INTRODUCTIONFor the past 30 years, Nancy Chinn has been creating art for use in the worship spaces of many sorts of communities. She has created this art to visually augment particular themes or events, and has been committed to a temporary art form that is tightly woven to these particular themes. She works easily either in community or alone to create this work, but only after the community who will use it agrees on the design intentions. Her spirit is very comfortable with large, architectural scaled spaces, but she also does work for small intimate spaces with equal ease. Of primary focus for her has been to study and uncover the power of symbol and its relationship to Spirit. This lifetime study forms the basis for the images that she uses.
RECENT INTERVIEW
W hen people come into a space you have altered, how do they respond?
The connection of the viewer to the piece and the depth of meaning is tied most profoundly to the activation of the image through the liturgy. The artistic content is directly woven to the context of worship, like a set design is to a play. It is also a visual, but prayerful expression.
My liturgical work is temporary. I do this specifically so that the work can't be captured or invested in. It's not a commodity driven form, but a liturgy-responsive form. The work is intended to disappear, in the way that God is glimpsed and never owned.
When I install a work, I have no idea what it will mean to the people. Everyone's experience of the work, and their various responses, completes the work beyond any intention I might have had. I started doing this work because what we verbally proclaim and what we visually proclaim is dissonant.
There is a real struggle among "church artists" who are not artists, but see their work as decorators. They don't understand image is alive. There's a big difference between a pretty space, and a prayer space.
There is never a neutral image. Even the absence of imagery means something. And to have these barren worship environments is often an act of inhospitality. They are multi-use spaces rather than places for prayer. They lack potency in their sterility.
How do you nurture yourself as a productive artist?
I have continued my career as an artist, working personally in my studio, alongside my church work. The scale and exposure of the church work makes me brave as I experiment with materials, and spaces. My personal work allows experimentation, discipline, and exploration of personal images.
I have an MFA from John F. Kennedy University in Fibers and Mixed Media. I see my work as weaving: the warp is the liturgy; the weft is the materiality of the piece. Like a painter, I see the whole surface as plastic. Like a weaver, I also I gather the components that link together and create the whole tapestry. I also have an MA in art Education from SF State. This training helps me know how to encourage community participation.
While creating or installing work, I see myself as a witness to the work unfolding rather than in the role of forcing it to take the shape of a pre-determined vision. I'm more interested in being relational with my work rather than in having mastery over it. I avoid the language of art-making like "execute," "force," or "control." Divination is always imbued with creativity. I cultivate this quality as a relationship to Spirit.
Does work ever fail?
Absolutely, but that's one of the gifts of temporary work. Sometimes a work is just not right, or not realized completely, or irrelevant. At worst, we put up with it and we're real glad when it's going down. Some things never make the alchemical leap to art but are delightful, or challenging clutter. For example, I did an installation for a church this year for their stewardship campaign and I got the scale wrong. It was a fussy thing in the air, rather than art that soared.
Once you have a theme, how do you develop it into an image?
I apply one or more of the following concepts to the image that rises from the theme, and this helps me expand it into a full design. Then I do a very rough drawing of it, and a verbal description (written also if necessary). The commissioning agent is presented with this, and usually the original concept is modified by the ideas that come from this meeting. The final concept is approved, and then the work is begun. For very large projects, I put the design and description into a small handmade book that can be held. This helps me not be overwhelmed by the scale of the project.
| Basic Elements of Design: |
Click on each image for a larger view |
One of the most significant visual experiences is the perception of light and dark. Through illumination and shadow, the use of both bright and deep colors, one honors both the light and the dark as sources of information. Each needs the other to contribute to wholeness. By placing these together in a design, each is activated, and the space between light and dark becomes a place of mystery.
Sheer, scrim-like fabric and paper are common hangings in the place for worship. They are lightweight and easy to hang. They appear and disappear in the light as they move in their high places with the air currents and with the movements of the people below.
Our spirits respond to color combinations and harmonies with mood. Color affects us with both personal and culturally-bound associations. A choice as simple as using colors that expand and enhance the particular environment rather than relying on stereotyped images to create meaning helps us to notice that someone has paid attention to this place. So the viewers do too. The color becomes an invitation to enter a holy space.
The use of one element over and over is a very effective visual tool. It does for the eye what the praying of the rosary or another mantra does for the ear, and so it lifts the soul. Pattern reminds us that life is not linear, but made from small steps that lead us into all imaginable forms of dancing. Creating order out of discreet elements yields an experience of power over chaos. It brings us peace and a sense of completion.
Shiny, dull, rough, smooth, complex: Texture speaks subtly of diversity. Like other images of contrasts, texture shows that life is varied and variegated, not just smooth, not only rough.
Some work is just too small for the space for which it is intended. It is made for the intimate scale of the home, and doesn't read past the second pew in the church. The architecture of the church is usually our clue for scale. The over-scale, large, soaring space moves our human boundaries to places of imagination and spirit.
A work can be changed during an event by the addition or subtraction of piece, or it can imply movement in the gesture of the lines. This prevents visual art from being static. The movement is almost imperceptible, subtle but significant. The work evokes without being literal.
Excerpted from Spaces for Spirit: Adorning the Church, Liturgy Training Publications, Chicago, 1998
Photos in this exhibit were contributed by Mary Porter Chase, Jason Chinn, Michael Mudd, Benjamin Privitt, and Hal Weiner.