The Audacity of Creating Something Beautiful
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I wrote about finding God in a quotidian painting like Jean Siméon Chardin’s Soap Bubbles for Ignatian Spirituality.
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Annunciation
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San Fermo Maggiore Church in Verona, Italy, features foundation stones from the fifth century, so I was quite surprised to find, tucked behind one of the central pillars bearing the weight of the upper church, an exquisite modern sculpture of the Annunciation. Sometimes modern art in ancient places is jarring. It doesn’t fit quite right. Yet this piece took my breath away.
Read MoreWaiting in Liminal Space
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Liminal space, a place of transition, is the moment in time caught between then and now, the past and the not yet. These places can make you feel uncomfortable, like airports or waiting rooms. Or, as an engaged couple or a pregnant woman, they remind you that you are not who you have been and neither are you who you will become.
Read MoreThe Annunciation
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The splash of paint begins to take form and I make out wings. No, this is not an abstract painting or ink blot test. I am standing before an angel.
Read MoreAndrew Wyeth's Snow Hill and the Subjects of Art
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At first glance, it’s a peculiar scene: a maypole in the middle of winter.
Read MoreFirst Art Love: Van Gogh's Mulberry Tree
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I don’t think any of us had grown up feeling like art was something we could approach. Graffiti, silkscreen and maybe Disney were for the likes of us. But the stuff in museums, that was for kids in John Hughes movies or people who lived in New York. Not us.
Read MoreA Luminous Invitation: On the transformational art of Barbara Earl Thomas
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There is an audible gasp as each person walks into the room. Conversations started are now cut off. Footsteps soften. Although it is not a church, there is a sense of reverence in this space. In this room there is sanctuary.
Read MoreThe Art We Live With: Seeking, Prioritizing, and Cultivating Beauty in the Everyday
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Conversation exploring the need to prioritize, make, and seek beauty in our everyday lives, beyond the walls of museums and concert halls.
Read MoreZoom Event: The Art We Live With
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The Collegium Institute and Dappled Things invite you to join us for this online event which will bring together a diversity of voices to explore the need to prioritize, make, and seek beauty in our everyday lives, beyond the walls of museums and concert halls.
Read MoreA Study of "Christ in Limbo"
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Benvenuto di Giovanni’s painting “Christ in Limbo” captures the split second before these faces realize who is standing before them. Who has come to save them.
Read MoreA Luminous Invitation: On the transformational art of Barbara Earl Thomas
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"When so many conversations on race build in tension or altogether end, Thomas’ work expands the story, giving it space to breathe and soar."
Read MoreOn Being the World to Our Vision
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Contrary to popular narratives, Motherhood and Creativity might not be opposed but rather intricately, intimately linked. Read my essay On Bending the World to Our Vision for Dappled Things.
Read MoreFirst Art Love
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I don’t think any of us had grown up feeling like art was something we could approach. Graffiti, silkscreen and maybe Disney were for the likes of us. But the stuff in museums, that was for kids in John Hughes movies or people who lived in New York. Not us.
Read MorePeter Schjeldahl: Let’s See
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Turns out, writing about art doesn’t have to be as technical as one might think. Which makes sense because so much about art is how it makes you feel. Peter Schjeldahl who writes on art for The New Yorker uses metaphor and similes to convey how art makes him feel.
Read MoreMy MFA Graduate Reading
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Well, I did it! I graduated! I now have an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction.
The highlight of my last residency was reading some of my work for my graduate reading.
Rembrandt’s Crucified Christ
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Rembrandt’s “Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves” brings Christ down among the spectators. Soldiers, horses, mockers and followers are pressed upon each other. Horses seem to spill upon the crowd.
Grievers hold their bodies in wretched poses. The two thieves flank Christ on either side. They are within speaking distance of him, not shouting distance, as I imagined.
Read MoreAndrew Wyeth's Snow Hill and the Subjects of Art
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"The snow is untouched. No footprints lead in or out. Have they danced through a snowstorm? Have they been there forever?"
Read MoreMeditating with Giorgione’s painting ‘The Adoration of the Shepherds’
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Imagine: You are bundled in your warmest coat, hat and gloves. It is the week before Christmas in 1938 and you are shopping for the perfect gift for your loved ones along Fifth Avenue in New York City. You peak into the S. H. Kress & Co. department store window for a few ideas and instead come face to face with this early 16th-century painting, “The Adoration of the Shepherds” (1505).
Read MoreThe Moment of Inhale
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Caravaggio’s art is incomplete without our gaze, the painted narrative waits for our eyes to unravel it. He needs us, the viewers, for the mystery in his paintings to be revealed. As his hues and figures set the stage for a narrative already in motion, Caravaggio allows the viewer to interrupt a story in progress, beholding the precise moment that the narrative curves from ordinary to astonishing."
Read MorePicture This: Using Art As a Path to the Holy Spirit
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Today I sit with artist Andrew Wyeth’s “Wind From the Sea”…I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths to quiet my heart and mind. I invite God to speak to me through the picture.”
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