by Mary Cropp

She doesn’t sew. That’s the first thing to know about Pamela (Pam) Gray, who is the creator extraordinaire of this year’s Advent, Lenten and Easter banners for the church sanctuary.

Gray, who has been a member of Bethany for the past four years, is an artist, painter and printmaker. Indeed, her first visit to Bethany some five years past was instigated by a professional interest: she came to see the Pentecost art installation. It turns out however, that Gray’s “one-time” visit was also spiritually meaningful. Hays explains that, “We weren’t actively looking to change churches, but we found ourselves returning because we felt God’s encouragement as we participated in worship here.”

Though she doesn’t sew (the Advent and Lent basic hangings were sewn by Bethany member Glyn Devereaux and the Easter banner by a friend), Gray has been designing banners since high school. Her designs are heavily influenced (particularly in the coloration of the liturgical season) by her background in the Episcopal Church. Gray is also “inspired by the scriptures” and loves to use text in her banner designs as she feels that it’s “another way of focusing on God’s word as we participate in worship.”

Depending on drying time for paints and adhesives, each set of banners takes Gray three to four weeks to create. First, she chooses the base color and has it sewn. Then, a surface pattern is applied to the fabric. For instance, the Easter banners were painted with acrylics and then gold leaf was applied. (For this particular banner, Gray chose linen as the base fabric to reference the scripture about a linen cloth being left in the empty tomb). Finally, the text is printed on rice paper, and then applied with fabric glue. Gray claims that the hardest part of all this is hand-cutting the text and making sure that it is straight on the fabric.

Congregants might have also noticed Gray’s dynamic Lent/Advent banners, which were created by applying mono and block printing techniques to the base fabric in order to create the overall base pattern on the purple fabric. To represent the somberness of the Lenten season, these banners are then left to hang unadorned by text. However, when used for Advent, an additional layer is added each week (4 total) that has a portion of the scripture on it for that week.

Gray is currently busy working on a collaborative public art piece, but would love to do another pair of banners sometime in the near future. In the meantime she is always looking for support with banner project because (has this been mentioned before?), Pam Gray does not sew.