Artist in Residence – Steve Prince: Lecture + Introduction to Art Projects

We hope you’ll join us for this very exciting and inspiring event as Art Evangelist Steve Prince works with our congregation and community friends to create a Communal Quilt and an Urban Garden Drawing.

Friday | February 16
5:30-8:00 p.m. | Pickard Hall | free
Lecture + Visual sermon + Introduction to art projects
Prince will deliver a message inspired by his work while sharing the philosophical foundation of his art practice stemming from his upbringing in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Register for the February 16 Lecture

Saturday | February 17 | Pickard Hall
Choose one of three Workshops (each 2.5 hours). You will have the opportunity to work on both art projects at each of the workshops. Workshops are appropriate for 6th graders and above. Each offers limited participation of 30 each. Must register. Cost is $10 per participant. (Additional donations are welcome to help defray cost of materials and the clinician’s honorarium. To give, click here and choose the “Visual & Creative Arts” fund.)
9:00-11:30 a.m. – Register Here
1:00-3:30 p.m. – Register Here
6:00-8:30 p.m. – Registration Closed

Sunday | February 18
Both projects will be unveiled prior to worship services.

Communal Quilt Project
The Communal Quilt Project is an arts experiential initiative designed to work with all genders, ages, and ethnicities internationally to create a giant patchwork quilt. The project is designed to replicate aspects of the sewing circle in a series of hands-on workshops. Participants will be guided through the process of creating faux patchwork narrative quilt sections. Each workshop will operatively meet people “where they are at.” With simple elements such as fabric, glue, and scissors participants will be able to shape and craft images while sharing aspects of their story in the context of community. We will create a safe space to worship, pray, connect, and remember. The project was designed to help us demystify the superficial barriers that cause division in our community and reveal how close we really are.

Urban Garden
We will collectively create a thematic image based on the theme, Urban Garden, utilizing charcoal in an additive and subtractive manner to facilitate the creation of a 7’ x 15’ drawing. The big question we will ponder is: what is planted in America’s garden that perhaps needs to be interrogated, examined, or removed and conversely, what should we plant in its place? What should, or could we be nurturing? Participants will be challenged to think abstractly, symbolically, representationally, spiritually, theoretically, philosophically, and literally to create a piece that champions the individual voice affixed to the communal voice. Each session will involve a conversation about the theme, the design, and ultimately your contribution of adding to the communal drawing. Urban Garden, is a project that will ask the White Memorial community members to draw metaphorical imagery on one side of the compositional space the problems that they recognized as endemic to the United States and the White Memorial community that need to be uprooted; on the opposing side of the compositional space, participants will be encouraged to create images of what they would like to plant and grow once the problems had been addressed. By the end of the exercise, we will have created a metaphorical Urban Garden that creatively addresses the issues embedded in the soil of America, for better or for worse.

About the Artist
Steve A. Prince is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, and he currently resides in Williamsburg, Virginia. He received his BFA from Xavier University of Louisiana and his MFA in Printmaking and Sculpture from Michigan State University. He is the Director of Engagement and Distinguished Artist in Residence at the Muscarelle Museum of Art at William and Mary University. Prince is represented by Zucot Gallery in Atlanta, GA, Stella Jones Gallery in New Orleans, LA, Just Lookin’ Gallery in Hagerstown, MD, and Black Art in America in Columbus, GA. He has created several public and private works nationally and he has received numerous honors for his art and scholarship including the 2020 International Engage Art Contest Visual Art Grand Prize Winner, and the 2010 Teacher of the Year for the City of Hampton. Prince has shown his art internationally in various solo, group, and juried exhibitions. He is an accomplished lecturer and workshop conductor in both sacred and secular settings internationally in a variety of media. Prince spreads a message of hope and renewal to the global community through the cathartic funerary tradition derived from New Orleans called the Dirge and Second Line.