Selected Reviews

Saturday, August 14, 2004   
The Journal News

 Art ministry dimension to faith

Nancy Cacioppo
The Journal News

Sparkill ‑ Sister Adele Myers of Dominican Convent has spent a lifetime reflecting her faith through her art.

In what she calls her artistic philosophy, she said, "Each day in my studio begins with a prayer. I pray as Thomas Merton did, for patience and the spiritual strength to avoid cowardly solutions, falsity and insincerity in my work.' I embrace the concept of art as a gift that has the power to extend our minds and enrich our souls and counters the image of art as self‑centered, obsessed with its own reflection,"

Earlier this month, Sister Myers was named the 2004 recipient of the Fra Angelico Award for Excellence in the Arts by the Dominican Institute for the Arts, an international organization of Dominican artists, at its eighth annual gathering in Racine, Wis.

The award, named for the 15th century Italian Renaissance painter and Dominican friar, is given annually to a Dominican artist who is publicly recognized for artistic excellence and the spiritual dimension of his or her creative expression.

Sister Myers has said in previous interviews that she often was inspired by Merton, a 20th century author and Trappist monk who wrote that "when the mind responds to‑ the intellectual and spiritual values that lie hidden in a work of art, it discovers a vitality that lifts it above itself to a new level of being."

"Years ago, if you had a gift or talent, it would be a side thing, because you were assigned to teach," she said this week. "In the mid‑1980s, the Dominican congregation was among the first to recognize art as a full‑time ministry. That ministry, she said, can lead and inspire others.

Sister Myers founded and directed the Thorpe Intermedia Gallery in Sparkill, taught art at Albertus Magnus High School in Bardonia and at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, and is the curator of STAC's Azarian McCullough Art Gallery.

As a child, she took an early interest in drawing; she became a painter as an adult. Today, she works in a range of media, including cement, fresco, mosaic and stained glass.

Her artwork includes stained glass windows on two levels of the convent's tour Lady of the Rosary Chapel. This week, she explained how she incorporated shades of blues and aquas, symbolizing "the water of life and grace, which cleanses, purges and permeates the earth‑toned glass below." The upper window includes a golden circle of hand‑blown glass, with a transparent bogy designed by Dominican associate Cecilia Volpati that holds holy oil used to anoint the sick.

Sister Myers also designed stained‑glass windows for the mediation room at Dowling Gardens, a nearby assisted‑living facility, and created sidewalk mosaics for Thorpe Village and for the convent chapel's outdoor gathering space. Her "Via Dolorasa," a cement and fresco Way of the Cross, can be seen to the chapel at STAC.

A New York city native, Sister Myers earned a bachelor's degree in education at Fordham. University. While doing her undergraduate work in art at the University of Notre Dame, Sister Myers was awarded a Myron C. Taylor fellowship to Villa Schifanoia a graduate school for music and art in Florence, Italy, where she earned a master's degree in fine arts. Her work is exhibited throughout the tri‑state area and is included in public and private collections.

"We're exceedingly proud of Adele to be recognized for her longtime body of work," said Sister Carolyn Wolfbauer, an executive team member in the convent's Office of Dominican Life.

"To be recognized by your peers is the ultimate recognition,' Sister Wolfbauer said: "Art is a different kind of ministry that proves the important things in life aren’t things and that the role of artists can bring the message of Christ in ways other than words."