Announcing “The River is a Magic Thing: Celebrating the Art, History, Ecology, Spirituality and Future Health of the Hudson River and its Communities.”  The event is scheduled for May 6th at the Museum of Biblical Art in Manhattan and is co-sponsored by the Society for the Arts, Religion and Contemporary Culture, CrossCurrents Magazine and Auburn Seminary.

 

For further details about the program, continue reading, or to register, please visit our website:

www.sarcc.org

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Artists featured during the May 6th program were selected following a region wide search for those whose work effectively expresses the themes of the day’s celebration.

 

The featured artists are:

 

Richard Bruce, Paintings
A native of West Virginia, Bruce grew up at the base of the Appalachian mountains and on the shores of the Ohio River. After a brief period in North Carolina, he moved to New York City, where he lived for 10 years, knowing that some day he would return to a rural area.  He found everything he was looking for in the Hudson Valley.  He now lives in the village of Cold Spring and maintains a studio in the city of Beacon, where many artists have migrated in recent years.

Bruce writes: “My paintings have been heavily influenced by the Abstract Expressionist painters and, during my years in NY, I had the great fortune to work with and get to know many of the greats, including Joan Mitchell, Milton Resnick and Louise Fishman.  Abstract elements are still incorporated in my work, however, now my paintings are much more informed by the area in which I live and the ethereal beauty of the Hudson Valley.  In my  paintings I am not trying to create  literal depictions of specific places, but am more interested in capturing  the experience of the landscape, of being in nature and the inherent spirituality found there.  The paintings are very much about the river and water.  When I am not painting I spend a great deal of time kayaking on the river or hiking on the many trails in the area.  I am also very concerned about the preservation and restoration of this environment and wonderful resource.”

 

Susan Hockaday, Photographs              

The artwork of Susan Hockaday has always focused on structures and patterns found in the natural world. She has worked in many media, but for the last twelve years has used photographs to make layered images of water, foliage, and other elements of landscape. Over time, she has become increasingly aware of the destruction of the natural

world by man's uncontrolled activities, even in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, where she lives in the summer and does much of her work.

 

Recently, she has begun to add painted or printed marks to the surface of the finished photographs to introduce the idea of the disturbance of nature. These narrative elements indicate invasion and encroachment. They add another level of meaning and tension to the images, which are collectively titled "Turning on Nature."

 

For the last year she has photographed the waterways and harbors around Manhattan from a small airplane, recording some more extreme examples of Nature Disturbed.

 

Ms Hockaday takes all her photographs with hand held cameras, and prints the final chromogenic prints in a studio in New York City.

 

After graduating from Vassar College, Ms Hockaday continued her studies at Yale University, The Pratt Graphics Center, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Princeton University. She has exhibited widely, and is currently affiliated with SOHO20 Gallery in New York.

 

Ian Koebner and Jeff Grow, Sacred Slam

Sacred Slam is a not-for-profit organization that works with individuals, communities and organizations for peaceful resolution of conflict, self-representation, and respect for diversity through the arts and education. Sacred Slam is derived from recognition that fierce exploration of a concept ('slamming') is worthy of veneration or respect (sacred).

 

Two members of the Sacred Slam network of contributing artists will present at "The River Seems A Magic Thing" - Ian Koebner, Founder of Sacred Slam, and Jeff Grow, Buddhist magician. Ian Koebner began Sacred Slam on the anniversary of September 11th with a night of InterFaith dialogue through poetry, or as Abd al-Hayy, a Sufi poet, says, “a communal evening of soul-expression whose goal is a sweet enlightenment, and an ecumenical recognition of everyone's path to the Divine.”  Since then he has been organizing performances and workshops in universities, hospitals, houses of worship, poetry clubs and public spaces up and down the Hudson River valley to combat stigma.

 

Performing as a magician some of Jeff Grow's clients include: Jive Records, Chrysler Corporation and the N.F.L. Hall of Fame.  Jeff's sleight of hand has been featured in the award winning independent film The Empty Building, as well as national and international commercials.  As an actor his original N.Y.C. productions include: discoverosis, A Wise Fool: the Nasrudin Stories (various venues), Transfix (Madison Square Garden), A Story About Magic (NYC & Prague), Persephone (Fringe, NYC), and City of Bells: an adaptation of Allen Ginsberg poetry (HERE).

 

Conference presenters include:

 

J. Taylor Basker holds a degree in Art History and Theology from the Graduate Theological Foundation at Kellogg College, Oxford University, with a specialty in religious symbolism.  She has a MA from the University of Oregon, and a BA from Notre Dame of Maryland and resides at Westbeth Artists Housing in Greenwich Village NY.  On the World Art History faculty of School of Visual Arts and New Jersey City University, she is also an artist and videographer, as well as art critic.  Her dissertation on the cloud as a symbol in Early Christian Art led her to research ancient symbolic systems of clouds, water and rivers.  Living in desert areas in South America, Africa (Peace Corps) and the US gave her personal experience of the profound importance of water and rivers in human culture and religious symbolism.

