Finding new inspiration at the DAI

Over the course of a 36-year teaching career, I've logged a lot of workshop and in-service time, some of it useful and worthwhile and some of it not so much. But only rarely have I participated in a workshop that inspires me and makes me want to hurry home and pull out paints and canvas or paper and pastels. Today was one of those days, thanks to the Dayton Art Institute and two fantastic workshop presenters, Dr. Vincent Branick, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Dayton and his wife, Arlene Branick, a retired museum and art educator. The workshop, Art and Belief: A Look at Mary in Art, gave me a totally new outlook about works of art that I have viewed many, many times and a new understanding of the role of Mary in Catholic theology.

The Holy Family with a Donor in a Landscape
Pier Francesco Bissolo (Italian 1492-1554)
Museum purchase with funds provided by the John Berry Family,
the James F. Dicke Family, and the Deaccessioned Works of
Art Fund, 1998.41

Works like the one here are images I've seen many times, but today I finally understood the context in which they were sculpted or painted. Toward the end of the tour, we were viewing the only contemporary piece at the museum that had a madonna theme, or at least used the word "madonna" in the title.  

Madonna and Child
Alfred Jensen (American 1903-1981)
Museum Purchase, 1960.23 I was struck by the similarity between this piece and some of the transformations I've made to photographs using the Percolator app for my iPad. So now I'm thinking....make a painting of a contemporary Madonna and Child...photograph the painting...use Percolator...could be fun! I think I'm inspired!!