Jake Francis

Here am I; send me! 29/03/26

Love says

believe me. Love says
believe in me;
be on the inside of this diamond,
let others look on,
understanding or not —
here am I; send me,
says love!
Go ahead, let me go ahead of you
opening the door for your pram.
If I sing, will you hear me?
Can you hear me singing over you?
Sing the song of your life back to me,
this is all that I ask, whispers love, gently.
Emma’s pastaria, the new place on the high street,
wears EMMA’S in neon, oversized collars;
bright roundabout sculptures.
Let me hear your groans when you cannot speak,
that is all that I ask.
Do the things you newly want to do,
spell my name; L-O-V-E croons Nat King Cole
with paint on his overalls
& the family dog murdered
by the strange new neighbours
trying to scare them away. L-O-V-E speaks Nat
to the world through two-tone tv sets.
Wake up—it’s Saturday! All day!
Love rebuilds the house,
says, don’t mention it.
Love takes down the scaffolding.
Let them see you, requests love,
let them see you,
but do not shine, refract,
give back what is given

Getting my imagination dunked…22/03/26

How to be an artist while living the gospel? Deuteronomy 6:5 says that God wants all of the self. How to confront the burden of originality, as all good artists do, while exploring the Christian Mystery that is life? Spoiler alert: I have more questions than answers!

The history of art is the history of devotion. It is only until relatively recently that the philosophers and thinkers have taught us that any serious thought should begin with the assumption that God does not exist, or that if He does exist, He is unknowable. Jack Roeda talks of ‘weightlessness of God’ in our contemporary lives – where, even when we do consider Him it is within or through a slight intellectual curiosity, as opposed to an earnest investigation leading to the transformative power of love, of being in love.

The Christian is in love. Love is not always visible from the periphery. The Christian artist need not begin from these same reductive conclusions. As Makoto Fujimura says in Art and Faith, God let Adam name the different animals – He commissioned this act of making. In His image, God delights in our enjoyment of the possibilities involved in and because making, of the intermingling of our selves with His creation.

Art throws one into the middle of mystery. Art makes one remember and feel again emotions one had forgotten to remember, or had forgotten were possible. Art names these emotions, gives them form or ‘bodies’, as Shakespeare has it (thanks to Malcolm Guite here).

‘And as imagination bodies forth
 The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
 Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
 A local habitation and a name’ – A Midsummer Night’s Dream

As has been pointed out, before the fall Adam’s speech is much more ‘poetic’ and capable of extended cadence than after it. Even our language falls, even our creative abilities and imagination falls. The artful and the poetic, however slight the sparks are in some way divine or are of the essence of the conversation with the Divine; it is a fragment of the Edenic relationship restored, a conversation with God in the cool of the evening.

An individual artist, gifted their own slice of the larger reality we share, finds a way to reflect and share this perspective with others. This very act is miraculous. The Christian artist begins in seeing God’s reality as a gift. This is opposed to the secular tendency of positing existence as a straightjacket and life and reality as something to be escaped, giving rise to the filling of our selves with all sorts. The heart is restless until…

The early cave paintings are reverential. They are a means of praising and honouring an animal’s strength and intellect, but also a way of coming to terms with the beasts and the hunt ahead. If we approach the question of purpose of art these days someone will say, rightly, beauty needs no purpose, and that art for art’s sake is okay. Beauty itself is purpose. I don’t believe the Christian artist is in disagreement here, but truly and more ultimately seeks a way of honouring God with their work. Does beauty honour God? Yes, but too often what doesn’t honour God or the good is ‘beautiful’. Does prayer honour God? Yes, but prayer seeks no audience other than God. How close can art get to prayer? The difference between a diary entry and a work of art is a receiving audience. This completes the circle. Jesus says that we should seek solitude for prayer, not only to save our ego but to increase our intimacy with the Father.

I’m interested in baptising my imagination. Or, seeing as baptism is itself a communal act, getting my imagination baptised. What if the ultimate ‘purpose’ of the Christian artist in their work isn’t evangelism, but communing, or communing through reverence? Evangelism may be one consequence of a work of art, but this is like putting the cart before the horse – I worry Christian works like this can come across as a form of propaganda. What if art is an aid to love, which others get to look in on, to observe, to share in? Love made visible.

