The Filipino American Spiritual Formation through Creative Storytelling project has implemented two Art + Faith Retreats and one Art + Faith workshop to set up the foundation of art at Garden City Covenant Church as a potential avenue for sharing stories.
The first Art + Faith Retreat took place with 4 artists to flesh out more of our hopes for our congregation. From there it was decided that Mark Guinto (painter, MFA graduate) would lead an Art + Faith 101 Workshop so that folks interested could have a basic understanding of how Art + Faith are integrated. The biggest highlight from his workshop in the context of this project was how he defined art as another language for communicating between people and communities. This is a foundation we have been building off of for story-telling.
A second Art + Faith retreat with a smaller group of church congregants was held to begin the process of overlapping art and story-telling. Melissa Casiano led participants through a Gospel story using Bibliodrama, then gave them space to reflect on how that Gospel story overlapped with or inspired their own stories. They communicated their reflections through different forms of art including drawings, paintings, and poetry.
The next round of this project during the summer will involved a second Beholding workshop led by Joy Lee Ryan and Karen Savella Stallard to help congregants know what it means to receive art and story.
Melissa will also be working with her pastor and a few others to begin to collect immigration and refugee stories from elders and other first generation congregants in preparation for a larger migration exhibition that connects with the Advent season and Jesus’ family’s story of migration.