Stepping into the Cardozo Kindersley Workshop in Victoria Road, Cambridge is like stepping out of the jangle of modern life into monastic peace. The workshop is an orderly, busy place with the metronomic click of hammers on chisels, but the atmosphere is relaxed and friendly.
The workshop's founder, David Kindersley, worked his apprenticeship under the well-known sculptor, letter cutter, engraver and typeface designer Eric Gill, from 1934 to 1936. He wrote of Gill: ``He was a balanced man bringing to his work an exceptional intellect, sensitivity and skill. It was in stone that these three were best united.'' Eric Gill was the son of an Anglican clergyman but became a Roman Catholic. He ran his workshops as a guild, integrating work and religion, and there was a resident chaplain there. There is a clear echo of Gill in David Kindersley's workshop, captured in its atmosphere and philosophy. Kindersley's first workshop was in Sussex, but in 1946 he moved to farm buildings in Barton, Cambridgeshire. Subsequently the workshop moved to the 14th-century Chesterton Tower in 1967. In 1977 he bought the Victorian school next to St Luke's Church, extending it to provide sufficient natural light for the work.
David Kindersley was an outstanding letter cutter and designer of letterforms. His work is seen in many cathedrals and public buildings in this country and overseas. Locally, his work includes the relief map at the American War Cemetery at Madingley, the gilded slate in Lion Yard, lettering on Peterborough Magistrates' Court, lettering designed for Cambridge road signs, the Trinity College war memorial; and work in many other colleges.
When Kindersley died three years ago, his wife, Lida Lopes Cardozo, who came from Holland as his apprentice in 1976 and whom he married in 1981, took on the challenge of running the workshop. Lida is very conscious of tradition and says that one of the things her husband handed on was his professionalism. She is adamant that work should be ready and in place on time and as good as it can be: ``It has got to be perfect to my eye, and if it's not good enough, it's not going.''
The workshop designed the gates for the new British Library and recently completed a commemorative stone for Wakefield Cathedral and a new sundial at Pembroke College, which is viewable from Tennis Court Road. It comprises a complete wall and is the largest sundial in Cambridge. Lida commented: ``What was great was that the Master and Fellows of Pembroke, the architect and the workshop were all in a complete circle of truth and trust. We were cutting straight into the wall of their building and if we hadn't been up to it they would have had a mess. So there was complete trust and that is really the excitement I get out of this work.'' She added: ``You don't have to have a sundial (which is exuberant) but it is making a point out of life, sun and warmth and is very cheerful and very precise. With a sundial we position ourselves in the universe.''
Lida describes herself as a letter cutter: ``I could spend my complete lifetime just cutting, designing, drawing, engraving. I don't mind which technique I use but the letterform is what excites me. It is the ultimate human invention---it is communication. The letterforms themselves (apart from the meanings of the words) are so beautiful. I have this idea of absolute perfection---I have an aim that I want to cut the perfect letter. I haven't done it yet but I will. I have that arrogance to say I will and the humility to know I never will.''
At present there are three apprentices at the workshop, Helmut Hochrein, Joshua Larkum and Mark Wainwright. Apprentices can start at any age. After the first year their earnings double and if they stay on beyond their apprenticeship they become partners in the workshop. Kevin Cribb, who started with David Kindersley in 1946 and is the son of Laurie Cribb (Eric Gill's right-hand man), still works when he is needed --- another example of continuity. Lida and David had three children --- Paul, who is 12, Hallam (10) and Vincent (9). She says that they are all creative and hopes that at least one of them will continue the tradition.
Of talent, she reflective: ``I was not born as a letter cutter. I've been born with a gift of being able to develop and I think everyone has a certain gift. The parcels may be of different sizes and different contents but we've all been given something and, if you actually find your vocation to match that original parcel, you can start going places. I think that having been given it, you then have to hand it on. That is something that is very hard, but I feel I have to do it because I have been thrown this by David, and David by Eric Gill, and so on.''
To begin a new year, this edition of Majestas is making a special focus on faith and art.
