St. James Episcopal Church, Leith.

Art & Spirituality Facilitator

Carol’s role as Art & Spirituality Facilitator at St. James, at least for the next year, has been made possible by funding given primarily from Spill the Beans https://www.spillthebeans.org.uk/ & supplemented by St. James.

See: Art and Spirituality at St James: https://www.stjamesleith.org.uk/art-and-spirituality

Timeline: Carol and visual arts @ St. James

Background and Development

1999 Artist in residence at the St. James Weekend Away, ‘The Cathedral of Dreams.’ Leading all-age workshops creating a series of installations for the Sunday morning worship.

2000 Joined St. James

2001 Convenor of the newly formed Worship Planning Group (until 2011).

From 2000-2007 Worked voluntarily alongside rector Steve Butler and others to develop and facilitate the visual arts as an element of the worship at St. James. The regular transformation the worship environment at the beginning of each liturgical season – Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Harvest/Creation tide, Advent, and Epiphany – became the main focus of the work. Facilitated by Carol and members of the worship planning team, all ages were encouraged, and did, join in the creative workshops to continually transform the space. Artwork, adding to the space, was often created during and as part of the worship through simple symbolic actions and making, thus offering and exploring forms of visual liturgy and visual theology.

2007-2011 Employed via the Soul Marks Trust to continue and develop this work.

2011-2012. MLitt (distinction): Institute of Theology, Imagination and the Arts at St. Andrews University. AESTHETICS AND RELIGION: THE SCOTO-CATHOLIC MOVEMENT AND STAINED GLASS.

2012- 2019 PhD. Institute of Theology, Imagination and the Arts at St. Andrews University. CONTRASTING EXAMPLES OF LITURGICAL INSTALLATION ART IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND FROM THE 1980S TO THE PRESENT DAY. The work at St. James was featured in research.

2011- 2022 At this time various other people, including artists Anne Butler and Ali Brown, took on the facilitation of the arts at St. James.

2014 -2024 The church building became a weekday campus for the Leith School of Art. This changed how the space for the visual arts, but adaptions were made the transformations continued and visual arts continued to be an important part of the church’s worship.

2020 onwards Covid too once again changed how the space was used. Once allowed back in the physical space the church continued to welcome online worshippers, thus consideration of viewpoints and camera angles have to be considered when any central installations are hung.

2022 – Carol began to be involved voluntarily in designing and facilitating the visual transformations.

AUGUST 2025 – Employed as Art & Spirituality Facilitator via Soul Marks trust.