10:10am – Adult Forum

God in the Arts: Encountering the Sacred through the Gift of Imagination

From the beginning of the Church’s existence, the arts have played a key role in the life of Christian people. What would worship be without the beauty of music, architecture and the spoken word? At the same time, Christianity has been central to the flourishing of the arts in Western culture, inspiring (and often funding) composers, poets, sculptors, painters, and so many others. Imagine Bach or Handel, Dovstoevsky or C. S. Lewis, da Vinci or Michelangelo without the Church. The Church and the arts seem to have always
been inextricably linked.

For the 2017-2018 academic year, St. Paul’s takes the symbiotic relationship between the Church and the Arts as a starting off point in order to explore what is sacred about the arts. What draws us to them, whether as practitioners or observers, and how do we see God in them? Hear from a range of speakers, including musicians, composers, and visual artists, as well as leaders of organizations that foster arts in the local community. Some of the speakers will have an explicitly spiritual or religious component to their presentations; many will not. But all of the speakers plan to help attendees investigate what is special about the peculiarly alluring forms of creative expression we call the arts and consider how to reflect on what is ultimately important through them.

Forums take place at 10:10 AM every Sunday morning from September to June in the St. Hilda’s Room of St. Paul’s on the
Green (unless otherwise noted).

Download an Adult Forum Brochure – Fall 2017 regular or pick one up in the Welcome Center. (You’ll also find information about Theology Tuesdays, Race & Social Justice on Wednesdays and St. Paul’s Faith in a New Millenium series)

Sunday, September 10
Responding to Music through Visual Art: ARTWorks Preview with Natasha Karpinskaia

This forum takes place at 10:10 AM in the <strong>Chittim-Howell House</strong>. In partnership with Seabury Academy of Music &amp; the Arts, St. Paul’s forum series this year will feature previews of upcoming exhibitions at the ARTWorks Gallery in residence at St. Paul’s. On September 10th, Russian-American artist Natasha Karpinskaia takes us on a tour of her show, “Pictures at an Exhibition,” which opens later that day. Karpinskaia will speak about the musical composition of the same name by Modest Mussorgsky, which serves as the inspiration for the show, and offer her thoughts on how spirituality, classical music, and visual art can contribute to and be in dialogue with one another.