About the Artwork: 
Liberty I. II. III.
Justin Dingwall
2015
Color photographs

Photographer Justin Dingwall’s riveting photographs challenge traditional beauty ideals and embrace the unusual, the poetic, and the unconventional. Known for his theatrical portraits, Dingwall constructs staged photographs noted for their surreal and fantastical elements. Dingwall is particularly noted for his explorations of taboos, stigmas, albinism and how beauty ideals are conditioned by cultural attitudes and politics, particularly in African contexts. In these three photographs entitled Liberty I. II. III., Dingwall photographs a lone Christ figure against a simple pure white background. The Christ figure is covered in butterflies, symbolic of resurrection and transfiguration. Butterflies are deep and powerful representations of life. Many cultures associate the butterfly with our souls. In Christianity, the butterfly is seen as a symbol of resurrection, hope, and life. The life cycle of the butterfly seems to transcend life, with the caterpillar disappearing into a cocoon and  appearing dead, just as Christ was laid in the tomb after the crucifixion. But both then emerge, having transformed into something even more beautiful than before. 

About the Artist:
Justin Dingwall is a South African photographic artist who creates images that resonate with emotion and beauty. Dingwall studied photography at the Tshwane University of Technology Pretoria in South Africa. Since graduating in 2004, he has gained recognition for his work in his native South Africa and abroad. The artist addresses albinism in a portrait series of South African model-activists Thando Hopa and Sanele Xaba titled “Albus,” which he began in 2014 as an exploration of the aesthetics of albinism in contrast to idealized perceptions of beauty. Dingwall began this project with the ethereal portraits of Thando Hopa, a legal prosecutor who is using her visibility to address the negative perceptions surrounding albinism. Dingwall “paints with light” in such a way as to represent the revealing of the unseen. For him, light represents truth, and it is contrasted against the element of darkness to emphasize the unenlightened state of mind of misconceptions.
https://www.justindingwall.com/
https://mcontemp.com/artists/justin-dingwall/

About the Music: 
“O Clap Your Hands” from the album Light’s Glittering Morn

Lyrics: 
O clap your hands, all ye people;
Shout unto God with the voice of triumph.
For the Lord most high is terrible;
He is a great King over all the earth.

God is gone up with a shout,
The Lord with the sound of a trumpet.

Sing praises to God,
Sing praises:
Sing praises unto our King,
Sing praises.

For God is the King of all the earth:
Sing ye praises with understanding.

God reigneth over the heathen:
God sitteth upon the throne of his holiness.

About the Composer: 
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) was not only a composer of the utmost importance for English music but also one of the great symphonists of the twentieth century. Following his father’s death in 1875, he was brought up in Surrey and educated at the Royal College of Music and Trinity College, Cambridge. At the turn of the century he was among the very first to travel into the countryside to collect folk songs and carols from singers, notating them for future generations to enjoy. As musical editor of The English Hymnal he composed several hymns that still remain popular today. Williams volunteered for the army during the 1914–1918 war and was sent to France in 1916, serving as a wagon orderly in the Royal Army Medical Corps. The carnage and the loss of close friends such as the composer George Butterworth deeply affected him and influenced his music after the war. He was widely read, and heavily influenced by poets and writers including Shakespeare, Bunyan, Blake, and Walt Whitman. In a long and productive life, he wrote nine symphonies; concertos for piano, violin, oboe, and tuba; five operas; chamber, ballet, and film music; a large body of songs and song cycles; and various important unaccompanied and orchestral choral works. His orchestral works include such popular favorites as The Lark Ascending, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, The Wasps Overture, and the English Folk Song Suite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Vaughan_Williams
https://rvwsociety.com/short-biography/

About the Performers: 
The combined Choirs of Washington National Cathedral and Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, with Douglas Major (organ and conductor), Edward Nassor (carillon), and John Fenstermaker (conductor)

The Cathedral Choral Society is a two-hundred-voice symphonic, volunteer chorus based at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC. The ensemble performs primarily at the Washington National Cathedral, and also appears regularly at such venues as the Kennedy Center, and also at Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, by providing concert and performance programming within the national park at Wolf Trap, Virginia.
https://cathedralchoralsociety.org/
https://cathedral.org/choirs/history-of-choirs/

Choirs are the foundation of San Francisco's Grace Cathedral’s music program. They offer sung reflections and prayers, a rich tapestry of sound woven through each worship service. Their choral repertoire is drawn from early plainchant to the music of the twenty-first century. There are several choir groups at Grace Cathedral.
https://gracecathedral.org/the-cathedrals-choir/

