Bangor pastor teaches use of visual arts in worship

Worshippers attending Thanksgiving eve services at Grace United Methodist Church in Bangor will be showered with words of thanksgiving – literally.

A mobile made of construction-paper letters spelling out love, prayer, God’s grace and 16 other things congregants are thankful for will hang suspended from the ceiling Wednesday night at the church on Union Street.

This simple piece of artwork is just one way the Rev. Grace Bartlett, the church’s pastor, helps people imagine their faith.

Bartlett, 51, has been blending her gifts as a sculptor with her ministry for more than 15 years.

This year, as artist-in-residence at Bangor Theological Seminary, she is teaching other ministers and lay people how to incorporate the visual arts into worship services.

The first step, she explained recently in an interview at her home art studio in Bangor, is to bring congregants who might be reluctant about the idea on board.

“We understand that God is the creator,” said Bartlett, “and if we were created in God’s image, then we are creative people.”

The minister, who earned a master of fine arts degree before she entered seminary in the early 1980s, says many people are hesitant about incorporating art into worship because, when they were children, their artwork too often was criticized.

Bartlett said she helps people ease into the idea and assures them that they don’t have to be Georgia O’Keefe to participate.

Last month, Bartlett preached an “art sermon” at the seminary’s weekly worship service.

Those who attended were given a plastic bag of clay as they entered the seminary’s chapel. She asked them to think about the specific gifts they brought to the church, then to create a figure from the clay representing themselves.

At the end of the service, each person placed his or her figure in a circle on a round board.

“It’s the body of Christ in clay,” Bartlett said. “Working with clay gets us out of heads and into our hearts. By seeing the figures visually, it takes on more of a sense of reality. The message becomes, ‘Together, we’ve got what we need to do what we need.'”

Bartlett’s own work focuses on creating large sculptures of seashells from slim wooden dowels with handmade paper stretched over them. To create them, she studies shells gathered from beaches, and, eventually, returns them to the ocean.

The minister believes that art is one way to attract to the church people younger than 30, a demographic group that’s noticeably absent from every denomination.

“This younger generation’s into visuals,” she said. “That’s part of their everyday experience. But visuals – stained glass, plays, paintings and sculpture – have been around a long, long time in terms of the church. We just need to capture them again.”

“Visual Spirituality: Worshipping Creatively,” a workshop led by Bartlett, will be from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5; and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 6, at Bangor Theological Seminary, 300 Union St. For information, call 942-6781.