In these tough times, the arts can support resistance, endurance, and vitality. Yet Friends were firmly opposed to the arts for 200 years.
That era is over, but in many Quaker spaces, the arts are still the object of what has been called “uneasy tolerance.”
For more than thirty years, the Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts (FQA) has done its best to contribute to these efforts. Our quarterly journal, Types & Shadows, is a platform for this ongoing work.
Our latest issue #105, is now posted online at our website, open access. ,
The cover article is about Friend Mary Waddington, a Quaker mystic and photographer, with a sampler of her evocative and striking images rooted in land, water, and spirit.
She is joined by wandering Quaker troubadour Lorraine Caputo, a documentary poet, translator and travel writer, particularly in Latin America, offering poetry and an Arctic nighttime sketch. Newcomer Nate Crew, who manages a family orchard in rural North Carolina, brings an essay about suicide and addiction, as well as verse from a bucolic life.
Also at the FQA site is an archive of most earlier issues, going back into the 1990s: a rich trove of Quaker photography, sketches, essays and verse, all without charge.
Readers are invited to explore this resource, and consider joining FQA and adding to it.