A leap of faith
Clockwise from top left: Maureen’s concept; the trapeze artistes emerge; artist with artiste; all hands on deck as the installation is assembled.
A Priory Friday…the brass is being polished, the welcomer is welcoming, the shop’s Christmas cards are being restocked, music flows from a pianist’s fingers at the grand piano, the Henry vacuum is humming gently in the distance…and two trapeze artistes are being dangled between the Priory’s Romanesque arches.
Trapeze artistes?
Correct. Yes. Time for the backstory.
Rewind to Christmas 2023 and Creatives Connect, a group of artists based in Malvern, brought the Narnia Windows Christmas Art Trail to town. The Priory took part, and Lesley Brankin’s beautiful gas lamp-inspired work can still be seen by the east door.
This year the Creatives Connect Christmas Art Trail theme is ‘circus’.
Circus. The members of the Priory Comms Group pondered. How could that theme fit into the Priory… A circus nativity in the Festival of Nativities? No… Any other ideas? No… But one member of the group wasn’t ready to miss this opportunity to support Malvern and be part of the Art Trail. She went away and talked it over with Maureen Gamble, artist, and member of the Priory congregation.
Maureen, too, was flummoxed to begin with. Two nights-worth of unsuccessful mulling over and then suddenly it hit her. A ‘leap of faith’.
A leap of faith is the act of believing in something or someone, based on faith, rather than evidence. And Maureen’s always been fascinated how circus trapeze artistes leap out, trusting that they’ll be caught.
Soon she’d drawn a design. Then it was time to get creative with chicken-wire, plaster of Paris, paint and fabric. Bunting, too, spelling out the phase ‘Take a leap of faith this Christmas’. The space between Priory’s huge columns provided a perfect setting.
And so, today a small team assembled, the step ladder put up on the oh-so-level-nave-floor, the trapeze artistes arrived nestling, Moses-style, in a basket, and the delicate process of dangling them from a near-invisible fishing-line began. Fuelled by coffee, good humour and the bemused encouragement of visitors, the installation was soon in place.
Standing back to admire the work, with the backdrop of the busy Friends’ Priory Shop behind, the figures leapt, lifelike, through thin air.
’Look’ said one of the volunteers ‘See the stained glass window behind? Jesus is between them’. Everyone looked. It was, indeed, true.
Come and have a look, too. ‘Leap of faith’ invites everyone to take their own ‘leap of faith’ into the unknown, trusting that God will be there to support them. It’s inside the Priory (which is lovely and warm with the new underfloor heating) and can be seen during normal Priory opening hours.
