A bridge is a structure built to span a valley, road, railroad track, river, body of water, or any other physical obstacle, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle. Designs of bridges will vary depending on the function of the bridge and the nature of the terrain where the bridge is to be constructed. (Source: Wikipedia)

On View: Colorado Street Bridge, photograph by Gabriel Ferrer and Michael Mastsumoto. One of a series. June 2009. As seen in 'Los Angeles Visual Preludes 2009', Gabriel Ferrer, producer.

[Hillstream] John Giuliani, the son of Italian immigrants developed an early interest in drawing which led him to study art at Pratt Institute in New York. Soon his religious calling took precedence, and he was ordained as a Catholic priest, temporarily putting aside his art to give his life to the church as a chaplain and priest while continuing to study the humanities.

He earned M.A. degrees in classical literature and art, theology and American Studies. Combining his interests in art and theology he apprenticed with Russian icon master, Vladislav Andreyev, to learn thoroughly that ancient tradition. For fifteen years Giuliani taught Latin, the Humanities and American Film at the Bridgeport Connecticut Diocesan Seminary, at Fairfield University and at Sacred Heart University. During the late 70s Father Giuliani embarked on a new pursuit, founding the Benedictine Grange, a small monastic community in West Redding, Connecticut where he continues to pursue a variety of ministries flowing from the contemplative life.

After years of teaching and nurturing his faith community he returned to painting with an inspired vision and a renewed drive drawing from his intensive love of art. In resuming his painting he began making iconic depictions of Native American peoples as Christian saints. A number of these paintings are installed at churches in the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, also in Rapid City and at numerous institutions throughout the United States.

Asked to explain his decision to portray the faces of the sacred as Native Americans, Giuliani explains:
"As a Catholic priest and son of Italian immigrants I bear the religious and ethnic burden of ancestral crimes perpetrated on the first inhabitants of the Americas. Many have been converted to Christianity, but in doing so some find it difficult to retain their indigenous culture. My intent, therefore, in depicting Christian saints as Native Americans is to honor them and to acknowledge their original spiritual presence on this land. It is this original Native American spirituality that I attempt to celebrate in rendering the beauty and excellence of their craft as well as the dignity of their persons."

On View: Jesus and Disciplies, by John Giuliani, courtesy of Hillstream LLC.

As seen in: The Ubuntu Reredos, created for the 76th General Convention of The Episcopal Church, Anaheim, California.

“Like the prayer books they reference, muse upon, and celebrate, her [Ellen Wiener's] paintings submit the confidences of personal experience to a ceremonial protocol that derives from the common day – the rule of light that ordered a monk’s attention from Matins through Lauds and back again, illuminating inwardness by opening within it broad perspectives of vision and reverie. Through the absorptive tissue of symbol, metaphor, imagery and natural forms she has created in her work, the artist invites us into still, small chapels of contemplation. There the Hours unfold solitude, and reflection gives a past and future to all the light the day delivers. These works are landscapes of the timeless day- the “one day, that first day”- that is ever and always the incarnation of attention.

"The layers of visual information she creates - including meticulous botanical vignettes and night skies as well as references to instruments of inquiry and language systems which range from telescopes to Morse code- allow the sacred and the ordinary, the common and the rare, the unseen and the closely observed to exist in the same frame. With their compressed strata of memory, scrutiny, contemporary thought, and forgotten knowledge….she has concentrated her compact works with such careful calibration that they open over time, revealing themselves quietly to an audience of one, in fact, the paintings are best seen exhibited not on a wall but propped on a table, so one can sit and peer into the network of allusions they connect, as one might concentrate on- and enter into- a book. Indeed one must fight the compulsion to pick them up for closer reading.”
From the essay The Still Small Hours by James Mustich, Jr. James Mustich, Jr. was co-founder, and, for twenty years, publisher of the book catalogue, A Common Reader. He is now Editor-in-Chief, Barnes and Noble Review. Courtesy of ellenwiener.com

Ms. Wiener donated the use of her work to The Ubuntu Reredos, a multimedia altarpiece created for the 76th General Convention of The Episcopal Church.

On View: 'Blue History", flat detail, ink and media on paper, by Ellen Wiener.

About the Artist: Ellen Wiener is a visual artist currently working on a series based on Medieval Books of Hours. She holds degrees from Bennington College and Queens College, CUNY, and has taught at the university level since 1985.

Faculty positions include appointments at: Princeton University, Dartmouth College, Queens College CUNY, St. Mary’s Honors College of Maryland, SUNY Stony Brook, Suffolk County Community College, Sweet Briar College, Louisiana State University, and The University of New Mexico. Her work has been shown widely in the United States in many gallery, library and museum exhibitions including 19 solo shows.

