"After the Cross: The Magdalene's Farewell"
 from The Hours of Mary Magdalene © Jan Richardson

Jan Richardson is an ordained United Methodist elder, with degrees in religion and creative writing from Florida State University and a Master of Divinity from Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Her books, Sacred Journeys: A Woman’s Book of Daily Prayer, Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas, and In Wisdom’s Path: Discovering the Sacred in Every Season, serve as inspiration for those who search for spiritual sustenance in new ideas and images through which to view the recurrent celebrations of the Christian tradition. In these works, Richardson often accompanies her poetic meditations with thoughtful, sometimes funny, always beautiful original artworks that convey her sense of the sacred in the midst of the everyday.

"The Wounded Word"
cover image from Listening at Golgotha © Jan Richardson

Pages from Prayer Books was originally intended as a Lenten exhibition, and the two series of charcoal drawings in the Boardroom, “On the Way to the Cross” and “Listening at Golgotha” (made to accompany Peter Storey’s book by the same title) are visual meditations on the Passion and Resurrection of Christ.

In “The Advent Hours” and “The Hours of Mary Magdalene,” Richardson explores the medieval idea of the Book of Hours, in which the appointed prayers for certain times of day were often accompanied by richly-painted illuminations. As in such books, prayers such as “Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise” or “O God, come to my assistance; Lord make haste” are inscribed in Latin below images that retell the ancient stories. In Richardson’s renderings, the complex patterns and colors of the collaged elements lend a richness and mystery to the oddly-proportioned hands and bodies, bringing them into the present while maintaining their connection to the timelessness of the Gospel. As the final four of the Magdalene “Hours” suggest, the story continues in the lives of those who are called to follow Jesus.