For much of its history the Christian Church has been ambivalent about art. The Biblical prohibition of graven images held a powerful early influence, making Christians uneasy about anything that was deemed to be imitative. Church Fathers like Tertullian argued that art turned one towards worshipping the natural world and away from God. Jerome objected that as a moral matter money should be spent better elsewhere. And, ironically, in addition to those who complained of too much realism in copying nature, there were also those who complained that art was not realistic enough. Augustine, in the Soliloquies, argued that art, in needing to employ falsehoods to achieve its effect, was at odds with the higher truth of God.
Other Christians have justified the use of art in religion by highlighting its educative function. Pope Gregory the Great became well known for his image of art as the Bible for the ignorant. In her article this month, Lynne Broughton explores the Biblical imagery of Great St Mary's east window. Some Christians have explained art's contribution to faith in terms of its sacramental power; art points beyond itself to another order of reality. Michelangelo (1475---1564) insisted that his task was not to imitate nature but to draw us to a beauty that is above nature. In an article introducing a new project in the University, Theology Through the Arts, Fiona Bond discusses the critical role the arts play in our own culture in expressing and shaping moral and spiritual truth, and how theology might turn to art as a source for its own renewal.
For yet other people, the experience of producing art---of being creative---is itself an avenue to God. Robin Stemp, in Accidental Resurrection, gives us a privileged insight into how a personal awakening towards what is perhaps the most mysterious of all theological ideas---resurrection---has inspired, and found expression in, her painting.
Art teaches us new ways of seeing, new ways of imagining; it helps us make the link between what we believe and what we experience. This is how it worked for George Herbert, when he wrote ``Easter'':
Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part,
With all thy art.
The cross taught all wood to resound his name,
Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.
![[Eloise
Harding, Vanessa Owens (co-ordinator) and Terry Diver of Harambee]](January/Harambee.jpg)
St Michael's is currently providing office space for two local environmental agencies. The Harambee Centre works with the educational system to encourage a constructive understanding of issues relating to ``global inequality, sustainability, peace, trade and politics''. It runs a resource library and a bookshop, runs activities in schools, and advises teachers. The office is in the Montefiore Room and is open 1---5pm Mondays to Fridays, and 10am-1pm Saturdays. Tel: 01223 358116, Email: sa90@dial.pipex.com.
![[Sarah Forman and Catherine Marshall of Friends of the Earth]](January/FriendsOTE.jpg)
Friends of the Earth is celebrating its 25th year as a leading environmental pressure group and the Cambridge branch has moved to St Michael's from former offices in Regent Street. Locally, its particular concerns are transport and planning, recycling and housing development. The office, including a library and information service, is open on weekday mornings (except Tuesdays) and Saturdays. Tel: 01223 517509.
Christian Aid in Latin America was chosen for the 1997 Christmas Thankoffering. Two projects in particular caught the attention of the Wider Concerns Committee.
The Chocolate Chain Project supports workers in Brazil's cocoa plantations, most of whom are so poorly paid they cannot afford to buy the chocolate their crop is used to produce. Christian Aid works in partnership with the Transnational Information Exchange to promote linking and sharing of information for the benefit of the workers.
Action for Water works to provide a clean water supply for all in Apoyo al Cambatiente in Matagalpa, where many children have died as a result of diarrhoea and other diseases. It costs £48 per family, or £13 per person, to install a clean water supply.
Additionally, two local charities were chosen as the beneficiaries of the Christmas Carol Service collection. The Bridge Project in Mill Road works with young people suffering from the effects of drug addiction. Bridget's Hostel, in Tennis Court Road, was founded by Margaret Spufford (a former member of GSM) for disabled students attending one of the two universities in the City.
Joye Rosenstiel, Wider Concerns Committee
The Archbishop of York, the Most Reverend Dr David Hope, presided at a special eucharist celebrating the 140th Anniversary of the Universities Mission to Central Africa, on 4th December 1997. Later in the afternoon he gave a University Lecture in the Senate House.
Sheila Cameron lighting candles at the beginning of the Advent Carol Service.
A United Epiphany Carol Service, with Our Lady and the English Martyrs and Zion Baptist Church, will take place on Sunday 11th January, at 8pm, in GSM.
