To my Sheridan family,

Despite the fact that I’ve been “away” from my Sheridan Family for the past four years, my experience within this community traveled with me in my time at St. Olaf College. It was at Sheridan that I began to see visual art as a strong component of my faith and as an important part of the worship life of this community. I had begun to dabble in photography and discovered the power of capturing a story or fleeting moment in an image. I realized that taking time to notice what moves me, in where I find beauty – in a sense deeper than just something looking pretty – is inextricably bound to where I find God and see meaning in the world. Being a part of the Sheridan family helped to cultivate this in me. It was being exposed to visual aspects of worship within this community that inspired me to pursue photography as both a spiritual practice and as a means of contributing to the ministry of the church.

Then, when I went off to St. Olaf College in Northfield Minnesota, I brought this unique interest into my academic studies. St. Olaf has a program that allows students to work across disciplines to create integrative studies majors, and I took advantage of that opportunity, creating an individual major that I entitled “Religion and the Visual Arts: Engaging Tradition, Practice, and Community.” If you’re interested in seeing more of that work, you can visit my web portfolio http://stolaf.edu/depts/cis/wp/ebouvier/index.html.

In this major, I was not only able to study both theology and studio art in relationship to one another, but I was able to also learn about the rich traditions of art in religious communities through history. I quickly discovered that I am not alone in my love of visual art and faith – for centuries the Christian family has shared its stories through art. This past January I had the opportunity to go to Greece, where I learned about the Eastern Orthodox Church and its use of icons: images of gold, paint, and wood that represent important figures in the Christian story. The theology behind this practice is incredibly powerful, seeing the icons not as merely physical images, but as windows to the divine. The icons are not meant to be looked at, but looked through, a space to be entered, that reaches beyond the object and brings the viewer closer to God. This practice embodies my own experience with visual art as a whole. Through experiencing the beauty of art and entering into the ideas and questions it grapples with, I feel that I am entering into a space of meditation and encounter with God.

In learning about the traditions of art in the Church and experiencing the transformative power of art in my own life of faith, I am inspired to do ministry through art in other congregations, empowering those families of faith to tell their own stories and build community together. I have a profound appreciation for having “grown up” in this family of Sheridan, who has played an important role in where I find myself now and in where I see myself going in the future. Thank you all for sharing who you are and your stories of faith with me over the years!

With love,

Emilie Bouvier