A Prayer for Renewed Encounter
By Casey Murano
Artist Statement
This work is a prayer for us to experience this time as Kairos, as the opportune moment to be transformed by encounter with God. I begin each square by drawing a quatrefoil with an Advent candle, a gesture that prepares our hearts to listen. Then lightly with a waxy colored pencil, I write the question I have been pondering again and again:
how do we make
room for movement
of spirit, the love
that flows between
us I incorporate reflections that surface from listening and participating in synod conversations:
"turn of an epoch,"
"sharing from our hearts,"
"starting with relationships,"
"synodality as a lifelong commitment."
These prayerful musings pool with puddles of watercolor that dry into unexpected shapes. Shapes untouched by paint that let this strong yet delicate paper breathe call my attention; with a colored pencil, I carve out these unnameable organic in-between spaces where the Spirit works. I repeat this drawing process with three more squares, and then I arrange the three pieces to make a whole, focusing on the edges that will touch. I listen to the surface of these margins with the tip of my colored pencil, filling the space with a pulsing, watery blue. When the edges are joined, they become a river that invites active currents to meet, a cross that unifies rather than divides, an intersection that allows holy, shared insights to congregate. I continue to create paintings in this series of Prayers for Synodality–for active, intentional, collective discernment in our spiritual communities. As the patterns repeat and the cycles evolve, I trust–and hope you will, too–the slow reverberating flow between us and in us and around us, the quiet and all encompassing love of God calling us to renewal.
About the Artist:
Casey Murano grew up surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains in Roanoke, Virginia and is now living on one of those hilltops–just over the West Virginia border at Bethlehem Farm, an intentional Catholic community in Appalachia. Grounded in Bethlehem Farm’s various ministries (such as low-income home repair, gardening, and service retreats) and cornerstones (prayer, simplicity, service, and community), Casey’s art practice reflects the cyclical processes of life in this place and context. She creates works on paper: contemplative maps that explore themes of pilgrimage, placemaking, and displacement. Before Bethlehem Farm, Casey studied art at the University of Richmond and participated in the St. Joseph Worker Program in St. Paul, Minnesota.