I mainly wanted to see the display of "The Saint John's Bible." This is a Bible that has been commissioned by Saint John's University that is being done in the medieval style of the Benedictine Monks. It is all handwritten and illustrated on vellum. When it is completed in 2010 it will be seven volumes at the cost of about 4 million dollars.
It is the vision of one man, Donald Jackson, who has been working with a team of calligraphers and illustrators since 2000 and six of the seven volumes are complete. The Bible is being written using the New Revised Standard Version and the illustrations are laced with gold a symbol of the presence of the Divine. The illustrations capture the essence of the various Bible books, for instance Genesis has a seven panel picture depicting the creation story, the Gospel of Luke has an illustration that depicts several of the "lost" parables.
One of my favorite illustrations is for the Gospel of Matthew which displays Jesus' family tree in the shape of a menorah. It includes Hagar at the base next to Abraham with her name written in both Hebrew and Aramaic as Mohammad's lineage is also traced through her. I feel inadequate in expressing the beauty of the pages. I encourage you to visit the Saint John's Bible web site to see and read more about it. The Bible will be housed at the Saint John's University in Minneapolis, Minnesota so I especially encourage my mid-west friends to check it out in person.The other exhibit that I "heard" at the Tacoma Art Museum was a project done by Janet Cardiff. She reworked a Tallis Motet into forty parts then recorded the forty voices performing the piece in a German Cathedral. Each individual voice was recorded and the display has forty speakers, arranged in groups of five, in a circle. There were only male voices and the high soprano parts were sung by a boys choir. Standing in the center of the circle of speakers I got chills from the beauty of the sound, but it was also fun to walk around the perimeter and hear each individual voice.
The sound was amazing as it echoed through the Art Museum. The spiritual high came as I enjoyed the stunning visual imagery of the Saint John's Bible while hearing the rich sounds of the Tallis Motet - I was taken to a wonderful place - and I plan on going there again - Today!
