Drawn to faith: an artist creates homilies in pen and ink

From The St. Louis Post-Dispatch: 

On the second Sunday of Lent, John Hendrix sits in one of the pews near the back of Grace and Peace Fellowship, a Presbyterian church housed in an old-style brick building with stained glass in green and orange, and a giant, golden organ pipe front and center. At first, Hendrix, casually decked in glasses, a striped, button-down shirt and jeans, looks like any other member of the hip and young crowd at Grace and Peace, which offers gluten-free communion and is stationed just east of the Delmar Loop. With his wife, Andrea, and his two children, Jack, 8, and Annie, 5, Hendrix stands, singing God praises. But as soon as the sermon starts, Hendrix sets himself apart, whipping out his sketchbook and pens, ready to do what he does every Sabbath: draw the pastor’s sermon.

“My sketchbooks are some of the most favorite things I do where I just love the images I make,” Hendrix, 37, said in a recent interview in his home near Washington University where he teaches at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts.

Hendrix, however, doesn’t make his money through his sermon sketches but in other ways: In addition to teaching, he freelances as an illustrator for big-name magazines like Esquire, Rolling Stone and The New Yorker. He also draws pictures for book authors. And he writes and illustrates his own nonfiction work.

…But Hendrix says it is his portraits of homilies that deliver unadulterated pleasure.

On this particular Sunday, the Rev. Thurman Williams preaches about the power of Jesus to cleanse those around him. He talks about a specific chapter in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus, filled with compassion, heals a man with leprosy. Williams tells the congregation that today’s society can make many feel like a leper, or like social outcasts. But Jesus, Williams professes, can make those who believe feel anew.

Occasionally pausing to look up, Hendrix quickly sketches a clothesline while the sermon continues. Along with images of socks and underwear, letters hang from the clothesline spelling out what the leper says to Jesus in the gospel, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

By the time the service ends, Hendrix has completed a good portion of his latest church sketch. Yet, Hendrix doesn’t seem to have been a distraction to those around him.

In the coming week, he’ll finish the piece at home, adding color, though he says he likes to finish as much as he can during worship because the “magic happens in the pews.”

Read more and see some samples of his work at the link.