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Christmas at Bow Common
One of the most beautiful sights her is at the Midnight Mass as we enter Christmas Day. This classically simple, even austere brutalist building is transformed in the dark into a breathtakingly beautiful space bu a very simple means!
One of the Incumbent, Duncan Ross's, imports from his practice at his previous church in Hackney Wick, has been to set the church 'ablaze' at this time of year - and at Easter! In our hi-tech age a simple thing like a candle flame, or even a flame in a hearth, is seldom seen. And yet a simple thing like a living flame can be a very beautiful thing when seen in profusion, especially in such a large volume of space where a familiar place is seen in a new way, when lit just by candle-light.
Features such as the great iron corona which hangs from the roof and marks out the sanctuary of the church disappears in the dark. With its black-painted surface, even in the day this feature can be lost against the dark background of the brick walls . However, simply marking these girders with flames of light can bring that feature alive and form a glorious halo of light around the altar and sanctuary in the dark.
In 2009, with church member and artist-in-residence, Lucy Brennan-Shiel, during Advent, church members created small shapes and patterns on artist's paper during a wonderful art workshop which focused us on the story of the Nativity. Lucy's genius brought this very random group of shapes and patterns into a wonderful Christmas frontal for the High Altar - the Child of Light - wrapped in the work of our hands - a blanket or cloak with an echo of the Austrian artist, Gustav Klimt, Bow Common style!
Duncan simply added a 'Shadow of Light' measured out in the the flames of candles which celebrate the Child of Light. At night the view of the church ablaze with light is something we have all enjoyed in the years in which this has been done.
These views below are an example from Christmas 2011
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