SAVE THE DATE: SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 1:00-2:00 P.M.
VILLA MARIA ALUMNI HALL, BUFFALO, NY.
MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATION ON MY ACADEMIC SABBATICAL WORK FROM FELICIAN COLLIGE IN NEW JERSEY.

ALL ARE INVITED!

This presentation is on my designs on paper and glass for the 10 foot skylight for a 19th century castle. I will dicuss the process, symbolism, and ideas for this work. My studio will also be open for viewing, which is in the same building. Shortly thereafter, the week of January 10, I will head back to New Jersey for the Spring Semester.

I'm cranking on building the glass for the maquette of the skylight.  Here are some pictures of my progress to date:

After all of the glass is cut and fused, I'll be painting each piece with what is called tracing and matting for dramatic affect.   Until nex time!

Here is the black and white image of the skylight.  The center is St. Francis in Contemplation.   Around the outer border is The Canticle of the Sun, an important poem by St. Francis of Assisi.  The four center areas are, from the top left clockwise, Culture and Diversity, Applied Ethical Reasoning, The Franciscan Vision, Self, Service, and Society, and Journey to Selfhood. 

Next I will have it scanned and copied at 100%.  They I'll have it enlared 10 and 20 %.  That copy I will use to create a cartoon to begin producing this in glass.   I'll also have it digitally imaged at a high resolution.

The original will next be filled in with full color in colored inks and watercolor, then framed.

I was on retreat all last week and admired the beauty of nature, the changing color of leaves on the trees.  The trees reflecting on the water, and the splendor or earth's bounty.  Here are some paintings that I completed today.   Ideas and colors for the Castle skylight.

Brother Sun/ Canticle of the Sun

                                                          
 

Yesterday there was an article on the front page of the New Jersey Bergen Record newspaper.  It was about the Castle and my skylight!  Here is a link to the article:

Nun's art will be crowning glory on castle renovations

Purpose of the Sabbatical:

The purpose of the sabbatical is to provide the opportunity for continued professional growth and new or renewed intellectual achievement through study, research, scholarly writing, or professional travel. The goal of the sabbatical is to enhance the faculty member’s competence as a valued member of the College and thus enhance the College’s reputation in the academic community. A sabbatical leave represents a college investment in the faculty as well as the future of the College.

Eligibility:
• Have served for a minimum of seven years at Felician College
• Hold the rank of Assistant Professor, Associate Professor (this is my rank), or Professor
Projects/Outcomes/Expectations:
After completion of a sabbatical, the recipients are required to:
• Submit a written report regarding the sabbatical activities to the Division Dean and the Vice-President of Academic Affairs within 30 days of returning to the College (this will be late February, 2010). The report must include
o  Transcripts, ideas, and plans for implementation of work, or research and statement of how the experience will  improve  their contributions to the College
o Conduct a professional presentation, open to the Felician College community, on the results/findings/impact/outcomes of the sabbatical during the first semester after the sabbatical

This sabbatical began officially in the beginning of September and will end at the end of December. However, no doubt, the work will continue through 2010 and perhaps 2011 until the work is officially installed.

The sabbatical work is as follows:
Last fall 2008, I was asked to design and build a large 9’ 8” X 4’ 7.5” skylight for the 19th-Century Iviswold Castle structure that is in the process of being restored. The outside of the castle is already to date, restored historically with new pointing, cleaned stonework, a new roof installed. The inside is now beginning an adaptive restoration of which the skylight is a part and will be the last piece installed. The area for the skylight is in the main entrance lobby with a flamboyant and beautiful winding staircase. The skylight area is just below a main air shaft that runs three floors to the roof with a glass ceiling.

There is no record of what kind of glass was in there originally, so the design is a free choice. I have decided and it is accepted that the images in the glass will be Franciscan in nature to reflect the mission of Felician College. The center will be of St. Francis in Contemplation while the entire outside border will be the Canticle of the Sun. The inside area will reflect the four core value courses of the College.

