Florence trip

Of the 22 surveys in the “Artist of the Abbey” series published monthly since its first installment in September 2021, four have featured monk-artists, with two of them deceased and two very much still alive. This month, joining the ranks of the “very much alive” category at age 93, is Fr. Christopher Davis. Not only is he the fifth monk to be recognized, but he is the first person in the series thus far to be noted for photography. Another artistic connection featuring Fr. Chris was noted in an earlier issue of The Current (Feb. 6-12, 2022), in which we explained how he came to receive a small illuminated manuscript page from northern Italy, ca. 1500. A gift for his priestly ordination on May 31, 1958, and on the occasion of his first Mass two days later, the work had been a gift of W. Atlee Burpee, Jr. (1894-1966), son of the founder of the Burpee Seed Company in Philadelphia. We reported that Fr. Chris’ father had worked as a sales rep at a Philadelphia printing company whose biggest client was the W. Atlee Burpee Co. The printers produced their famous seed packets, those noteworthy Burpee seed catalogs, and other printed paper products.

Early yearbook image of Fr. Christopher Davis
 

Gateway Arch, St. Louis

Fr. Chris now resides at the Grand Islander Center in Middletown. He has been able to return more frequently to concelebrate at Sunday Masses in the Abbey Church, accompanied by our friend, Tanisha, who looks after his every need while in the house. After Mass, Fr. Chris enjoys brunch in the Stillman Dining Hall especially during the school term amid the excitement of the presence of the students. Recently he participated in the Oblate Advent Day of Recollection on December 17 where he dined among a more sedate and quiet crowd. While he and I managed to chat informally during his visits about his large-format color photographs hanging throughout the monastery and school, we felt that any serious discussion necessitated a tete-a-tete at the Grand Islander. Sitting down there on Saturday, December 23, we both enjoyed a calming respite before the onset the next day of the activities of Christmas and its ensuing season.

Belfry, Trapp Family Lodge (Vermont)

It was surprising to learn that the images as photographed by Fr. Chris were composed by him in the viewfinder. That is to say, his photos were not achieved by means of the cropping or “burning” or highlighting of certain areas while in the darkroom. In fact, he has no experience of developing his own film, of printing contact sheets, or of actually printing large format photos. I got the sense throughout the conversation that he views those mechanical means of manipulating the images as a mere technical part of the process. The photographer, he feels, should know in advance by looking and composing, then shooting and capturing, exactly what he wants manifested in the final product. Not simply vacation snapshots to slip into a photo album, his finished prints measure 16” x 24”, in landscape and portrait format, set off in simple blonde wood 22” x 30” frames.

In the piazza, Florence

In attempting to identify the nexus of his work, he mulled over a few random questions, finally hit upon the answer and exclaimed, “The Holy Spirit was with me!” Turns out that he had gone to “a used camera shop in New York City run by a Jewish guy.” While Fr. Chris had felt that one lens he favored “was too expensive” and out of his price range, the shop owner insisted that, “If you’re gonna buy a lens, you oughta buy the best! You won’t regret it.” And Fr. Chris said, “And I didn’t!” He bought the Leica, a brand of which he had never heard. Later that day, I wondered if it was the same NYC camera shop that I had wandered into during a Christmas visit in 1985. For $125.00 cash I bought a working vintage Graflex Speed-Graphic press camera I had seen in the window, for a stage production of Golden Boy directed by Tony Kushner. It featured a young college student named Rocky Carroll.

Matt Peterson holds for Fr. Chris, “#1 Sports Fan”

So, how did the images seen through his used Leica lens get enlarged and printed? Fr. Chris took his exposed film, “to this guy who had a small store near the Colony House in Newport.” Giving the man explicit instructions, says Fr. Chris, “the thing that I exploited was a sense of composition.” Another acquaintance who served him well was John Howard Benson, famed Newport stone-carver, who headed the school’s art department at Portsmouth for some time. Mr. Benson’s son Fud was also a photographer, though Fr. Chris and Fud apparently did not see eye to eye when it came to the fine points of the creation of their art.

San Francisco fireboat

Our conversation happening on a Saturday afternoon in late December, college football was on many of the televisions in the Grand Islander. Maybe that is how the conversation made a lateral pass and veered off somehow to create an artistic link involving Texas Christian University. Fr. Chris mused, “I got friendly with a man on the faculty at T.C.U., and at that time they were unknown and did not have a football team. It was just a really nice little college. But the alumni wanted a team, so now everyone knows the school.” The university is also home to the Brite Divinity School, founded in 1914, where Fr. Christopher’s friend, Dr. Kenneth Lawrence (1935-2006), served as chairman of the Department of Religious Studies as well as a professor of arts and religion. Dr. Lawrence, who took his Ph.D. at Boston University, led his divinity students on group study trips to 15 different countries and was a world-renowned expert on religious art.

Themes in church architecture (Library Annex)

This historical anecdote also explains the backstory of a photograph displayed outside Abbot Michael’s office in the monastery. It features the famous octagonal green and white marble Baptistery of St. John in the Piazza San Giovanni in Florence, Italy. One year, Fr. Chris related, Dr. Lawrence told him that, “his students know nothing about the Catholic Church, so he said, ‘Chris, come along with us, otherwise we’re just a group of strangers. You’ll be comfortable with everything we’re seeing.’” The Florence photo he took on that trip, with a number of others from Fr. Chris’ photographic opus, was included in an exhibition at the Newport Art Museum. Three of this series now hang side by side in a public area of the monastery. The subjects include a birds-eye view of a fireboat in the San Francisco Bay taken above from the Golden Gate Bridge; a striking view looking upwards of one leg of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis; and a shot labeled, “4) Belfry of Trapp Family Lodge, Stowe, Vermont.” Together they represent the breadth of the U.S., spanning the West Coast, the Midwest at the Mississippi River, and New England on the East Coast. These three images give insight to the travels taken by Fr. Christopher throughout his earlier life. One can trace other moments in Fr. Chris’ personal and photographic journeys through other framed images now found in the School’s Library Annex and in the Infirmary. Should you see Fr. Christopher at a Sunday morning Mass, chat him up afterwards. You will find, if you had not already discovered in the stories elicited by his photography, he is indeed an engaging raconteur.