Between the holiday season, continued pandemic, and the violent transition of leadership in our country, things have felt quite busy these last few weeks at Common Cathedral and MANNA. These events have created an ebb and flow of tension with the community as folks struggle with continued changes and emotions. As we approached Inauguration Day, many expressed deep concerns about unrest and protests in Boston and the real physical danger of having no place to go when there is violence in the streets, when one lives outside and buildings are locked.
As part of MANNA’s programming at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul I helped lead some art activities centered around prayers for a peaceful Inauguration Day. This art work was displayed as part of a virtual vigil. I was quite excited about bringing art into a space where I hadn’t seen it used yet, since my time at MANNA is always during their writer’s group. However, I knew this may come with its own set of challenges as community members could be apprehensive to utilize the art materials (something in my field of study that we refer to as resistance). The Rev. Jennifer McCracken at MANNA had the idea to give the option for community members to create individual art pieces or work on a larger prayer banner.
Initially, participation was slow, but I knew I could depend on the relationships I’d built in the community to help drum up excitement about the project. I encourage a few community members to help me create the banner. Then slowly, more and more folks became inquisitive about what we were doing. It was so wonderful to see this colorful banner start to emerge with heartfelt prayers scribed across. Some folks chose to make drawings with prayers for peace in their own language and share!
I learned, through this project, that folks hesitant to participate could write on the banner with a capped marker to make a sort of invisible prayer; thus, they could maintain their privacy while being apart of the process. This idea was so beautiful and symbolic to me. I can imagine this would also help people lessen resistance and build up courage to participate over time. Additionally, I learned about how, with a project where we have a specific theme like a prayer of peace, it can be difficult to keep community members present and on task with that theme. This is something I’ll be discussing more in my classwork, as I felt a sense of tension between the need to keep with a theme sometimes and the fear of stifling folks’ creativity. I’ll continue to try to find that balance. Lastly, being part of an art project at Common Cathedral or MANNA for the first time, I got to see community members collaborate on one large surface.
This was so rich. There was interaction between the colors folks chose, and I could see them drawing inspiration from each other. Moving forward, I would like to again explore a collaborative art piece with community members and make this a goal as I begin this new semester. I continue to carry these prayers for peace in my own heart as we begin a new presidency and continue into the new year.
-Isabelle Olsson