If the Bible isn’t so much man’s assessment of God, but God’s assessment of man, of the human condition, wouldn’t we expect to find something in scripture about art, about the making the art, and its purpose? If God is the ultimate artist, surely God, joyfully, couldn’t help but muse on this somewhere.

I guess I’m focussing on purpose because I want to feel that making art is not just an indulgent act, and can in some way be involved in living the gospel, or one means of living the gospel. I have never felt completely satisfied with the argument that the creation of beauty is ‘enough’ – maybe it just feels like there’s too much at stake in our world and times for this argument to suffice for me alone.

There is a mysterious and curious detail in the narrative of the woman caught in adultery in John 8:1-11. During the argument with the religious scholars of the day, Jesus draws/writes in the ground, presumably into the sand, dirt, or dust. This could be writing, this could be drawing. The image or images Jesus made in the ground was not for longevity, it will have been blown away in the wind, and it was not for the reader of scripture, given that no details are relayed. This humble composition, made with the hand, can be said to have only been fully observed by God, yet the purpose of the image can be detected by its context within the narrative. Jesus’ unknown marks, his act of making, is a bridge to grace.

As Jesus is challenged on the moral complexities of the woman’s position, in relation to Jewish law, as he is quizzed on the human condition, his contemplation is indistinct from His act of making. He contemplates by drawing or writing; he makes to contemplate. The drawing in the ground slows the entire scene down, thus being an aid to the saving of the woman’s life – from accusation to contemplation to grace.

Much more could be said about this scene, of course, but maybe this small detail is one guide from God on making. Do it for me. Do it for contemplation. Do it for the reverence of the human spirit. Do it as a bridge to grace. The grace of the scene gives way to peace. Do it for peace, personal and communal peace. Heaney, after Yeats, writes that ‘the end of art is peace’. Maybe the Christian artist knows that it’s truer to say that the end of art is actually grace, and it is grace that gives way to peace, in Rev. Paul Lutton’s words. Indeed, what peace can there be without grace?

Jesus makes his love visible, even if his brush or finger strokes are lost to time, or prayerfully only find their full audience in the Father above. In His image and example, the Christian artist inserts grace into the scene.

One Christmas, before I was baptised at what became my first home church in south London, I wandered into a church in Greenwich to hear a lecture on Thomas Tallis. As part of the service, the London Youth Choir sang Tallis’ compositions. In one piece, the title of which I can’t remember, the scholar argued – and he was in the middle of trying to prove this in his critical studies – that, if seen from above, the sound waves of this particular Tallis’ work spell out the composer’s name. The choir sang the piece and I was moved to tears. Tallis did not tell anyone about this, but it is implicit in the design of the score, said the scholar. Thomas was spelling his name for God to see from above – how beautiful! This unseen, though not unheard, offering. Only God has the full perspective.

Emma and I honeymooned in Florence last year and one of my favourite experiences was visiting the Convent of San Marco, which houses many of Fra Angelico’s paintings. Fra Angelico painted frescos for the individual cells of the religious who once lived simply within the convent. Works that include his famous ‘Annunciation’ were first and foremost for the contemplation of the monks living there. Only later did the tourists like us get to peer in. ‘The Annunciation’ greets you at the top of the stairs, before the individual cells. Angelico’s ultimate creative moment of the ultimate creative moment is primarily there for the silent study and contemplation of the religious, known best to God – I’m not able to name a single one of them.

‘Ash Wednesday’ is my latest work (above and below). I don’t know – I might even call it ‘The Entertainer’. I wanted to capture the existing visibility of Ash Wednesday, the million little acts of devotions that occur on this day in so many cities and towns across the world. Each year in Belfast I see people walking round or sitting in libraries or sipping in cafés with ash crosses ash on their foreheads and to me this visible act of worship, this love made visible is gorgeous and intoxicating. I dare say my painting shares something with Polish painter Jan Matejko’s ‘Court Jester’. In his painting there is a meditation of the mystery of the public and private self, and the question of where both these selves meet. The jester’s solitude is prayerful, or evocative of prayer. To be the clown, to be a fool for God beats being a fool for man. The gospel call us to be fools for both God and man, offering ourselves.

This is all to say, in however I make now I want it to be an offering. If faith is the work of a lifetime, it seems safe to say that the baptism of my imagination will be the work of a lifetime too. I feel more at home in my work now than I have ever felt. I am coming home to myself. I am both already home and not home yet.