community arts

Here is a catch-up on some of what I have been involved with over the last few years. (click on images for full picture)

As Artist Advocate at St John the Divine Anglican Church, I seek to amplify the creative heart that lives within each one of us and identify opportunities for the artistic voice to inform spiritual practices and contribute to community well-being.

I work with Ruth MacIntosh, St John’s Family and Formation Minister, with whom I trained as a Therapeutic Arts Practitioner with the Canadian International Institute of Art Therapy. We co-host Soul Space retreats, which offer a gentle and creative way to explore spirituality in community, without requiring anyone to fit into a particular way of believing or being. Each retreat creates space to slow down, become grounded, reflect on a spiritual theme, and explore what it might mean in our own lives. Through contemplative practice, creative expression, conversation and shared food, we make space for both reflection and connection.

I am super excited to share that I have returned to curating! And a bonus is that Ruth and I have discovered that we work well as curators together. Because of our Soul Space work and our curating work, we decided to become Soul Space Arts Collective. Our first curating projects together are two beautiful exhibitions in the Neighbourhood Gallery, a new exhibition venue made possible by St John’s generous provision of space and by the volunteers who helped get it ready for art.

Art has also been curated throughout the church. One of the first things I noticed when I began working with St John’s was a small cabinet with glass doors as one enters the office foyer. It has since been christened the Little Cabinet Gallery, and hosts small works by various artists.

The church sanctuary has become a place in which art can shine. As well as inviting others to share their art, my own work has been shown this way. It is stunning how much the ecclesiastical architecture ennobles the art placed within it, and how much the art enhances the space, even though we are not doing anything elaborate or monumental.

This brief overview of my work at St John’s doesn’t convey as much as I would like of the sense of gratitude I feel in being able to integrate my art practice with community practice. At first I have had to put my studio work aside for a season. Now I understand that both my studio work and my community arts work come from the same desire to interpret theopoetic ideas within the context of art making and lived experience.

I feel supported by the community of St John’s in this work, and I am encouraged that St John’s sees it as a benefit not only to themselves, but to the neighbourhood and the wider community. For me, this is what an Artist Advocate can help make possible: a place where art is not simply something we look at, but something that helps us see, question, connect and imagine together.