The Toll House Band will once again be playing at the Family Ceilidh on Saturday 10th January, 6.30---9.30pm in St Michael's. Tickets, priced £3.50 (adults), £2.50 (children) and £10 (family), including food and a glass of wine or a soft drink, are available from the Church Office, Robert Avery and Michael Haynes. Numbers are strictly limited, so please do not delay.
The party for older members of GSM is being held on Sunday 4th January, 3---5pm, at Girton College. Food and variety entertainment will be provided. Lifts to Girton should be available via the Neighbourhood Links. Offers for food will be welcome. For further information please contact Betty Orange (01223) 353385 or the Church Office (01223) 350914.
Robin Stemp, a professional artist and art journalist, writes about how faith finds expression through painting.
When I think of the word resurrection, I see a warm red, becoming an orange yellow flowing into gold and cool lemon, and ending in indigo blue. It is a word which undergoes change, the colours dying and being replenished by others, until at the end the indigo fades into nothing. It is both an end and a strong hint that there is more to come. Exactly what that might be, is not clear, but it is certainly there. My startling confrontation with the reality of resurrection came about purely by accident, and it is the unplanned answer to the ongoing questions about life and death and what happens next, which I have explored in my work during the past few years. The most recent work has been concerned with the subject of resurrection on a mundane, human level, with God working through daily reality and making the commonplace holy.
To those who deal in certainty, the accidental is unlikely. To those who question --- and to be an artist is eternally to ask questions --- the accidental is an accepted and important part of life. I do not live in an age of absolutes but of doubts and questions and answers which lead to more questions. In the end it is the unpremeditated happening which makes me stop and accept, with gratitude, that which I have been seeking. Often it comes as a result of a death, either physical or during a period of mental and emotional stalemate, when all that is familiar and easy has fallen away and we are left with nothing except ourselves. To painters it is a well known state of creative blockage, to be dreaded but grudgingly accepted as inevitable. In my experience the blockage has always been lifted by the seemingly accidental, at a time when the spark which had ignited the work had died, and all I had left to carry the work along was a technical and intellectual facility, and the professionalism which upholds, but does not on its own sustain, work. It is when the work has been put aside and crushing self-doubt, fear of never painting again, disgust at so much time wasted, has eaten into the soul, that the light is switched on, and a new beginning emerges.
Personal resurrection came to me as a tourist in Australia, when, bereft of all my familiar comforts, I walked around Uluru (Ayres Rock) and I experienced the overwhelming presence of God as a tangible abstract. It is the tangibility of abstraction and the way in which painting can illustrate the invisible, which occurred to me just afterwards, when, after the death of two friends and faced with another blockage, I went, by chance, to a performance of Schnittke's Second String Quartet. I always draw in a concert hall, but this time, instead of the musicians, I drew the music. Schnittke's clear colours in sound form were as vivid to my imagination as the players. I drew what I heard and then made a series of paintings. Later I read that the composer had imagined his music in almost exactly the way that I had drawn it.
In his Second Quartet, Schnittke explores the grief he felt after a fatal motor accident involving a friend. The music starts slowly, quietly, pondering his loss. It then quickens, reaching an agonised climax, before ending in a long, light-toned question. Resurrection? Perhaps. Possibly. Surely? Maybe. It is the questions in contemporary music and art which mark them indelibly with the stamp of this agitated age.
In my series of paintings based on Babette's Feast by Isak Dinesen, the story of how the lives of chilly ascetics was subtly changed by the titular Frenchwoman ends with an uncharacteristic dance in the snow. Silver, white, pale cerulean is shot through with red, gold, indigo. By asking questions we can, I think, move forward in tiny steps, but it is when the questioning voice is silent, we stop, stand still and wait, that the accidental, unplanned, life-changing event can quite literally knock us flying.
Theology Through the what?...'' ``Through the arts.'' I pronounced the words in a deliberate staccato over the phone so that I might be more clearly understood. ``We're a University of Cambridge Project,'' I explained, hoping this might qualify our reputation. After all, I was only trying to order a stapler, a few pens and a filing cabinet, but this company clearly needed to be convinced that we were worthy customers for their `invoice-on-delivery' service. ``Faculty of Divinity,'' I added, to assert our credibility beyond reasonable doubt, ``But we're really not a typical university project; we're going to be running an international arts festival, conferences, public seminars, arts events and things like that.'' ``Oooh!'' came the enthusiastic response. (We were clearly going to get our filing cabinet.) ``How exciting!.... How can I get more information on your project?''
