If you haven’t checked out the new design redux over at St. Austin Review, do so! It’s simple, creative and I think perfectly in tune with their goal and mission is–it’s not trying too hard to be what it’s not.
One feature of the new web site is the StAR blog, the Ink Desk, featuring snippets of the faith and culture conversation.
After quite a long hiatus and infrequent posting for the last two years since the advent of Ruah Movie Nights and the Human Experience screening, Ruah is back!
My husband and I have wanted to reignite this effort for some time, but things have never quite been right. Until now. A number of circumstances–crosses, joys, encouragement and signs–have aligned, all pointing towards the re-launching of Ruah, this time as a non-profit rather than just a club of loose associations.
We’re currently praying over John Paul II’s Letter to Artists, networking with friends in similar work and with a similar passion, doing the non-profit legwork (incorporation, 501(c)3 paperwork, bylaws, board, etc.), and trying to find part time jobs to keep us afloat until we can get status and apply for grants.
Please pray for our discernment, tasks, networking and especially for benefactors. As you may have heard, this is not the best financial time to begin a non-profit, as nearly all non-profits are struggling.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Speaking of which, I just got an email from the Foundation for Sacred Arts, and they’re two shakes of a lamb away from cutting and shutting, so please strongly consider sending them a sacrificial gift:
Dear friends,
Since 2002, The Foundation for Sacred Arts has tirelessly worked to revitalize the sacred arts, both by cultivating a demand for beauty in these arts and by supporting those artists who create works of beauty today. During this time, the Foundation has established a seven year track record of important and consequential events and activities, including two national traveling exhibitions, lectures with distinguished speakers, and most recently, the stained glass tour Spendors of the Sacred and the art exhibition Picturing the Rosary.
Though we have been actively developing a number of fundraising initiatives in order to fund basic operational expenses as well as Foundation-sponsored projects, our efforts have been hampered by the still weak economy. Our appeals and outreaches have generated only enough income to sustain us through the end of this month! At that time, without additional funding, the impoverished state of the Foundation will force us to suspend all activity until further notice.
The Foundation has been blessed with a team of dedicated volunteers, and we are eager to continue our efforts to revive the sacred arts for the glory of God, the life of His Church, and the transformation of culture. But our organization, like many others, is in need of funding to cover basic operational expenses: approximately $5500 per month. However, your check or online donation of $1000, $500, $100 or $50 will greatly contribute to this financial need.
With your generous assistance, we will be able to complete our projects already in development for 2010, including the launch of our online archive of artists, architects, and music composers as a resource for patrons; a seminarian arts formation program to equip priests with the tools necessary to direct commissions and restorations within their own parishes; and an expansion of our resources to include segments dealing with art and catechesis.
Please help us in our mission to revive the sacred arts. It is through beauty that man will see God. “In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art.” – Pope John Paul II
Faithfully,
Ann Marra
Executive Director
I heard a joke at daily Mass that made me laugh today. As I’ve said before, I don’t hate all modern or contemporary art (though much of it is based on erroneous principles), but a lot of it is characterized by this:
A man is looking at a painting in an art gallery, and is intrigued with one particular painting. It was a canvas covered with black paint, several large orange splotches, with thin, yellow lines criss-crossed. Tilting his head with furrowed brow, the man was approached by the artist.
“I don’t know if I understand this painting at all. What’s it about?” asked the gallery patron.
Nodding seriously, the artist declared, “Few people understand my work. It comes from inside of me.”
“Maybe you should take an Alka-seltzer,” suggested the man.
I laughed out loud. Yes. Maybe you should take an Alka-seltzer!
Nominations are in for the Catholic New Media awards. Among the 2009 contestants are some of my favorites, including:
- The Curt Jester, whose “Walk-In Monstrance” entry made me laugh for at least twenty minutes.
- What Does the Prayer Really Say?
- Word Incarnate, by spiritual buddy Father Abbot Joseph at Transfiguration Monastery.
- Creative Minority Report, which makes me chuckle on a regular basis. Witty, witty, witty! The Catholic Onion. Don’t miss their “Marketing the New Mass”
Why is this on a faith and culture blog? I thought it was all about the liturgy and sacred arts? Amen, “the fine arts were born on the altar,” but a renewal of faith and culture must speak the language of the day, which includes new media.
I don’t know if anyone out their in Church work has the same frustration (I’m guessing there might be a few of you), but the amazing lack of the presence of prayer in our every day apostolate and work lives just kills me.
