On the advent of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, Brother Mickey McGrath, OSFS, is organizing a program that aims to use art and beauty to offer comfort and solace to those suffering.
Brother Mickey will lead “Bend, Don’t Break: All Saints, All Souls and the Healing Power of Beauty in Times of Grief and Anxiety.” The program will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 31 at Sacred Heart Church, Camden.
“Having experienced the deaths of so many friends and loved ones over the years, especially as I grow older, I realize that death and grief and letting go are constant – and crucial – parts of our life journey,” said Brother Mickey. “My creative spirit has always healed and guided me, and that is what I want to share.”
The award-winning author and artist will offer attendees a morning filled with “lovely, colorful art and stories of saints filled with both humor and compassion.”
This will be the first time Brother Mickey is organizing this program, which he hopes will attract those who are holding grief and anxiety in their hearts and minds. Whether their grief and anxiety is related to the loss of a spouse, sibling, loved one or friend – or even “the constant realities of injustice, violence and war” in the world today – he hopes to help attendees consider grief as a gift, in its own way.
“We will always feel grief, but we can learn to see the gift in it through beauty,” he said. “Beauty in every form is born from grief and inner turmoil. It is a healing gift from God.”
Brother Mickey also hopes the program will help remind attendees that they are not alone in their suffering, and offer art and stories to uplift their spirits.
“I think they can see new images and hear stories of faith,” he said, “that will fill them with hope and optimism.”
Brother Mickey’s formal art education began at the Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, where he attended Saturday morning classes for young people through all four years of high school. He went on to study art at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa., and later earned a Master of Fine Arts in painting from American University in Washington, D.C. The painter and writer spent 11 years teaching at DeSales University in Center Valley, Pa., and since 1987, he has taught each summer at the Grunewald Guild – a nonprofit arts education retreat center in the mountains of Leavenworth, Wash.
Brother Mickey has lived and worked in Camden since 2009 and has a studio in the city. Since coming to Camden, he has worked to further his art education “in the context of social justice and finding beauty in the margins,” he said.
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