Peggy Parker

"Then they led him out to crucify him."
Stations of the Cross and Other Woodcuts
by Margaret Adams Parker

February 19 - April 6, 2001
in the Board Room

Ecce Homo, woodcut -
hand printed on Japanese paper (Sekishu), 36" x 18" 1998

A STATEMENT FROM THE ARTIST
St. Augustine of Hippo wrote, " Do not grieve or complain that you were born in a time when you can no longer see God in the flesh. He did not in fact take this privilege from you. As he says, ‘Whatever you have done to the least of my brothers and sisters, you have done to me.’ " (Sermon 103)

It seems entirely fitting that images of the Stations of the Cross should hang beside images of suffering in our own day. The Stations have, for centuries, offered Christians both a means to participate in Jesus’ journey to the cross and a visual affirmation of God who suffers with us, for us. The other woodcuts remind us of some of the forms that human suffering can take.

Christians are sometimes mis-characterized as people who long only for the world to come. On the contrary, Christianity is a faith which cares passionately about the world, about suffering, about injustice. This world is important, people matter, precisely because we believe that God came among us, as one of us, bearing our sorrows. One of the tasks of art is to make us aware of that sorrow.

In creating the Stations of the Cross my goal has been to convey the physical and spiritual weight of Christ’s passion. I chose the woodcut print – with its raw, expressive power – as the appropriate medium to depict that suffering. For me, walking the Way of the Cross as a maker of these images has been a particularly powerful devotional experience. I hope the same is true for the viewer.

ABOUT THE PROCESS
Each of these woodcuts begins as a drawing. After transferring the drawing to a plank of poplar wood, I carve away any area I want to remain white in my print. Then I roll ink onto the block (the ink only touches those surfaces which have not been cut away), place a sheet of Japanese paper over the inked wood, and rub by hand with a piece of smooth, rounded wood to transfer the ink to the paper. The print is a reverse of the image on the block, and it is possible to print multiple images (an edition) from the same block.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Margaret Adams Parker is a printmaker and sculptor whose work often depicts religious themes. The woodcuts in this exhibition are part of a set of Stations of the Cross on which the artist has been working for the past five years and hopes to complete by 2004. She is also working on a set of 20 woodcuts to accompany a new translation of The Book of Ruth, to be published by Westminster John Knox. Parker’s sculpture of Mary with the infant Jesus is now in place at the College of Preachers, on the grounds of Washington National Cathedral, and will be officially dedicated this spring.

Parker is also an adjunct instructor in Liturgics, Music and Art at Virginia Theological Seminary. She has published articles on religion and the visual arts in The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies, Evangelical Outlook, and Virginia Seminary Journal. In 1999 she traveled to Jerusalem to present a paper on "Rembrandt’s Visual Readings of Hebrew Scripture" at an international symposium on The Bible in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Art.

Parker is a summa cum laude graduate of Wellesley College and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from American University. She has been awarded a Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship in Painting.

Parker has had numerous solo exhibitions and her work is included in public and private collection. Her Stations have been exhibited in Chicago, Memphis, Albany, and, most recently , at Washington Theological Union. In November she will have a solo exhibition of prints and sculpture based on her drawings of Jerusalem. Her prints may be seen at Washington Printmakers Gallery at 1732 Connecticut Avenue in the Dupont Circle gallery district.

The artists who created the works of art shown on this site own the copyrights to them.
please do not copy or distribute

send comments or questions about the gallery to the curator at:
dsokolove@wesleyseminary.edu