“Supporting and encouraging a large and thriving community of musicians and other artists of all disciplines centred on the Stroud area, and linked to a strong sense of spirituality”

What have an artist, training consultant, coach, welder and fabricator, property consultant, musician, exhibition erector, landscape lighting designer, art curator, agent, Green politician, markets manager, poet, ex-punk, New Age traveller, Green Spaces manager, and vicar - all have in common? The answer - they are all currently helping us to come up with a vision of how St Laurence can encourage and support the thriving arts community centred on the Stroud area.

​Fractalight
Festival of Light 2018

The Festival of Light took place between 3rd and 24th March 2018 and featured a major exhibition of the work of FRACTALIGHT - local artists Jack Wimperis and Hal Wynne Jones.
​Here are some of the images from that event -

​Spiritual Art at
​Stroud Sacred Music Festival

We were delighted to be able to showcase some local artists at St Laurence during
​Stroud Sacred Music Festival. Here's a look at some of their inspirational work.

Patricia Goode
A local painter whose captivating pieces have drawn in many
"There is a strong spiritual thread that flows through your work.
​I feel myself being pulled into the art! Absolutely beautiful." Houpeke Puipi

Patricia - known as 'Tigga' - is a Stroud-based artist who paints landscapes with a difference. They contain symbolism and images from ancient texts, and draw inspiration from the Christian Gospels and also from a wide selection of poetry, literature, music and performance art (particularly circus and festival). "The Rose and the Yew Tree" was inspired by the beautiful glass etching by Laurence Whistler in Salisbury Cathedral, and the poetry of TS Eliott and music of Gustav Mahler. The wild lanscape, "The Light Shines in the Darkness, and the Darkness shall not put it out", was painted to the music of Rod Stewart and Mike Oldfield; while the "White Stag and Owl in Moonlight" was inspired by John Rutter's Requiem, and the songs of Purcell and Dowland. Patricia paints in oil, acrylic, ink and mixed media, and runs creativity and painting workshops, and gives individual tuition. Prints of her work are available on request. She can be contacted by email at 'tiggagoode@gmail.com'; or by telephone on 01453 298359.

Andrew Wood
Ceramic sculptor​
"Playful yet thought-provoking clay bas-reliefs and sculpture. Throughout his career, Wood’s work in ceramics has been unique whilst at the same time exerting a quiet yet substantial influence on the direction of contemporary ceramics." Chelsea Arts Club

"The Golden Spire"
​by Andrew Wood, 2017
Constructed in wood; heads modelled in clay; cast in plaster; painted in water paints ​

"Spires, sometimes called steeples, are generally found on top of church towers. With no obvious architectural purpose, they might be regarded as pointless and extravagant extras. On the contrary, they had a very simple and profound purpose, which was entirely symbolic. The extraordinary beauty of their visual perfection inspire us to look upward to Heaven and turn our attention to God. The Church of St Laurence sits plum in the centre of town, overlooking and framed by the delightful church gardens .... The church appears to have grown out of the ground, while the spire presides over the town with an otherworldly presence."
Andrew Wood ​

"Dead? Dying? Praying? Thinking? Sleeping? Dreaming?"

MORE ABOUT
​ANDREW WOOD

​​The "Angel of the North (Aisle!)"

Stroud Sacred Music Festival 2017 also saw the re-appearance of the "Angel of the North (Aisle!)" - last seen at the Open Heart Interfaith Festival at ​St Laurence back in March 2017

This sculpture was built by the children of the 'Wide Open Space' part of the Pioneering Ministry at St Laurence. It was designed by the Revd Mathew Page, inspired by Anthony Gormley's famous Angel of the North, and was first installed at St Laurence to mark the feast of The Annunciation, when the Angel comes to Mary to tell her she will soon give birth to Jesus.

With its wings of 3.5m, our Angel is 1:15 scale of the magnificent 54m span of the original. Gormley talks about how angels symbolise liminal moments when things are changing from one time to another - in his case the move from the industrial era to the technological. In the case of St Laurence Parish Church, we sense that we are also perhaps at just such an important moment ourselves.

"Do Justice"
The Art of Resistance: Protest, Liberation Theology,
​and the Mayhem of Spray-Paint

As part of the Open Heart Interfaith Festival at St Laurence in March 2017, Revd Jennifer Fey and local graffiti artist Hasan Kamil worked with local teenagers to look at Protest Art, the inherently spiritual practice of artistic protest criticising injustice through the eyes of practicing communities, with an emphasis on graffiti and spray-painting. The workshop also took a look at Liberation Theology, an interpretation of Christian theology which emphasises a concern for the liberation of the oppressed, initially developed through Latin American Roman Catholicism and individuals such as Gustavo Gutierrez of Peru, Leonardo Boff of Brazil, Juan Luis Segundo of Uruguay, and Jon Sobrino of Spain. Local teenagers had the opportunity to have a go at their own spray-painting, and here's a look at some of the results -