Douglas R. Major (b. 1953) is a prominent American composer of sacred music and a concert organist. He is the former choral director and organist at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, where he frequently performed on nationally televised services and state occasions. At just twenty-one years of age in 1974, he was appointed assistant organist at the National Cathedral and became organist and choirmaster at the cathedral in 1988, administering one of the country’s largest church music programs and concert schedules. Among the many state occasions occurring during his tenure at the cathedral were the presidential inaugural services for Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush; and the visit of Queen Elizabeth in 1990 for the dedication of the completed cathedral. Major left the National Cathedral after twenty-eight years of distinguished service to concentrate on concertizing and composing. As an internationally recognized performer, Major frequently toured throughout North America, Europe, and the Far East. He has played over four hundred concerts with the Empire Brass Quintet and was piano accompanist for Elizabeth VonTrapp, granddaughter of the legendary Maria and Baron von Trapp.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Major
https://cathedral.org/staff/douglas-major/

Edward Nassor (carillon) is the fourth cathedral carillonneur at Washington National Cathedral. He joined the music department at the cathedral in 1990, where his duties include performing preludes before Sunday Holy Eucharist and Saturday afternoon recitals on the Bessie J. Kibbey carillon. His doctor of musical arts and master of music degrees are from the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. While working on his doctoral degree, he became the first American to be awarded a Fulbright grant to study carillon in the Netherlands. Before working at the cathedral, the National Park Service appointed him the director-carillonneur of the Netherlands Carillon in Arlington, Virginia. He has continuously performed and scheduled guest carillonneurs for the annual carillon recital series sponsored by the National Park Service since 1987. Dr. Nassor was invited by the speaker of the Canadian House of Parliament to perform on the carillon at the Peace Tower at the House of Parliament in Ottawa during the Canadian Tulip Festival in May 2007, as part of a cultural exchange between Canada and the Washington National Cathedral.
https://cathedral.org/staff/edward-m-nassor/

John Fenstermaker (conductor) was the organist-choirmaster of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco for thirty years. He began the study of piano at the age of seven and the organ at fourteen. He earned a B.A. degree from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, and a M.A. from the College of Church Musicians in Washington, DC. He studied at the Sorbonne (University of Paris) and with Andre Marchal, noted French organist and scholar. Fenstermaker is an associate of the American Guild of Organists, and was a fellow in harpsichord at Tanglewood (Berkshire Music Center) under Igor Kipnis. He was a student and assistant of Paul Callaway at the Washington National Cathedral, and studied for one year at Canterbury Cathedral with Allan Wicks before going to Grace Cathedral in 1971. In 2021, Fenstermaker retired after a career spanning sixty years as a professional organist. His most recent position was at Trinity-by-the-Cove Episcopal Church, Naples, Florida, where he served for eighteen years.
https://www.nativedsd.com/artist/john-fenstermaker/
https://www.thediapason.com/news/john-fenstermaker-retires

About the Poet:
Denis Devlin (1908–1959) was, along with Samuel Beckett and Brian Coffey, one of the generation of Irish modernist poets to emerge at the end of the 1920s. He was also a career diplomat. He studied at Belvedere College and, beginning in 1926, was a seminarian for the Roman Catholic priesthood at Clonliffe College. As part of his studies he attended a degree course in modern languages at University College Dublin (UCD), where he met and befriended Brian Coffey. Together they published a joint collection, Poems, in 1930. In 1927, Devlin abandoned the priesthood and left Clonliffe. He graduated from University College Dublin with his B.A. and later returned to complete his M.A. thesis on French Renaissance philosopher Montaigne. He joined the Irish Diplomatic Service in 1935 and spent a number of years in Rome, New York, and Washington. Since his death, there have been two Collected Poems published; the first in 1964 was edited by his friend Irish poet Brian Coffey and the second in 1989 by J. C. C. Mays. His personal papers are held in University College Dublin Archives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Devlin

About the Devotion Author:  
Sian Draycott
Instructor
Torrey Honors College
Biola University

Sian Draycott grew up in Wales and graduated from Oxford University with an M.A. in theology. Her M.A. in classical studies from the Open University (UK) developed her research in Greek tragedy and comedy as seen in the relationship between Euripides and Aristophanes. In addition to team-leading with IFES (International Fellowship of Evangelical Students) in Portugal, Sian has experience as a high school teacher in the UK and as an ESL tutor. She loves talking to people about Jesus and watching Wales play rugby.