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The Artist-in-Residence program was the first manifestation of Wesley Theological Seminary’s commitment to the arts. Beginning as a small space hidden beneath the chapel, studio space for visiting artists emerged into a large, visible, lively room in the heart of the Kresge academic building. There, Artists-in-Residence, students—and the occasional staff or faculty member—work with paint, glass, charcoal, clay, wax, fabric, and any number of other materials as their hands give form and substance to their ideas and visions. The studio is also a place of conversation, and those who work there regularly, as well as those who just drop in from time to time, frequently find themselves deep in discussions about art, theology, and the creative process.

In 1989, the Dadian Gallery began as a formal exhibition space, a place where the visible, tangible results of the creative process could be seen and celebrated, where what has been discovered in the studio could be shared with a wider audience. Most of the time, the artists whose works are exhibited here live and work somewhere else, and all we are able to see is the product. In “Fresh from the Studio”, we invite our own Artists-in-Residence to bring their work upstairs. Since we have been invited to observe their process along the way, we are now able to experience with them the transformation that occurs as artworks move from the studio to the gallery.

Through the years, the Artists-in-Residence in our midst have engaged us in conversation, enlarged our understanding, and deepened our collective practice of theological reflection through engagement with the arts. We are grateful to Heidi Christensen, Sarah Demas, Nina Falk, David Kamm, and Iveta Kosyan for sharing the gift of their lives, their work, their skill, and their vision with the Wesley Theological Seminary community.

Deborah Sokolove
Curator, Dadian Gallery

Heidi Christensen

Heidi Christensen is an artist from Boston, Massachusetts, currently completing her masters’ degree in theology at Virginia Theological Seminary.  She was an artist-in-residence at the Henry Luce III Center for Art and Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary the academic year of 2005- 2006.  

In her words, “As working artist I left Boston in 2004 to begin a journey I had discerned as a merging of my vocation as an artist with a growing call to ministry in the church.  This Spring I will complete my graduate work in theology at VTS.  I also spent a year in residence at Wesley Theological Seminary as part of the community and as an artist in the studios and I cherish both the place and the experience.  I hope to continue to create works of art as heightened contemplation of the natural world and to find additional forums in which to explore the material and creative as transformative experiences in communities of faith.”

 The works included in this group exhibition present evidence of transitions under way.  The paintings present objects of the natural world captured as a hyper-rendering of observable form.  I would suggest that they emphasize the observation of realized form rather than its inner workings.  What I have hoped to share with these paintings and with many similarly-rendered works is the experience of prolonged witness to God’s creational hand at work in the particularity of things.  

What the sketches and drawings are pointing to is my contemplation of the deeper creational impulse of these objects sparked by the Thomist understanding of perpetual causal motion of the world being the effect of a governing God.  Gesture is the aesthetic element which I pray may mediate these creational/spiritual understandings and guide me toward more formal representations in painting, drawing and, printmaking. 

While my theological understanding and religious feelings inspire and guide my expression as an artist, my works are not religiously narrative or didactic in nature.  It is my interest and hope to capture these thoughts and feelings through the form and structure of images of the natural world and perhaps manifest a sensory apprehension of the unseen, yet corresponding, spiritual reality of the created world.   

Sarah Demas

Sarah Demas pursued her interest in portraiture and the figure at the New York Academy of Art Graduate School of Figurative Art where she earned her MFA in 1999. She has taught and exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC and Baltimore. She currently teaches at Montgomery College, The Art League School and as Artist in Residence at Wesley Theological Seminary.

Nina Falk

Glass art, as a visual expression of the rhythms, patterns and lyricism of both music and nature, is the focus of Nina Falk, Artist-in Residence.

Nina Falk studied violin, sculpture, and printmaking at the Oberlin Conservatory, and won a Fulbright Fellowship to explore violin-making in Europe. She studied kiln-formed glass at the Corning Museum of Glass and at the Pilchuck School. She is also a found­ing member of the Arcovoce Chamber Ensemble, which performs regularly at the Phillips Collection in Wash­ington, DC. She is artist-in-residence at the Wesley Theological Seminary.

"When I create glass, I am inspired by a life-time as a classical violinist. I'm in love with color and light and flow, and my work is an abstract, playful exploration of nature and music. Working with glass allows me to integrate my experience and love of both. My goal is to create glass that expresses the oneness of all life."