The mission statement of Felician College is as follows:
Felician is an independent co-educational Catholic/Franciscan College founded and sponsored by the Feli-cian Sisters to educate a diverse population of students within the framework of a liberal arts tradition. Its mission is to provide a full complement of learning experiences, reinforced with strong academic and stu-dent development programs designed to bring students to their highest potential and prepare them to meet the challenges of the new century with informed minds and understanding hearts. The enduring purpose of Felician College is to promote a love for learning, a desire for God, self-knowledge, service to others, and respect for all creation.

To accomplish this mission, Felician College has identified six goals:
1. To affirm, uphold, and perpetuate the centrality of the Catholic, Franciscan, Felician tradition.
2. To offer academic and professional programs within the Liberal Arts tradition that promote learn-ing, integrity, competence, and service.
3. To ensure a quality learning experience for a diverse student population through strong student de-velopment and academic support systems.
4. To provide faculty, staff, and administrative development programs that promote professional and personal growth, the sensitivity to the diverse needs of all members of the College community, and the quality of student learning.
5. To develop and implement assessment strategies which measure learning, integrity, competence, and service and strengthen confidence in the College and its programs.
6. To implement advancement, enrollment, and fiscal management programs that ensure and enhance viability, visibility, quality, and growth.

THE CORE
All undergraduate students at Felician College take a twelve-credit Core sequence between the sophomore and senior years, consisting of four courses: CORE 200, Culture and Diversity; CORE 250, Applied Ethical Reasoning; CORE 300, Journeys to Selfhood, and; CORE 400, The Franciscan Vision: Self, Service and Society.

Felician’s Core sequence is based squarely upon our Catholic character, our Franciscan charisms, or gifts, and our commitment to the great tradition of liberal learning. Students learn about the importance of cultural diversity while developing an acute awareness of the importance of its accompanying virtue - hospitality. Likewise, our students cultivate an understanding of the ethical life within the context of mutuality, which the Franciscan ethicist Sister Dawn M. Nothwehr, OSF defines as ―a straining toward the other which still preserves individual identity. Our Core course in literature exposes students to the essential human theme of developing individual identity while exploring paired readings from the classical and modern canons. Finally, our senior capstone course, Core 400, allows students to reflect upon the subtle shift from selfhood to personhood as they explore the practice of the Franciscan virtues through service. A solid Core and General Education curriculum can move students from impulsiveness to self-reflection, and lead them to better understand the relation between the choices that they make, and the lives they can imagine for themselves. Our curricula are not just about preparing for work life, but crafting a life.

CORE 200
Culture and Diversity
3 credits
An introduction to theories of culture and the concepts of cultural relativism and ethnocentrism. This course includes a multicultural perspective on current issues and ―-isms such as sexism, racism, and modernism. Communication and critical thinking skills are emphasized.
Prerequisites: ENG 101 and ENG 102 (neither can be taken concurrently with CORE 200)

CORE 250
Applied Ethical Reasoning
3 credits
This course seeks to provide the foundations for understanding and resolving ethical questions. The course includes an overview of the fundamental ethical theories, including those from the Catholic tradition. Applications of the insights and perspectives thus gained are explored via case studies representing issues from everyday life.
Prerequisite: CORE 200

CORE 300
Journeys to Selfhood: Classic to Modern Literature
3 credits
This course is designed to acquaint students with the continuing relevance of ancient texts and concepts from the classical Greek and Roman worlds, and the Judeo-Christian tradition, to to-day’s society. Students will also examine multiple genres, disciplines and themes to understand how ―great works‖ remain in dialogue with one another over time and how the legacy of western thought can be understood through the prism of contemporary literature.
Prerequisite: CORE 250

CORE 400
The Franciscan Vision: Self,
Service and Society
3 credits
The senior-year capstone experience course in the Core Curriculum. Relying on the American heritage of concern for the rights and dignity of the individual, coupled with the Franciscan belief in the transcendent value and communal under-standing of the person, this course fosters a sense of service informed by these traditions. This course also aims to deepen civic responsibility and an understanding of the Franciscan tradition while empowering students through direct involvement with a wide array of persons, including health care workers, business persons, politicians, educators, clergy, social workers, children, elderly persons, physically challenged individuals, homeless persons, community leaders and public officials. Students meet in a seminar setting to share their respective off-campus service experiences in light of assigned readings and keep journals reflecting upon their service work in dialogue with course content. Each student will serve a minimum of 20 hours in approved direct service over the course of the semester.
Prerequisite: CORE 300