No, it really is killing me, and it’s also what is killing the Church, and obscuring the presence of Jesus Christ in the World. Not only is there not enough prayer in our work places for the Church, but there’s not enough prayer *about* our work, and perhaps most frustrating at all, there’s not enough formation about prayer–Who its about, what prayer is, how to do it, and most shockingly, how prayer is our divine destiny to all become contemplatives in union with God–here on earth now, for real, and forever in heaven.
What got me going? Most recently I read Fr. Thomas Dubay’s Fire Within, an awesome exposition on prayer and the vocation of us all to holiness, and a brilliant summary of the work of two doctors of the Church who know *a little bit* about prayer.
You know what else? An article on Catholicexchange by Deacon James Keating called “Passionate Prayer,” the first in a multi-part series on the call to prayer. Deacon Keating, it turns out, is the director of Theological Formation at the Institute for Priestly Formation at Creighton University. This is the second time I’ve heard of good things about this institute. Perhaps more diocese should be looking into this type of ongoing formation?
(I’m going to stop writing now because it’s mysteriously writing in all italics.)
Oremus…
“She Pondered These Things”
By Marguerite S. Quinn
Opening Concert & Reception
Washington Arts Group Exhibition
Love in the Crucible:
Washington, D.C. – St. Petersburg, Russia
Concert featuring the Piedmont Symphony Orchestra
Performing works by Bach, Mozart and Vivaldi.
Soloists: David Cho, cello & Eugene Dovgalyuk, violin.
Gallery Talk by Special Guest Dr. Tina Khmelnitskaya
Curator of Russian Porcelain, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
Jerry Eisley will join Dr. Khmelnitskaya to discuss how the exhibition reflects the ongoing joint arts outreach in Anacostia and Russia through the Washington Arts Group.
Sunday, March 15, 2009, 4:00 p.m.
Truro Church, 10520 Main Street, Fairfax, Va. 22030
The exhibition features Biblical narrative paintings by Marguerite Slocum Quinn. One of America’s outstanding impressionist portrait painters and works of art by children from the Vladimir Romanov Palace Children’s Arts Outreach in St. Petersburg, Russia. The paintings and children’s work celebrate the joy that comes in the presence of difficulty. Quinn’s subjects for her Biblical narrative Paintings are African Americans from Anacostia.
Exhibition continues through May 17 at Truro Church Gallery.
For exhibition information, call the Washington Arts Group at 202-363-2345
I just wandered over to Catholicexchange.com, which I like to do from time to time, and found something that piqued my interest: nice story and defense of sacred images by Arturo Vasquez. He introduces his overview of the importance of sacred images with an recent story of a burglared parish.
I keep coming across these design contests, and this one looked like a good one. J.Jill, the slightly overpriced cross between Gap and Chico’s, is holding design contest for the next Compassion Tee, a shirt whose net profit go towards the J.Jill Compassion Fund at the Boston Foundation. Partners (beneficiaries) include Ascension Place in Minneapolis and The Enterprising Kitchen in Chicago. The grand prize is a $2000 shopping spree at J.Jill and an Artista Creative Safari in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California (Ladies only on the safari).
My friend, Matthew Milliner, wrote some time earlier this year a succinct summary of everything I believe about contemporary art, namely that contemporary art is corrupt, is based on poorly formed principles (if any) sans the transcendant, and needs very much the simple, faithful return to classical foundations in a truly creative way that is based in, above all things, the sacred Liturgy, whether directly in the liturgical arts or flowing from the altar itself by grace. His very direct and lovely way of communicating this comes down to two bird analogies: the swallows of Capistrano (as taken from Jody Bottum’s article in First Things) and the sparrows whose littleness trumps the eagles of the art world (as taught by John Walford of Wheaton College).
Do read the article. It’s not a sound bite, hyper-summarized, bite size chunk of cultural niceties and theoretic sentamentalism, so don’t expect something that the average Facebook user would read and dig. It’s probably not something your average artsy fartsy person would dig either. Average, I said. It’s edgy, and a little (wee) bit long, but it’s worth the perseverance. So read it. It might offend you, and that’s okay I say. Truth offends. If we had more people willing to offend the Church we’d be in a much different place in respect to many things today.
Favorite quotes:
“A nearly universal response to contemporary art today–one that impressively transverses race, creed age, or class–is ‘What?’”“The decades to follow gave us conceptual art, landscape art, performance art, outsider’s art, found art, and (most revealingly perhaps) auto-destructive art.”
“The cult of celebrity–with its exorbitant votive prices–drives the art world today, leaving envy and resentment in its wake: a convocation of belligerent eagles.”
“We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another–doubtless very different–St. Benedict.” And lo, our Benedict has come.” [Props to Matt for the B16 reference--check his flickr account for his pics from the April Pope visit]
Follow me on Twitter 