The Arts at St. Mark’s
St. Mark’s Artist-in-Context
St. Mark’s has been awarded a grant from the Creative Arts Collective for Christian Faith and Life at Belmont University to host singer-songwriter Jon Guerra as an Artist-in-Context for the 2025-2026 program year.
Jon is a well-established friend of St. Mark’s, having hosted our “Lyrics for Lent” program in 2024 and series of pop-up “Listening Nights” in 2023. The core project for Jon’s residency over the next year is something we’re calling “Beauty As Well As Bread”—a series of nine nights over the course of the year that will be various combinations of song, poetry, stillness, reflection, lecture, and visual art; with featured guests ranging from scholars, painters, poets, priests, and fellow songwriters, all in Grace Chapel.
JON GUERRA is a singer-songwriter & producer who creates Devotional Music — less Sunday morning worship music, and more Monday morning prayer music.
Jon's debut Devotional Music album was Keeper of Days (2020), followed by Ordinary Ways (2023), and most recently Jesus (2025). Jon has also composed music for film (Terrence Malick's "A Hidden Life," 2019).
Jon collaborates with a wide variety of artists, tours regularly, is building a community around Devotional Music, and resides in Austin, TX.
Art Exhibition on View: Fill the Earth with Music
On loan from the Bowden Collections, a new art exhibition called “Fill the Earth with Music” is now on view in the St. Mark’s nave.
About the Exhibition:
Singing and musical instruments have been vital components in the life of the believing community as far back in the Bible (Genesis 4:21) as Jubal who played the kinnor or harp. King David wrote many psalms, one of which is Psalm 150, and it charges us to praise the Lord with the trumpet, cymbals, stringed instruments, and organs. An engraving in this show has drawings of many biblical instruments.
Artists from the earliest times have portrayed musicians and used music as a focus of their work: from the 15th century illuminated French Book of Hours with David’s Psalm 51, to the plaster cast of Donatello’s St. Cecelia who was the patron saint of musicians, to Barbara Zuber’s joyful depiction of African Americans’ animated singing and dancing. There is no end to the list of artists who have offered us remarkable art celebrating the joy of music.
It is impossible to imagine the church without music. The monastic tradition used Gregorian chant and choral singing to enhance worship as seen in the elaborate Bifolium Antiphonal Leaves that a choir used in the 16th and 17th century. De Hooghe’s 18th century engraving of the title page to the book of Psalms shows how the Dutch imagined music in biblical times. Not only the church, but also the Jewish community applauds music’s significance as seen in Rosenstein’s serigraph, Sing to the Lord a New Song and Marc Chagall’s two lithographs, one of David playing the harp and the other of an angel with a horn .
Artists from the 21th century continue to be inspired by the depth and joy of music. Marianne Lettiori, Doug Giebel, and Ed Knippers are examples of this rich tradition.
It is the hope of Bowden Collections that the art in this exhibition of twenty-three pieces from six centuries and many countries will help the observer appreciate how artists find inspiration in music, and that each viewer will be further inspired to celebrate and Fill the Earth with Music.
Make a Joyful Noise/Tent Meeting
Barbara Zuber
United States
Acrylic on paper
1980s
Barbara Zuber’s depiction of a local tent meeting near Albany, NY, celebrates the vibrant black tradition of dancing and singing with jubilation and joy...all join in the song. Barbara is a Black American and was trained as an artist at Yale University.