Drawn Together

01-01-2022

Working on McCormick's public art project, Troubling the Waters, would be a profound experience of artists rallying together, not merely around a project, but also around fellow artist, Sergio Centeno.

Soon after agreeing to help create a mural on McCormick’s campus, Sergio Centeno became ill. It was troubling and disruptive, yet it gave Centeno, M.Div.’14, time to reimagine a storm of life as a river of life that carried him into deeper friendships and a new opportunity to use art as an expression of spirituality.

“When we came together to talk about the mural, we were thinking about its theological value and how it could be used to depict themes of liberation and justice,” says Centeno, a fine artist who taught painting and drawing at the Puerto Rico Museum of Art and worked as a senior art director for several global advertising agencies. “Working on the mural would be an opportunity to get art out of the gallery and into the community.”

That’s long been a mission of Centeno who has integrated art into the worship experiences of La Trinidad Lutheran Church in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood and University Church of Chicago in Hyde Park where he was artist-in-residence for five years. He has seen communal art projects not only create artistic pieces for a church, but also build relationships across generational lines. Working on McCormick’s public art project would be a profound experience of artists rallying together, not merely on a project, but also around him.

Centeno’s illness meant he couldn’t work alongside artists Rev. Shawna Bowman, M.Div. ’09, Rev. Immanuel Karunakara, MTS ’20, and Min. Katherine Chilcote, M.Div. ’21, but they brought him into planning sessions and their creative efforts via online video platforms. “I wasn’t allowed to dropout,” says Centeno about the first months of the team’s work. “They said that they’d wait for me. They would do their parts, and I could do mine later. Their support pushed my desire to get better.”

The commissioning of McCormick’s mural grew out of an Innovation Grant from the Foundations of Christian Leadership through Leadership Education at Duke Divinity that was awarded to Priscilla Rodriquez, MAM’16. Her award-winning project, Art of Spirituality: Stories of Racism and Social Justice Amidst Chicago’s Public Art of Murals/Mosaics, encourages the use of public art spaces as sites for spiritual reflection. Rodriquez, who serves the seminary as coordinator for McCormick’s Centers, compiled a list of public art locations throughout Chicago. Then, along with Dr. Lis Valle, assistant professor of Homiletics, produced a prayer guide* that offers a way to spiritually engage with works of public art. Unveiled in the fall of last year, Troubling the Waters, McCormick’s public mural gives Chicago one of its newest destinations for reflective prayer.

The artistic work is a creative response to an ancient prophet’s longing to see “justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” The artists’ images and words overlaid an ebb and flow of water that captures movements from mourning to joy, from comfort to discomfort and from lament to liberation. “We were four different artists with four different artistic styles,” says Centeno, “but we worked independently and at the same time collectively to create a work of art that none of us could have done alone. I think there’s a message in that. I think that’s a word of hope...a vision of community.”

 *Learn more about this award-winning project and download the prayer guide here.

While experiencing the reality of true friendship, Sergio Centeno, left, was one of four McCormick alumni who helped to bring the dream of MAM'16 alumna Priscilla Rodriquez, right, into reality.

Artists Shawna Bowman, M.Div.’09, left, and Immanuel Karunakara, MTS’20.

Artist Katherine Chilcote, M.Div.’21.