Creativity is a Gift from God

Visitors to the Mount St. Francis Center for Spirituality in Indiana

deepen their relationship with God

The Mount St. Francis Center for Spirituality in Mount St. Francis, Indiana offers many programs that allow visitors to develop their spirituality and move closer to God. The center is set in a peaceful and natural setting. Friar Robert B. Baxter, a Conventual Franciscan, fulfills the role of director at the Mount.

Many of the programs at the Mount St. Francis Center take the form of retreats where a religious guides retreatants towards a deeper relationship with God. Yet these are not the only programs available at the Mount. Another program offers pottery classes to anyone who might be interested.

Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy

Steven Cheek is the Clay Studio Artist-in-Residence at Mount St. Francis Center. He holds a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from Edinboro University in Pennsylvania and was most recently a visiting professor at Georgia State University’s Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design. Steven’s main artistic medium is ceramics. He has had several exhibitions of his work in galleries across the United States and is the teacher of the pottery classes at Mount St. Francis Center.

Creative expression is a gift from God. The artist Giotto, for example, who painted many of the incredible frescoes on the walls and ceilings of the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy has through his work taught the story of Francis of Assisi to thousands upon thousands of people; Francis’ story, of course, teaches us that we must try to be like Jesus Christ.

One of Giotto's frescoes - St. Francis of Assisi and Pope Innocent III

Taking pottery classes with Steven Cheek in Mount St. Francis will obviously be a smaller and far more intimate experience than anything related to Giotto and his frescoes. Chances are that Steven’s students will most likely keep their artistic creations for themselves or perhaps share them with a small group of people. But the process of learning to make pottery and then trying one’s hand at it enriches and frees the mind at the same time. A person gains focus and new skills. Working on one’s ceramic creation while focused on it frees a person from the stresses of everyday life and in the context of the Center for Spirituality can prepare the mind for prayer and reflection. Seeing the finished piece of pottery in the future its creator will be able to enter a spiritual frame of mind with perhaps more ease.

(Sources of all related images on webpage and homepage: www.wikipedia.org and Conventual Franciscans.)