Writing, visual art, and an organ recital!

Painted words and pictures from letters were only part of the action at St. Margaret’s church today when the Handmade Gospel visited the regular Tuesday lunchtime Organ Recital.

With the arrival of school holidays young people attending todays recital also got involved in creating illustrations for Luke’s gospel. Creations included an illustrated letter ‘I’; a picture of the crucifixion; and the beginnings of a Celtic cross. Here is Jesus on the cross…..  (thanks Tyler!)

and here is a cross colouring….

We will add some more photos when we get chance to take them!

P.S. The organ recital was excellent too.

Great catch of fish at St. Edmund’s school!

Summer has arrived and we took our new gazebo to St. Edmund’s school fete. Excellent choice, as we had typical summer weather. Every time the rain sheeted down everyone squashed inside it like sardines!

It didn’t rain all the time, and in between the showers children and adults got down to some serious artwork.  Potato printing fish lead to a colourful version of the big catch mentioned in Luke chapter 5 verse 6.

Ironically, we also began making a collage of a storm showing the moment the disciples, fearful for their lives, woke Jesus.Demonstrating his power he calmed the storm and everyone was safe (if not dry!). This is in Luke chapter 8 verses 23 and 24.

 

All of this provided a taster for a bigger art event taking place on 27th July from 10am to 12noon followed by a communal lunch.

In the local paper

This was our press release which the local paper (Lynn News) published pretty well verbatim – see todays edition.

Hand-made gospel for North Lynn

300 local schoolchildren have been busy writing verses of the Gospel according to Luke, as part of North Lynn’s celebration of the 400^th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible.

The churches in North Lynn are marking the anniversary by producing a community “Hand-made Gospel”. Individuals and groups are invited to contribute one or more of the 1,100 verses making up the 24 chapters of Luke’s gospel, recalling the story of Jesus’ birth, life, teaching, death and resurrection.

Much of the gospel will be hand-written, although some people have offered to reproduce the text by stitching or collage. Each chapter begins with a colourful illustrated letter and there will be ‘carpet’ pages, as can be found in ancient hand-crafted gospels, such as the famous Lindesfarne Gospel.

The children of Eastgate Primary and Highgate Infants Schools have got the project off to a flying start. Four people from the churches, Angela and Mark Jenner, Jean Harrington and Revd Sally Kimmis, have visited the schools over the last two weeks, explaining the project and telling the children the history of how the King James Version came into being. Then, class by class, the children got to work.

Each child was given a verse or two to copy in their best hand-writing. All of the children’s work will be collated into a book and when the gospel is completed, it will be stitched and bound and available to display. The finished book will be over 60cm in height.

Angela Jenner, Community Worker for the North Lynn churches, said: “The children have been fantastic and worked really hard. They were really interested in the history of how the Bible came to be translated into English but even more enthusiastic about contributing their own verses.”

Angela went on to say: “Each child has been given a souvenir postcard, recording which verse of which chapter they have written. The postcard also gives details of the Community Celebration on Sunday 30^th October, when the new Bishop of Lynn, The Rt Revd Jonathan Meyrick, will join us to help launch the finished gospel for the community.”

ends

41 pages of verses!

We are hot, sticky and tired!

After spending 5 hours and 2 cans of spray mount the first 41 pages of Luke’s gospel are written. No, they are not finished as most of the chapter headings and illustrated letters have yet to be made. There are also many gaps waiting for artwork.

The last verse fixed in is at the end of chapter 8. The huge pile of verses sitting on the table is significantly reduced…. but chapters 9-18 are still taunting us.

This is the first page….

Major writing week 1

Finally the preparations have been completed for the first of 2 weeks of large scale verse writing.

This week has seen adults and young people complete about 350 verses of chapters 2 to 9.

Young people at Eastgate school have heard about the history of the KJV, as well as considering the making of handwritten and printed books. They have engaged with Luke’s gospel, writing verses and considering some of the things it says.

Adults in North Lynn and at St John’s Church have contributed a range of verses, including the Christmas story which was hardly suited to young people in June!

Now the core team has a few days work sorting, trimming, and glueing – we reckon there is at least 40 pages.

Illustrated letter makers, chapter heading writers, and artists required!

 

Cool postcard

The long awaited postcard image has arrived! 5 people wrote on their hands some time back for the title, but photos of an original 1611 Bible were only taken last week. (Special thanks are due to Norwich Cathedral Library for letting us see this very old Bible.)

Here is the final image…

First verses written

Its amazing how much people want to write, sometimes 3 or 4 verses. Everyone is choosing bright coloured pens so the vision of the whole spectrum of colour from the pages is already happening.

Yesterday saw the first verses produced by the craft group at North Lynn Community Centre. Interested people completed the first few paragraphs. Very exciting was a conversation with a signwriter who has offered to help others produce illustrated letters to start each chapter. She also wrote 2 verses. I was very pleased that other people felt comfortable to say it wasn’t for them.

Today mums at Tiny Tots didn’t want to stop writing. We had fun with the story of Mary and Elizabeth, choosing which verses suited people’s circumstances. Who will write the verse: “‘How can this be?’ said Mary. ‘I am still a virgin.”? provoked an interesting discussion.

The Annunciation by Gottfried Helnwein

1120 verses to go!