those formidable literary geniuses. The religious poems and song by James Weldon Johnson “God’s Trombones: Seven Sermons in Verse” and the Negro National Anthem—“Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” the first song I learned to sing as a child in church. Then there’s Langston Hughes, “I am the Darker Brother,” and Middle Passage, my artwork that pays homage to the West African Sorrow chant which was used as the melody for John Newton’s “Amazing Grace.”
The Negro spiritual, our freedom songs, my title work Let the Church Say Amen, replicating the act of call and response, the pastor would say, can I get a amen, and the church would respond by saying a loud and sonorous, Amen preacher! I am sharing the life of my ancestors—my legacy.
Textiles are a visual representation of history, philosophy, ethics, oral literature, religious belief, social values, and political thought; it distinguishes cultural communities, it holds a rich biblical and histological importance. Considered rare commodities, textiles like cotton, linen, flax and silk were traded and worn by prophets, rabbis, kings and queens, just as linen was and still is used in burial ceremonies in many parts of the world. The West African textile Kente cloth has withstood the test of time. Today Kente cloth is the recognized universal textile of the African and African American communities all over the world, the textile of Ashanti royalty—with each thread and color holding a definition of its creation.
What you are viewing is my testimony, visual documents of my life and the ancestors I come from, my tribe. A people torn from all they knew and the lives they had, only to weather the storms of slavery, hatred and strife in places they now call home within a variety of countries as the slave ships stopped in ports all over the world to deliver their human cargo. My ancestors covered me with their human branches—deeply rooted in spirituality, worship and religion—it filled my spirit and allowed me to flourish living in this place we call Earth—to bear witness to God’s unwavering love.
The bible is my lineage. All the testaments and stories of the bible written from the prophets’ personal conversations and experiences with God as they began their lives under the trees rooted deep in rich spiritual soil—the world’s beginning, it is scripture. We are the people of the documents written by the prophets, studied by religious scholars, artists, sculptors, theologians, and researched by archaeologists—the scriptures and books thereof are living documents, and I am their living testimony.
It is my hope that you will take away a positive experience from my exhibition and realize that we are all God’s children, Amen!
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in the eyes of God, in the name of Jesus, Hallelujah, Amen!
And every skillful woman spun with her hands, and they all brought what they had spun in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen. —Exodus 35:25
Peace
Sonié Joi Thompson-Ruffin© 2014