Based on these Core courses and their descriptions, I am developing images that represent these four values and working them into the central part of the skylight.
I am also keeping a weekly journal on my thought process, image process, and ideas for this project. This journal is both hand-written with drawings as well as an online journal in www.sisterkelly.blogspot.com.
The end result by January will most likely be a collection of drawings and paintings in various black and white as well as color images and some works in glass to illustrate the look and feel of the skylight when the time is right to build it in full size for installation. The glass work will be both glass painting on colored glass as well as vitri-fusai (painting on fused glass).
Below is a rough sketch of the areas:

Yesterday I worked on some paintings.  I'm concentrating on the Canticle of the Sun, mostly about the sun right now.  See the last post on Brookes' writing on St. Francis and the sun.  Below is a painting about the Canticle and the San Damiano Cross:

Of course, this is only a beginning to the painting. I'll be working on this along with other paintings simultaneously.  As one dries, I can work on another, and as many as I want.  This will form a consistency of present style.  This painting is acrylic on canvas board.  I may work oil over this or others to form a translucency and richness of layering.

Below is also a rough sketch in pencil and watercolor of Our Lady of Hope, as requested by the North American Provinces.  We'll see where this goes.  They say it is not a contest.  We'll see!

This sketch is very rought but focuses on the symbolism that I would like to use in this work.  The sun, moon and stars to represent Our Lady of the Universe.  She is standing on the earth as a protector.  The Tree of Jesse is on the right with the shoot of the tree on the left to represent the incarnation.  She holds at her breast her Immaculate Heart.  This is all hope.  Click on the pictures to see them bigger.

This week I'm working on images for the Iviswold Castle at Felician College.  I'm going to work on what is most familiar to me, which is, the Canticle of the Sun by St. Francis of Assisi.  The sun will be first, many drawings of the sun!  In Image of St. Francis by Brooke, she says that she was under the impression that Francis appeared as the dawn of a new day.  This was amazing to me because I had titled a window of mine by just that name, and it starred, not just the cross, but the rising sun.  She says Francis brought a change in the weather, a burst of sunshine.  "The likening of Francis to the sun, and to associate images of light, found public expression less than two years after his death...".
 Pope Gregory IX delivered a sermon, saying:
like the morning star among clouds,
like the moon at the full,
like the sun shining on the Temple of the Most High.

St. Bonaventure, around 1260, wrote:
"By the glorious splendour of his life and teaching, Francis shone like the day-star amid the clouds, and by the brilliance which radiated from him  he guided those who live in darkness...to the light.  Like the rainbow from him the clouds with sudden glow, he bore in his own body the pledge of God's covenant, bringing the good news of peace and salvation to all men, like a true Angel of Peace."

Dante honored Francis with these words:
From a mountain slope
was born into the world a sun,
even as our sun rises from the Ganges.
Therefore let no-one speaking of that place,
say Assisi--the word falls short--
but "Oriete", if he would correctly speak.

And finally, Thomas of Celano wrote that in Frances a holy newness was created...a new spirit was given..when the servant and saint of Christ, like one of the lights of heaven, illumined the world with a new observance and new signs from above.  ...Can it really be claimed that Francis "was born into the world a sun"?

With these wonderful words, I move forward with the visual image.

Not much action with the sabbatical work today. I was busy with a meeting and other activities. I worked on a drawing for the Constitution revisions.

In the introduction of The Image of St. Francis , Rosalind B. Brooke quotes Brother Leo, Rufino, and Angelo, companions of St. Francis, as saying, "In the pictures of God and the blessed Virgin painted on wood...the wood and painting ascribe nothing to themselves, because they are just wood and paint...but should render honour and glory to God alone".

In my case, the glass and paint will render that glory to God through images of franciscan spirituality in Francis' writings as well as images that reveal visually the core values of our Franciscan Felician College heritage and academic mission.