Patricia Ackerman is an Episcopal Priest and psychotherapist.  She is a project director at the Garrison Institute, and founder of Over the Rainbow Institute for Living Ethics. Rev. Ackerman has been doing faith based social transformation work in hospitals, parishes, and inner city neighborhoods for the past 15 years. Her multifaith ministry focuses on conflict prevention, dialogue and public conversation. She is a graduate of Union Theological Seminary where she received the Julius T. Hansen Memorial Award for parish-community empowerment. She is a past senior consultant of conflict prevention for the Episcopal Diocese of NY, and is a member of the Episcopal- Muslim Relations Commission. Rev. Ackerman teaches Counseling and World Religion at Sing Sing correctional facility and is in the Doctoral Program in Political Science at CUNY Graduate Center. She is a community mediator and a member of Auburn Theological Seminary’s Women’s Multifaith Committee.

Dr. Mike Magee is host of the weekly web cast, Health Politics (www.healthpolitics.com) and director of the Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative. He has served as Senior Fellow to the World Medical Association on environmental health issues, and assisted in the launch of the UN Water for Decade in 2005. Dr. Magee is the author of numerous books, most recently, Health Politics: Power, Populism and Health and Healthy Waters  (Spencer Books, NY). Dr. Magee is a former David Rockefeller Fellow and is noted for his visionary perspective on health care and for championing patient rights, principled leadership and access to scientific discoveries. Dr. Magee’s work on creating healthy and productive cross-sector partnerships between government, industry, academia, and non-governmental organizations is well known and often quoted, placing him at the center of health care reform.

 

Ena Heller is Executive Director, Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA), New York City. Dr. Heller has a Ph.D. in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, with a specialty in medieval art and architecture. Prior to becoming the first director of MOBIA, she has taught art history at the College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA) and Manhattanville College (Purchase, NY), and was the founding director of the Gallery at the American Bible Society. Dr. Heller is contributing editor of the volume Reluctant Partners: Art and Religion in Dialogue (2004) and of the exhibition catalog Icons or Portraits? Images of Jesus and Mary from the Collection of Michael Hall (2001), and a contributor to the volumes Women’s Space: Patronage, Place, and Gender in the Medieval Church (2005) and The Art of Sandra Bowden (2005). She has presented papers at the conferences of the Society of Architectural Historians, College Art Association, and the Council of American Jewish Museums, at the Institute of Fine Arts, and at numerous museums and universities throughout the country.

 

Fran Dunwell is Hudson River Estuary Coordinator at the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. She oversees the implementation of the $368.3 million Estuary Action Agenda  adopted by Governor Pataki in 1996 and recently updated. The Estuary Program’s goal is to conserve and recover the tidal Hudson and the extraordinary natural heritage of its watershed through programs founded in science and implemented in ways that support the quality of life of the Valley’s citizens.  Dunwell has worked for 30 years as a river conservationist, and has written the  award-winning book, The Hudson River Highlands. She has a Master’s degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Management and a BA in anthropology from Kirkland College, now Hamilton. She lives in the Hudson Valley on a farm in New Paltz, New York. For more information on the program see www.dec.state.ny.us/website/hudson/hrep.html. 

 

Donna Schaper is Senior Minister at Judson Memorial Church  and the author of 28 books, most recently “Holy Vulnerability: Spiritual Resources For People with Cancer.”  She is a graduate of Gettysburgh College and holds Master’s degrees from Lutheran Theological Seminary and the University of Chicago Divinity School. In addition to being one of the most widely published women ministers in the country, Schaper frequently is a workshop leader or speaker at conferences nationwide and appears regularly as a commentor on National Public Radio. She has a thirteen year old cat named Hudson and was born in Kingston, New York and was formed by life looking at and swimming in the river.

 

Charles P. Henderson is Executive Director of the Association for Religion and Intellectual Life which publishes CrossCurrents, a journal of opinion, inter-religious and inter-disciplinary in scope. He is President of the Society for the Arts, Religion and Contemporary Culture, a graduate of Princeton University and Union Theological Seminary in New York, a member of the New York City Presbytery, and an organizing member of Presbyterians Concerned For Jewish and Christian Relations. Henderson is the author of several books including God and Science (John Knox / Westminster); his articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Nation, Commonweal, Christian Century and CrossCurrents, among others. He has lectured and taught at Princeton University where he also served as a chaplain. He edits a popular blog, The GodWeb (http://www.godweb.org) and is currently working on a book on sacred space with a grant from the Louisville Institute.

 

The conference runs from 9:30am to 4:30pm and includes a continental breakfast, lunch and a wine and cheese reception.  Registration is $60; Student registration $15.  The Museum of Biblical Art is located at 1865 Broadway at 61st Street in Manhattan. For further information please call Charles Henderson, at 212-870-2544 or email [log in to unmask]

 

For conference registration at our secure website: www.aril.org/register/register.html

 

 

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