It was happening again. A casual telephone encounter was turning into another entry on our `interested people' database. Even before Theology Through the Arts is officially launched as a Cambridge University research project (with a difference!), we have been inundated by calls from hundreds of people wanting to know more. At first this surprised me. I had expected the project to be difficult to explain to a reluctant academic community, an indifferent arts community and a church with other, more pressing issues. Instead, we have been quickly flooded with interest from an academic community hungry for a new challenge, an artistic community keen to rediscover a sense of the sacred and a church wanting to revitalise its worship in new and intelligent ways.
There is, of course, already an admirable history of the use of different art forms in worship and as an illustrative resource in Christianity, but there are very few models for using the arts as more than just `icing' on the liturgical cake. In our multi-media age, people are becoming increasingly literate in the language of the arts and yet our Christian thinking is still practised and articulated primarily through the written and spoken word alone. Theology Through the Arts is a project which aims to bring key artists and Christian thinkers together in new and creative partnerships in order to discover and demonstrate new ways in which the arts can contribute to a renewal of Christian theology, find ways in which the arts can contribute to a sensitive and rigorous engagement of the Church with modern and postmodern culture, and generate, through the arts, new methods of Christian education for use in the Church and the wider community.
It is hoped that through resourcing work in this area, a rigorous and fruitful engagement will be encouraged between Christian theology and the language and culture of the arts. Just as Christian theology has been informed and deepened by its encounters with new languages and new cultures, Theology Through the Arts will provide opportunities to stimulate the development of theology through the language and culture of the arts --- which is fast becoming the language and culture of our time. If we cannot learn to articulate Christian thinking in this way, there is a danger that the commentators on our spiritual, moral and social well-being will become those who already speak to mass audiences in this language - the film makers, music industry, web masters and marketing whizz-kids who, by definition, must be motivated by the health of the bank balance more than by the spiritual health of our society.
Theology Through the Arts is a University of Cambridge project, set up through the Faculty of Divinity's Centre for Advanced Religious and Theological Studies. The project's Director is Dr Jeremy Begbie, Vice-Principal of Ridley Hall. Initially planned to last for three years, the project's practical objectives include two major international conferences and a number of colloquia and workshops. Theology Through the Arts will culminate in an international arts festival to be held in Cambridge in 2000, for which a number of works of art will be commissioned.
Dr Jeremy Begbie, Project Directory, and Fiona Bond, Project Manager
Theology Through the Arts is due to be officially launched at the start of this year with a membership scheme for those interested in the project's aims and progress. If you are interested in receiving details of the scheme, please contact: Theology Through the Arts, Ridley Hall, Cambridge CB3 9HG. Tel (01223) 741078; Fax (01223) 741079.
The project's website is http://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/CARTS/TTA.html
The East Window in GSM was designed and made by the firm of Hardman and given to the church in 1869 by the Revd. H.R. Luard. It is a fine example of the revival at that time of fifteenth-century-style stained glass.
In her ongoing tour of the church, Dr Lynne Broughton considers its imagery and biblical origins.
The glass in the East Window illustrates the Nativity, with Mary and the child Jesus at its centre. Surrounding them are illustrations of the Christmas story from the conception of Jesus to the flight into Egypt. The upper panels portray the hosts of heaven. The window's layout contains a cross, formed by the intersection of the movement from right and left of shepherds and wise men towards Christ, with the movement downwards from heaven though the child to the angel announcing his birth to the shepherds.
