The 1st Annual Summer Sunday School Art Exhibition!

On Sunday, Sept 22nd, an enthusiastic and appreciative group gathered in the Atrium for the opening of the  Summer Sunday School Art Exhibition (optimistically called the 1st Annual by our guest speaker!).  It was a wonderful, joyous event and the children were thrilled to see their work celebrated by the community.  Mark Peacock, a long-time parishioner of Christ Church Cathedral, a devoted art-lover, and a great supporter of Christian education who spent many early Sunday mornings reading Bible stories to his own children in the Children’s Chapel during the 8:00   a.m. service opened the Vernisagge.

art lovers

Mark’s Opening Remarks

Mark Peacock

I would like to welcome you all, and especially the artists and their families, to the Cathedral’s First Annual Summer Sunday School Art Exhibition.

The theme for this first summer program can be summarized as learning about God through Nature.

God has blessed our City and our Province with much natural beauty to see and appreciate.  Those of you who know the Childrens Chapel in the Cathedral will be familiar with the wonderful stained glass. It is resplendent with  reflective rabbits and flying fish and the inscription “All creatures great and small”.

Yes, God loves them all and he also loves the trees, and the flowers and the branches that are in the side garden to the Cathedral .

In a fresh initiative and to take advantage of those trees and flowers and branches as artists’ models, the Sunday School actually moved into the side garden for outdoors classes this summer.

one of the artists with his work

The result after 10 weeks of Sundays with anywhere from 6-15 children each Sunday, is the children’s art we are here to celebrate.

It was the result of a great deal of work by both the children and their teachers. The Cathedral would especially like to thank Jonathan Bailey, Lead Teacher, Donna St Louis, our art specialist and the school’s favourite teachers, Thomas Cormie and Josée Lemoine as well as a rotation of  volunteer helpers

The art will be displayed in the Atrium (entrance to 1444 Union Avenue) beginning now until All Saints’ weekend at the start of November.

One of the neat aspects of the various paintings is that once completed, they were lovingly and gingerly sprayed with a fine mist of blue tinted water. I think you’ll agree that the result is magical.

As Rhonda mentioned, our family are attendees of the Cathedral’s 42 minute and 22 second  ” 8 o’clock service” so I have been taught the heavenly virtue of keeping it short.

Therefore, let me conclude with a thought from the great French novelist Gustave Flaubert, who said:  “Artists must be in their work as God is in creation: invisible and all-powerful, one must sense them  everywhere but never see them”.

I leave it to you to sense both God and the artists in the works you view in the Exhibition. I hope you enjoy them and we’ll look forward to seeing you at future art exhibitions at the Cathedral.

Cutting (one of) the ribbon(s)!