Banner Project

Creating banners reflecting the theme, made from your photos

Banner Project

Engage your most creative self in interpreting the triennial gathering theme, Renew, Respond, Rejoice! Pull out your digital camera and start taking photos now. Your images will be incorporated into banners used at the gathering, and you’ll also have a memento to take home to your congregation.

Submit photographs that respond to the theme and Philippians 4:4. They can be of your church community celebrating baptisms or confirmations, participating in service projects or taking part in any event that embodies the call to Renew, Respond, Rejoice! You need not attend the gathering to submit photographs.

Using a historical photographic process called cyanotype printing, the artist, Mary Button, will print two copies of each photograph. The cyanotypes will be printed on white cotton panels.
(Cyanotypes were one of the earliest photographic processes and were widely used to document flora. Many people will have childhood memories of making sunprints, which use cyanotype chemistry.)

Whether you submitted a photo or not, come to the artist’s space in Camp Dianoigo (the exhibit hall) to embroider a print. You will pick an important detail in the print and specifically highlight it with embroidery. You can take one panel home as a memento of the event (or it can be mailed to someone who did not attend if they provided a mailing address). The other panel will become part of banners sewn together during the gathering.

Mary Button will document this project on the Women of the ELCA blog. Follow along in the coming months and and see the progress of the project as Mary posts photos along with the prints she makes from them.

Don’t delay—submit your photos today!

Here's how to submit your photo:

1. Submit a digital photograph by emailing it to marybethbutton@gmail.com with your name. You may submit more than one photograph, but the artist can only guarantee that one photograph from each person will be used.
2. The photograph must be at least 150 dpi (medium resolution) to ensure that it can be turned into a negative and printed as a cyanotype.
3. If you have any questions about submitting a photo, feel free to contact the artist at marybethbutton@gmail.com.  
4. Complete the form and return it to the churchwide office. The artist will use only those photos for which a completed form has been sent to the churchwide office.
5. Photos will be accepted through June 1, 2011.

All the information on this page is also available as a reproducible handout.
Download the PDF.


About the artist

Born among the swampy wilds of East Texas to a Lutheran minister and an American history teacher, Mary Button’s art is a reflection of a childhood in which faith and history were in constant conversation. She is a graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and is currently working on a master of theological studies at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Mary has created installations for the National Council of Churches and the 2009 Kenya Youth Peace Summit. She has also created The Hymnbook Project.