The scenes at the bottom of the window read from left to right (north to south), illustrating what happened before and after the birth of Jesus. First the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38): the Archangel Gabriel visits Mary to tell her that she has been chosen to bear the Son of God and, although fearful, she accepts the task. Next is Mary's visit to her older cousin Elizabeth, who herself is pregnant with John the Baptist (Luke 1:39-56). Shepherds flank the Virgin and child on one side. Joseph stands behind them, pointing to the child as if encouraging them to come closer. One brings a lamb, a gift appropriate from shepherds but also signifying the Lamb of God, whom they have come to worship. This gift also foreshadows Christ's death on the cross, as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. At the centre of the bottom row an angel tells the shepherds of the birth of Christ.
On the other side are the wise men who also have come, following a star (Matthew 2:1-12). They bring gifts which symbolise the nature of this child: gold for a king, incense for God, myrrh to anoint a body for burial.
The remaining scenes show what follows the wise men's visit. In the Presentation in the Temple (Luke 2:22-39), the child is greeted by Simeon and Anna as the prophesied Redeemer for whom they have been waiting. Mary kneels before Simeon, who is holding the child. To Simeon's left is Anna; to his right Joseph holds the cage with two pigeons which are the parents' offering to God in thanksgiving for the birth of their son. The Christmas---Epiphany narrative is completed with the flight of Mary, Joseph and the child into Egypt, to escape the massacre of male children ordered by Herod, the king (Matthew 2:13-23). The children who were killed (the Holy Innocents) are considered the first of those martyred for the sake of Christ, and their killing forebodes the violent death of Jesus himself. The small upper lights of the window portray angels surrounding the star, which both heralded the coming of Christ and signified Christ himself. The New Testament speaks of Christ as ``the bright and morning star'' (Revelation 22:16), and the image is used in one of Charles Wesley's loveliest hymns: ``Dayspring from on high be near, Daystar in my heart appear.'' The star, in the topmost light, is surrounded by the cloud which veils the ineffable presence of God, from which rays of light stream down upon the Nativity scene below. Three angels flank the star. They are reminiscent of the three angels who visited Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 18:1-33) and who were an appearance of God himself. Christian theologians through the centuries have understood this Old Testament story as a reference to the trinitarian nature of God. The other angels represent the hosts of heaven surrounding the throne of God. They continually sing his praises, as did the angels who appeared to the shepherds singing ``Glory to God in the highest''.
This article forms part of a series describing our Church building.
The Revd Dr Nick Sagovsky is the new William Leech Professorial Research Fellow in Applied Christian Theology at Newcastle. Here he outlines some of the work he will be involved with in the next five years.
At the beginning of October I began work as the William Leech Professorial Research Fellow in Applied Christian Theology at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne --- and became a much-envied man. The post gives me five years to do research in what is called `Applied Christian Theology'. Any suggestion that there can be a `theoretical' theology which other people can think about before it is applied by people like me would be misleading. What the Trustees want is clear: I am ``to develop theological reflection on the nature of Christian hope, the discharge of Christian pastoral responsibility, and the communication of the Gospel in the contemporary context of the United Kingdom''.
The name of William Leech is well-known in the North East. He was a successful builder and a generous benefactor in and around Newcastle on Tyne. The trust that he endowed supports --- through a policy of ethical investment --- the work of the Bible Society, the Methodist Missionary Society, the Salvation Army, the Church Missionary Society and the SPCK. It was Sir William Leech himself who had the vision for a Professorial Research Fellowship, of which I am the third holder, after Robin Gill and Bishop Peter Selby. I was given the choice of a base in Durham or Newcastle Universities, and I chose Newcastle, where I was ordained priest in 1975. When I am up north, I stay with my daughter Kate's godparents in the parish of St Gabriel, Heaton, two streets away from my home for three happy years as a curate from 1974 to 1977. It is a delight for Ruth and me to pick up a whole circle of friendships after twenty years and to find so many of the key people at St Gabriel's to be just the same, though a new generation that I knew as children has now come into positions of responsibility.
