The Altar of Intersections will open March 17, click for details.
Above: Rev. Tracey Lind at Foothills Gallery exhibit, Sept. 2020

As an Episcopal priest, I have lived at the center of an established church and a privileged society. Yet in my very being, as a child of an interfaith marriage, a lesbian, and one who has spent a great deal of time with the homeless, I belong to the edge, to the fringe, to the people who are never certain if, when or where they fit into the great scheme of things. Staying close to the edge, I see all kinds of things that I couldn’t see if I only lived in the center of safety and privilege.

A journalist once asked me what it is like to live with what she called “double vision.” Living in the center but being drawn to the borderlands and boundary waters of the margins, I have come to see the truth of life in various shades of gray. There is no black and white. Nothing is absolute, and there is always an opportunity for something new to emerge in the darkness and the light. As a person of faith, I have searched for the truth, beauty, possibility, and good news within these paradoxes.

I carry my double vision into my photography. Photography is a way to distance myself enough to see what is happening. When I examine life through the eye of a camera, I am forced to step back, slow down, focus, and become deeply attentive to the situation. Looking through my viewfinder, I can’t allow myself to focus on simply what lies in the middle of the frame; I must explore the circumference, the corners, and the edges, to really see the entire situation.

Intersections is a collection of photos from 1992 to 2022 that explores some of these paradoxes. They reflect the intersection of urban violence and decay, conflict in the Holy Land, the immigrant crisis in America, the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, institutional racism, homophobia, and anti-semitism — issues that have been at the heart of my vocation for the past fifty years.

I pondered and prayed over these particular images, knowing I needed to share them as a group, but I didn’t know how. Recently, I realized that, together, they comprise the altar of my heart and soul, so I decided to present them as an altarpiece.

What is an altar?

It’s where we experience the sacred and the holy, often in community, but sometimes in solitude. Altars are places of ritual, sacrifice, and even violence. Altars are traditionally found in houses of worship, but they can also be discovered in the middle of cities and towns, on the beach, in the woods, along a lonely path or a well-traveled highway. Often we don’t even notice them.

An altarpiece is a decorative art object — a painting, sculpture, or carving representing a religious subject placed on or behind an altar.

These double-sided images form an interactive altarpiece. Each image is printed on inkjet paper, then sealed onto roughly painted wood blocks, mounted on metal stands, and separated by plumbing hardware. Thank you to my friend and fellow artist Maryann Breisch, who created the altar frontal and backdrop made of Muslim and erosion cloth to set the stage for my collection.

Please rotate the images and see how they connect and communicate. And, if you are so moved, say a prayer for the world while you’re at it.