by Catelyn Mailloux A year and a half ago I began attending a small rural church where my husband was hired to play the organ. The church is a modest congregation located about thirty miles south of where we live in southern Ohio. Throughout the last year on Sunday mornings, my husband and I would… Continue Reading
Category Archives: civablog
Finding the Transcendent in “Ugly Art”
by Sarah Bernhardt You’ve arrived at the door of 3636 Texas Ave. in St. Louis Missouri to take in the exhibition Ritual at the Intersect Arts Center. If you’ve come here looking for beauty at first glance you will find it. And you won’t. There are some compositions that catch the eye with an immediate pleasing… Continue Reading
Death Where is Thy Sting
by Xenia Williams A poor woman comes to a memorial service, and she reverently places on a table brought down for it an offering of Kollyva, in this case, a dish of sweetened boiled rice which will be served to the congregation after the memorial prayers for the dead are said. The priest and choir… Continue Reading
What to do with Differences: Artists and Art as a Bridge
By Isaac Tsetan Gergan, Marianne Lettieri, and Rachel Hostetter Smith Three friends, who participated in the Art for Change 2020 International Artist Residency in New Delhi, India, reflect on its theme. God designed beauty and meaning through differences Isaac: From the beginning of creation, we see differences in all aspects of God’s design: physical, emotional and… Continue Reading
Communing with Saints
by Ryan Stander A shoebox at a flea market changed my life. A simple Nike shoebox filled with discarded family photographs broke my heart. With each photograph of unfamiliar faces and disconnected stories I flipped through, I grew a deeper realization of our shared humanity and mortality. Each photograph – a certificate of someone’s life… Continue Reading
Mirrored in Mourning
by Jordan Lienhoop I was standing before two alabaster statues in the Speed Art Museum: Hooded Mourner with Rosary and Hooded Mourner with Missal. Created in the mid-1400s at the School of Jean Cambrai in France, the sculptures are encased behind glass, standing no more than two feet high. Their faces are somber, heads bent,… Continue Reading
Defining the Terms of Beauty and Goodness in a Sin Cursed World
by Robbie Mackintosh Amongst Christian artists there is a lot of talk about beauty and goodness and how we should reflect these God-given realities in our work. But how do we define the boundaries and scope of these realities? Within the context of the lost and fallen world, how do we emphasize the beauty and… Continue Reading
Prayers in Paint
by Dawn Waters Baker These past 16 months have been some of the hardest of my life. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Maybe you’ve felt that way too. I have talked to doctor and counselor friends who are seeing a significant rise in mental health across the board. Just this week I was… Continue Reading
“Let all who are wise-hearted come and make…” Exodus 35:10
by Lisa Smith The story of the Tabernacle seems dry in comparison to everything else going on in the book of Exodus. Burning bushes, parting seas, clouds of fire and smoke, a golden calf – all seem more engaging than chapter after chapter of lists, details, and instructions. But this (not so little) story is… Continue Reading
Beyonce: A Reimagined Madonna
by Vicki Stuart The famous Beyonce shocked her audience once again: rather than wowing them with her silky dulcet tones, however, the artist’s maternity photos caused the public uproar. In the capturing of Beyonce’s pregnancy in 2017, photographer Awol Erizku controversially reimagined the typical depictions of the Mother Mary and challenged socio-philosophical norms of the… Continue Reading