Sacred Voices exhibit

The Sacred Voices exhibit opens Thursday, Dec 5, 2013 along with the St. John's Bible exhibit at the Canton Museum of Art.  Sacred Voices features Jewish, Christian, and Muslim artists whose artwork is inspired by their faith.

I have been working as a guest curator on the Sacred Voices exhibit for the Canton Museum of Art for almost a year now and am so thrilled with how it has shaped up.  Honestly, researching and selecting work for this show has been so deeply rewarding.  As a person who takes my own faith very seriously in my life and in my artwork, it has been such a delight to find so many others whose artwork is an extension of their faith.  I think that for an artist of faith, art making can be such a valuable way of living out and processing your beliefs, while also sharing them with others.

For Sacred Voices I sought artists whose faith seemed embedded in their creative process and whose work conveyed a spirituality and depth of belief. This is obviously a very personal perspective, but it was the driving force of my curatorial process.  I gravitated toward work that was contemplative, poetic even, in how it drew you in and prompted you to experience the work, regardless of your faith as the viewer.  It is not about differences, it is about how faith inspires art, AND how art inspires faith!

There are 60 works featured in this exhibit created by 37 artists mostly from the US, but also from Australia, Austria, Canada, and the United Kingdom as well.  I have had the wonderful privilege of meeting many of these artists when I picked up artwork in person on the East Coast and Midwest, and am excited to meet some of the other artists who will be attending the opening reception as well.  

If you are in the area, I hope you can come to this exhibit.  It is open until March 2, 2014.

http://www.cantonart.org/

Community

"Community" is a kinetic sculpture that I designed for the McKinley Manor neighborhood. It is part of a neighborhood revitalization project organized by Community Building Partnership to help build neighborhood identity and pride.

After speaking with residents, I came up with this kinetic sculpture design to help capture the identity of this neighborhood. The sculpture is intended to represent flight/abstractions of airplanes, since this neighborhood used to be the site of the first local airport in Canton.  It is also meant to reflect community, with the arms open wide, moving and interacting with each other (as wind currents move them on the Timken bearings.) Special thanks to the Timken Company, Beaver Excavating, Canton Erectors, Morris Bros. Scrap Metals, Ernies Bike Shop, Aaron Brown, Doug Gialluca, and the students at Madge Youtz Elementary School for helping make this a reality!

This sculpture, dedicated on November 15, 2013, is located at Madge Youtz Elementary School, 1901 Midway Ave. NE, Canton OH 44705.