Collective Pause

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us all to change the way we work and the way we live, even the way we worship. For the artistic community, it has made us change the way we create and display art — and it has changed the way people interact with art and respond to it. 

As the director of the Openings Artist Collective, I knew that as we planned our annual art exhibit we would have to recognize this new reality, adapt to it, and hopefully grow with it. Our exhibit is normally held inside the Church of St. Paul the Apostle by Lincoln Center on Manhattan’s West Side. Since that was impossible due to the pandemic, we did something we hadn’t done since the collective was founded in 2006: we displayed the art outside on the fence along West 60th Street next to the church. 

The Openings Artist Collective was founded in 2006 by Robert Aitchison, a parishioner at St. Paul’s, and myself as a response to a request by my order, the Paulist Fathers. The Paulists transferred me from Tucson, Arizona to New York City to begin outreach to visual artists. I myself am a visual artist, having graduated from the College of Fine Arts at UCLA.

I began our outreach by visiting visual art MFA candidates at all the major colleges in the New York metro area. I dressed in “secular” clothing  and asked the artists to tell me about their work and what was “stirring” in them. Only later would I introduce myself as “Frank, an artist and a priest.”  Then, the conversation continued. At one point in the  development of Openings, one artist, an MFA candidate from Hunter College whom we had invited to exhibit, went back to her classmates and said, “You can trust them, they’re cool.” She made it clear that we had no hidden agenda, no plans to “lure” unsuspecting artists into religion, but that we were what we said we were: a place for conversation, a place to listen to what artists had to say about the world and where it is going. Openings means to be and is a conversation with artists, and both parties are changed in this genuine conversation.      

Hence our vision statement:

“Connections between creativity and transcendence foster meaningful conversations that have the potential to unite individuals and promote community”.

In 2006, our team launched with an exhibit at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle. We started with eight contributors and grew over the years. Our exhibits have included many notable artists, including Mickalene Thomas, Juan Sanchez, Brian Wood, Nari Ward, Timothy Greenfield Sanders, and others. A positive review of Brian Wood’s solo exhibit by Holland Cotter in The New York Times in 2014 was a major affirmation.

Last year, our team met to discuss the theme and dates for the 2020 Fall Exhibit. Then, COVID-19 hit. Knowing our exhibit in the church was not going to happen, we met on Zoom to brainstorm. First, we discussed our theme. We wanted it to be more than just asking “how are you surviving the pandemic.” Instead, we considered how this was a time for reflection on what mattered in life, how we are being forced to recognize the destructiveness of individualism, and our need for each other. We arrived at the theme–“Collective Pause.” Artists responded to this question: 

“How are you, as an artist, navigating, persisting, and engaging with the challenges of a global pandemic, social & political upheavals, and the struggle for justice? In your creative effort to discern the boundary between relevancy and distraction how are you cultivating and expressing the notion of a ‘collective pause’?”

After considering a number of ideas for the venue, one team member suggested using the fence along the 60^th Street side of the church for an outdoor exhibit. Another mentioned using Tyvek, a synthetic paper-like material made from high-density spun-bound polyethylene fibers. We finally decided to invite artists “to paint ephemeral murals that will be left exposed and vulnerable to the elements and the city.” The vulnerability of the works reflected the vulnerability of life.      

We invited artists representing a range of styles. Although we expected to have a hard time getting artists to agree to the parameters of the exhibit, twenty-seven volunteered to participate. We were excited! Each artist was given a choice of a five- or ten-foot piece of Tyvek.

Midway through the process, we asked for progress images and offered suggestions. Most of the invited artists had shown with us before and were aware their works had to respect St. Paul’s as an active worship place. Artists were also required to sign a release of liability. Just before the installation, the team met via Zoom and curated the exhibit by arranging the works to create a harmony for the entire 289 feet of the church’s fence.    

The exhibit was installed on Saturday, October 1, 2020 with most of the artists present. One of the values of Openings that differentiates our group shows from a traditional gallery is that artists look for anyone needing help with his or her installation after they finish their own. A reception followed on the next day.   

The exhibit offers not only a refreshing “pause” in the midst of this difficult time, but it is a refreshment offered by the Church, freely given, with no strings, as any effort rooted in the Gospel should be. Being outside the building is a way of meeting people where they are, as they are. For me, the scripture that resonates with our work is the story of the woman drawing water from the well (John 4: 4-26). She had what Jesus needed, and Jesus had what she needed. There was a true conversation which, I believe, not only changed the woman but changed the Lord as well. Openings is, I hope, a place for many such conversations.   

I want to express a very special thanks to the Openings core team: Robert Aitchison, Jenn Cacciola, Nikki Schiro and Anthony Santella.