More of Nina’s work may be seen at www.ninafalkglass.com

David Kamm

David Kamm earned his B.A. in art education from Wartburg College (Waverly, IA), and both his M.A. and M.F.A. in printmaking from the University of Iowa (Iowa City).  He has served as art gallery coordinator and assistant professor of art at Luther College (Decorah, IA) since 1989, where he also assists in the management of the Luther College Fine Arts Collection. He has taught college courses in drawing, printmaking, art appreciation, art history, and art education; has taught art in public schools (grades 4-12); and for several years was a roster artist with the Iowa Arts Council's Artists-in-the-Schools program. In 1992, he represented Iowa art instructors on a Fulbright project to Russia, and in 2002 was selected to participate in a summer institute sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities in Virginia. He has received multiple grants for his work and presented at several national conferences on art and education, most recently the 2007 College Art Association’s conference in New York City.  His art has been included in over 120 exhibitions and competitions and is included in several public and institutional collections.

The work I have been creating as an artist-in-residence at Wesley addresses a project titled “Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate.”  The project is co-sponsored by the Holter Museum of Art in Helena, Montana and the Montana Human Rights Network.  An open call was sent to artists inviting proposals that would respond to literature published by the Church of the Creator, a white supremacist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian hate group that has migrated to Montana.  My proposal suggested that a seminary could offer a powerful context for developing a response.  The proposal was accepted, and when the semester began in January, the students in my practicum and I began to wrestle with this difficult challenge.  Our source material has included books, such as The White Man’s Bible, published by the Church of the Creator and made available to participating artists by the sponsors of the project. 

My work in this exhibit represents three types of personal responses to the project.  One response includes a group of linoleum prints that superimpose traditional symbols of the church over pages from the books.  Another juxtaposes pages from the books with text-and-image drawings based on biblical passages found on the cornerstones or facades of Wesley buildings.  The third type of response uses the compositional format of a cross as the basis for cut-and-past images created from photocopied snippets cut from pages of the books.  This response has been especially satisfying in several ways.  Physically, the deconstructed and reconstructed images transform both the form and content of the books.  In addition, the labor-intensive creation of each image becomes a meditative or contemplative process that helps me consider the spiritual nature of the project.  Symbolically, the cross is a potent symbol for Christians of the transformative power of love.  Visually, the fact that the cross may be more or less apparent in the images, depending on the particular design and the viewer’s visual focus, suggests that we each have a role in completing the process of transformation.  No one can do it for us.

Iveta Kosyan

Iveta Kosyan’s heritage is Armenian. She was born and raised in an Apostolic (Orthodox) Christian family in Yerevan, Armenia. Her spiritual foundation was laid from infancy and throughout her childhood due to her grandmother, a godly woman. From 1998 to 2003 she pursued an MA in Fine Arts degree at Yerevan State Pedagogical University, the Faculty of Fine Arts.

At the age of 20 she experienced a radical conversion that transformed her life through weekly Bible studies at the Student Union of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Since then, Iveta has had a strong sense of destiny and deep conviction of a call for Christian Art ministry in Armenia.

Iveta's vision is to see many artists coming to Christ in Armenia and creating for the glory of God.

After completing a two-year Christ-Like Leadership Development program at National Leadership Institute (NLI), trained and mentored by Dr. Petros G. Malakyan (Ph.D from Fuller Seminary), Iveta has established an art ministry, later an art studio, named Praise Studio (PStudio). Currently, Iveta, as the Director of Art Department at NLI, is involved in evangelizing, discipling, and mentoring the younger generation of artists in Armenia through various expressions of art and creativity.

PStudio has become an environment where her vision is being realised. Dozens of Armenian young artists today are seeking God and being transformed into the creative image of God by the power of the Holy Spirit and experiencing Christ’s divine presence in their lives through PStudio art ministries. For more detailed information on art ministry, programs, projects, and activities please visit www.clinternational.org./pstudio/

Creativity has been my inspiration all through over my life, from my childhood to the present time. During the past three years it became another way of true prayer and contemplation for me. I believe that the source of IMAGINATION is in the essence of our CREATOR and that true CREATIVITY with the CREATOR brings joy, peace, love, and healing. I pray to become a little vessel in God's creative hands to apply some of His boundless and endless imagination in my arts. God has created me in His own creative image (Gen 1:26) …so, I believe that I should create in prayer to introduce God's LOVE through my arts.