WELCOME TO THE CONTEMPLATIVE ARTISTS GUILD SITE
We are an ecumenical group of artists who value the contemplative approach to our art and life. We find expression of our spirituality in the process of making art. We find connection to the divine in artistic creation of all kinds: painting, photography, sculpture, drawing, quilting and writing. Some of us do explicitly religious art and commissions, but many of us express our contemplative orientation in ways beyond religious content. All of these approaches are welcome.
UPCOMING MEETING
Our next meeting will take place on the third Monday of the month, July 20, 2026 at 7:00 pm Eastern, 6:00 Central, 5:00 Mountain, and 4:00 Pacific. A Zoom link will be sent out to members prior to the meeting.
July 20 CAG meeting: The topic for this month’s CAG meeting is DEATH
At June’s meeting we decided to go ahead and choose “Death” as our suggested topic. As always, members can share current work or artwork they have done in the past which they feel moved to share with the group.
For anyone who feels like they have never done artwork related to Death, remember that all crucifixes are about Christ’s death. I personally have done a number of crucifixes, but on thinking about this topic realized that I’ve done other artwork related to the death of parts of myself (and subsequent resurrection !). So on examining your own body of work you may discover that you’ve approached this subject coming at it from a multitude of possible angles. For instance, you may have done artwork about grief at losses in your life.
For any of you who may feel that this is a morbid topic, please be reminded that this topic has a rich and fertile history in Christian artwork. I’m reminded of George de La Tour’s exquisite paintings of Mary Magdalene in contemplation before a candle touching a skull. The symbolism here is that she is contemplating her own mortality in the light of God.
Other historical paintings and sculptures have been about the death besides crucifixes and the deposition of Christ’s body removing him from the cross and also about the death of martyrs like the stoning of St. Stephen or the death by arrows of St. Sebastian. And a whole other area of artwork has been “memento mori” dealing with our vanity in assuming we will never die or assuming we are all-powerful.
A more contemporary sculpture about death is the sculpture for the Vietnam Women’s Memorial in Washington, DC, by Glenna Goodacre, depicting women accompanying a dying soldier.
I hope these images help in case you think you don’t have anything to add about this subject. Laurel Gollinger has volunteered to host this July meeting.
IMAGE SUBMISSION:
For the July meeting, please send any images you wish to share to Nancy Carow at ncarow@mac.com and Laurel Gollinger laurel.gollinger@gmail.com to help her arrange the presentation.
PLEASE INCLUDE:
Title of the image
file extension (.pdf, .jpg, .png, etc.)
art media and dimensions, if you wish
caption/description of your work.
Visit these member pages to view new pieces that been added:
If you are new to the group, or interested in posting your art or joining our Zoom meetings, please send us a brief description of you—a few sentences—and we will set up a page for you and send out an invitation to you before our meetings. Also if you would like to join the group, please do the same.
FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT
Edythe-Preston Hardie at ephardie@gmail.com or
Laurel Gollinger at laurel.gollinger@gmail.com.
We are hoping to make this a space to share art and ideas that emerge from our Zoom calls and interactions or simply art that you would like us to see. The goal of our group is to have a place to support one another as contemplative artists.
