This Sunday marks the launch of a new series, Picturing the Parables, looking at artworks in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection devoted to the illustrative stories of Jesus in the Gospels, which will take us into the season of Advent. We begin with a profile of Texas-based Artist James Janknegt, who worked for over fifteen years creating 40 contemporary depictions of Christ's parables, reproduced in the 2017 album, Lenten Meditations, with the artist’s own contemplative texts for the pre-Easter season, Three of them can be found on his new biosketch page in the Sacred Artists section. Janknegt believes artists need to translate the imagery of the Gospel stories into "modern day American vernacular." In his contemporry makeovers of the New Testament narratives, American Suburbia takes the place of first-century Palestine; flashlights stand in for oil lamps. Janknegt's version of Parable of the Two Debtors in the Collection shows Jesus telling the story dressed in a polo shirt, sipping beer with an uptight Pharisee in shirt-and-tie, while a scantily-clad prostitute opens her cosmetic bag to wash his feet. (John Kohan)