She has, by invitation, lectured on her work at The International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo Michigan, The International Society for Hildegard von Bingen Studies, Haverford College, Brooklyn College, Princeton Theological Seminary, Maryland Art Institute, American University, Long Island University, Swarthmore College and The Institute for Medieval Studies at The University of New Mexico. Her research has involved study at Union Theological Seminary, The New School University in conjunction with The Morgan Library, The Christian Index at Princeton University and The New York Botanical Garden. She is a member of The Custer Institute Observatory in Southold NY.

Ms. Wiener’s work has been reviewed in Art in America, Art Forum, The Village Voice, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She has received several honors including; The Andrew Carnegie Prize for Painting from The National Academy of Design in NYC, The William Randoph Hearst Fellowship for Creative and Performing Artists and Writers from The American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Ma., residency grants from The MacDowell Colony, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Ragdale Foundation, Holy Cross Monastery and stipends from The New York Foundation for the Arts. Courtesy of ellenwiener.com

This past weekend I went up to Shaw Island with my daughter to attend a
memorial service for one of her former schoolmates, a 20 year old boy who
died three weeks ago of an aneurysm.

It was lovely to be back on the island, despite the circumstances; lovely to
spend time with my daughter, and heartening to spend an evening with Teddy's
mother, who was a dear friend back in the days when we all lived on that
little island. It was good to hear who Teddy had become; to hear how their
lives have been going and what his mother's plans are for the future.

Teddy's mother is an amazing and admirable woman, a minister in the Church
of Religious Science, and now that her girls are in college she is turning
her home into a bed and breakfast for people who come to Seattle for
treatment for chronic illnesses like Lyme Disease (of which she and her
daughter are also sufferers).

I also had a lot of alone time while I was on Shaw, and I spent much of it
reading "Echoing Silence," a compendium of Thomas Merton's thoughts on
writing. I am still processing, but his writing was absolutely soul-stirring
for me: I felt I'd found my soulmate, I felt a ton of affirmation for what
I've been encountering along the way, and I can see I still have a great
deal to learn on this path. So I thought I'd share this quote from Merton
today: it explains better than I ever could why it is that blogging has come
to mean so much to me. Thank you -- by the way -- for continuing to be
willing readers.

“Writing," says Merton, "is the one thing that gives me access to some real
silence and solitude. Also I find that it helps me to pray because, when I
pause at my work, I find that the mirror inside me is surprisingly clean and
deep and serene and God shines there and is immediately found, without
hunting, as if He had come close to me while I was writing, and I had not
observed his coming.”

Text: Diane Walker, from her blog, Contemplative Photography.

Quote: Thomas Merton, from Echoing Silence, available here in Google Reader..

Image from "A Contemplative Alphabet" by Diane Walker, available through Blurb.

Diane Walker is Exhibitions Director of Episcopal Church and Visual Arts and a contributing artist to The Ubuntu Reredos.

[International Arts Movement]

Reflections of Generosity - Towards Restoration and Peace is the current exhibition on view through September 11 2009 at Fort Drum, Fort Drum NY. The organizing committee states, "Reflections of Generosity ’09 will provide the audience and participants opportunities for remembrance and hope beyond the pain of recent tragedy. It will also encourage soldiers and their families preparing for another deployment to face the coming sacrifices with courage and hope. This exhibition is also dedicated to the memory of the people who lost their lives on 9-11 and to the many soldiers who have given their lives in the ensuing conflicts."

Cafe Art Blog readers may remember Suzanne Opton's 'Soldiers Faces' project (photographs of Fort Drum soldiers) and her 'Soldiers|Citizens' project (US Soldiers and Iraqi Citizens) mentioned here.

On View We Are Climbing, Installation by Charles Westfall.

Artist's Statement by Charles Westfall "...[as an artist] one is taking the material of the world, imposing a set of forms on it in a very concentrated way, to actually reinvest our existence with meaning." - Tony Cragg

"There is an important relationship between physical violence and spiritual force. It’s a complex relationship and one has to be very cautious not to make cavalier statements about it.

"The Civil War, World War II, and for Christians even the instance of Christ’s crucifixion, represent circumstances in which redemption, for nations and for individuals, came at a heavy cost, and only after bloodshed. This does not constitute an endorsement of violence, or of physical force, it is simply my attempt to engage with this very complicated reality – one that service men and women seem to understand intuitively.

"This work is intended to explore the full complexity of this relationship: ascension in the midst of destruction, the wound as a window, and the hope that as “The tumult and the shouting dies, the captains and the kings depart…” we might find our way back toward restoration and renewal."

Additional information about artist Charles Westfall is available at his website, charlesawestfall.com.

Additional information about International Arts Movement is available here.