Below and right you can see two images of the Iviswold Castle on the Felician College Rutherford Campus. The skylight, which this sabbatical project focusses on, will be located in the lobby of this castle, built in the late 19th century.

Today I'm working on drawings, one for the Our Lady of Hope for the new Felician Sister's Province.
This afternoon I'm making a site visit to Niagara University to photograph and measure a window.
I'm also finishing up my purchase order for the stained glass classes back at Felician College for Fall and Spring semesters. I want to get this out in the mail today.
That's all until later. Perhaps I'll post some images.
It's Friday and I look forward to the weekend and some serious research reading.

Today I'm working on a new drawing for the revision of the Felician Constitution. I came up with a drawing for the formation section.
I'm reading a book for research on my sabbatical images. It's called The Image of St. Francis, Responses to Sainthood in the Thirteenth Century by Rosalind B. Brooke. It is a Cambridge University Press publication, 2006. I was able to get this book, thankfully, through the Felician College Library, Paul Glassman. It covers the images of St. Francis, mainly in the Basilica in Assisi, an academic work that is, at this time, in my opinion, one of the best writings on this material to date. It shows work of Cimabue and Giotto. I'll be sharing highlights of these readings in this blog.
I'm also using a book on the study of the San Damiano Cross symbolic imagery through a book called The Icon of Christ of San Damiano by Marc Picard OFM Cap. He is a Canadian Capuchin and helps us to read this icon in a simple and spiritual way.

August 25, 2009
It's time for me to get serious about working on my sabbatical. I'm now in Buffalo, NY, and I'm comfortably in my new Stained Glass Studio called Illuminations in Light in our newly renovated Villa Maria Convent.

This past summer, in July, I had the synchronous opportunity to meet the engineer/glass artist, who is charged with installing my skylight when it is designed, built, and complete within the next 1 1/2-2 years. His name is Art Fiminella. As it turns out, he is on the board of the Stained Glass Association of America. I am also now a member of this fine and growing organization. He is excited about the project and looks forward to collaborating with me on the method and installation of the glass.

I had planned on getting started on this work sooner and with this journal, however, many things came up in the meantime including drawings for publication; our Felician revisions to our Constitution, which is international in scope (how could I turn this opportunity down?). While visiting in Coraopolis, PA, I had the chance to meet about this work, and then was also commissioned to design a stained glass window for our new Provincial House in Sawicki, PA. I had a chance to meet with the architect, a marvelous and talented woman named Laura Nettleton, who has her own architectural business called Thoughtful Balance. She also did the work on the newly renovated Coraopolis Provincial House.

The central portion of the Iviswold skylight (The castle) is a St. Francis that I have previously worked out in drawing, painting, and glass fusion and painting (Peter McGrain calls this Vitri-Fusai, but that term is copywrighted). That image can be seen below:
The Core offers students a vision of wholeheartedness rather than wholeness, alone - one that is rooted in an ethic of self-giving and self-sacrifice. The program calls upon learners to hallow and sanctify both their work lives and vocational choices in ways which are well described in the great Catholic and Franciscan traditions of the liberal arts and sciences, but are often absent from current discourses of careerism.

The total outside border of this skylight will be on the subject of the Canticle of the Creatures (The Canticle of the Sun) by St. Francis of Assisi in the 12th century Italy. In between areas will reflect the four core values of Felician College, Franciscan values of
1) Culture and Diversity
2) Applied Ethical Reasoning
3) Journeys to Selfhood
4) The Franciscan Vision: Self, Service, and Society

This "Core" is reflected in the current Felician College catalog and states thusly:

The Core offers students a vision of wholeheartedness rather than wholeness, alone - one that is rooted in an ethic of self-giving and self-sacrifice. The program calls upon learners to hallow and sanctify both their work lives and vocational choices in ways which are well described in the great Catholic and Franciscan traditions of the liberal arts and sciences, but are often absent from current discourses of careerism.

These core values will be visually represented in the images that will appear in the glass skylight.

Drawings for publication

This is the original art work for the Graymoor "Week of Christian Unity" for 2008 and was distributed in the U.S. and Canada as posters and holy cards.