Already, my diary seems full. The Department of Religious Studies at Newcastle runs an MA course in Applied Theology. Teaching the core course with a colleague of sharply differing views is extremely stimulating. Eight men and women, most of whom are well established in Christian ministry, joined as part-time students this year. I have public lectures to do in Newcastle and Durham, some teaching on short residential courses for clergy, a retreat to lead and some preaching in the diocese. My main work, though, is research: I have an unfinished book on `koinonia' (a current theological buzz-word meaning `participation', `fellowship' or `communion') to get off to the publisher as soon a possible; I shall be writing a theological commentary on a project which will seek to determine what would be a `low cost but acceptable' standard of living for parents and children, creating a benchmark wherever living costs are an issue --- for example, in determining levels of benefit or in means-testing by courts that have to set levels of fines or debt repayment; I am beginning research for a book on `The Common Good', building on recent ecumenical statements in Britain and in Germany. Leaving Clare after eleven years as Dean has, of course, been a wrench, but I have been given a little garret room in the College to work in when I am in Cambridge. Nearly twenty-five years ago Ruth and I joined the Friends of the North East. Now I have joined the Friends of the (late-running) Great North Eastern Railway.
Two matters were discussed at some length. The first concerned a video recently circulated by the Diocese: `Cheerful Givers'. It examined the way in which a number of churches in the Diocese have tackled both their mission and their financial need. The case studies were in no way intended as a panacea, but illustrations of the way in which certain tasks have been undertaken in certain circumstances. The schemes demonstrated how either through the building of additional facilities or through outreach schemes into the local community help and support could be made available to those in need. The PCC agreed that the video was thoughtprovoking and that it could well be worth finding an opportunity to show it to a wider audience .
Secondly, the `Aims' paper was reviewed. The particular aspect which prompted the most searching discussion was our welcome to newcomers or visitors at our services. It was acknowledged that in general our welcome is not one of our strong points. There is a delicate balance to be struck between leaving people apparently unnoticed and a ``Hello! Let me have your full family history in exchange for mineÉ'' type of welcome. There was no suggestion that this is easy, and it is quite clear that we need to take some positive steps to make people feel glad that they came. We have to recognise that there are many who like to be left alone initially, and there are others who are looking for immediate recognition and involvement. One important feature highlighted in our discussion was `eye contact', which will immediately make any welcome more meaningful.
by John Talbot
The Parochial Church Council next meets on 21st January 1998.
All events take place in Great St Mary's unless otherwise advertised.
| Saturday 3rd January | 1.05 p.m. | Healing Service | |
| Sunday 4th January Christmas 2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 p.m. | Party for Older Members | Girton College | |
| 7.30 p.m. | Young Adults Group (for details, contact Robert Avery) | ||
| Saturday 10th | 6.30 p.m. | Ceilidh (tickets from the Church Office) | St. Michael's |
| Sunday 11th January Epiphany 1 | |||
| 6.30 p.m. | Evening Prayer (said) | St Andrew's Chapel | |
| 8 p.m. | United Epiphany Carol Service with Our Lady and the English Martyrs and Zion Baptist Church (in Great St Mary's) | ||
| Sunday 18th January Epiphany 2 | |||
| Start of Week of Prayer for Christian Unity | |||
| Wednesday 21st | 7.30 p.m. | Parochial Church Council meeting | The Vicarage |
| Sunday 25th January Ephiphany 3 (Conversion of St Paul) | |||
| 6.30 p.m. | Centre of Cambridge Churches Service for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, ``Strong in the Spirit'', preacher The Revd Tony Barker, Zion Baptist Church | Wesley Methodist Church, Christ's Pieces | |
| Mission The Cambridge Intercollegiate Christian Union is holding its annual mission, this year entitled ``Paradigm Shift'', in Great St. Mary's fropm Sunday 8th February to Sunday 15th February. The main speaker is the Revd. Paul Weston, Vice-Principal of Oak Hill College. For further details contact Steve Divall. Tel. 01223 508620 | |||
Since this is the same from issue to issue, we have included a single copy of it on the site, as our Who's who at GSM page.
Majestas is edited by Robert Avery, Sheila Cameron, David Hollier, Philip Oswald (proofs) and John Sturdy (HTML) and published by: Great St Mary's The University Church, Cambridge CB2 3PQ, Tel (01223) 350914, Fax (01223) 426555.
Please contact the editors at the above address.
The deadline for the February edition of Majestas is 4th January and for the March edition, 8th February. Please submit copy to the Church Office.
For further details of the parish, including the regular service times, please see the GSM home page.