Strength to be Joyful: A Free Community Art Event Honoring African American Artist Mary Proctor

Sunday, February 8 in the Scott Education Building
11:45am – 12:45pm (after the 10:30am worship service)

In honor of Black History Month, BCGV is excited to share the life and work of artist Mary Proctor with Devon and surrounding communities. This special event will feature an educational video about Mary Proctor and a collaborative art project, with participants embellishing a large canvas in the style of Mary Proctor. The canvas is 12 square feet – plenty of room for everyone to make contributions and get glue on their hands.

BCGV will provide snacks, embellishments for the canvas (buttons, beads, crystals, fabric, sequins, etc.), and plenty of glue and Mod Podge. You are welcome to bring your own embellishments if you feel inspired.

Artists and non-artists are welcome! Several local artists will be there to serve as guides if you want some support or creative perspective:

• Dory Chasanoff, stained glass artist
• Joy Brown, quilt artist
• Evie Ryder, retired art teacher from Radnor schools

This event is truly intergenerational and NOT ONLY FOR CHILDREN! All are welcome – families of every shape and size, singles, kids, teens, older adults, and anyone who wants to learn and experience the joy of creation.

There’s no signup, just show up this Sunday at 11:45am! Community members are welcome to attend the 10:30am worship service in the Meeting House if desired, but this is not a requirement for attending the art event.

Mary Proctor is an African American artist living and working in Tallahassee Florida. She was raised by her grandmother in a rural area and baptized as a young girl. When her grandmother tragically died in a house fire, Mary had a vision from God and felt directed to paint the doors from the old house. She did, and thus began a career in art, assembling and painting castoff articles and embellishing them with her grandmother’s collection of buttons and scraps of fabric. Sometimes her paintings include text, like things she remembers her grandmother saying or quotes from scripture.

Our canvas will feature a passage from Job 38, wherein after a long discussion about humanity and suffering, God challenges Job’s earthbound, finite perspective with the enormous, infinite act of creation. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?… When the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?”

This is BCGV’s second annual Black History month event celebrating an African American artist. We are a welcoming and affirming church. Everyone is invited, whoever they are, wherever they’re from, and whoever they love.

Learn more about Mary Proctor below.