Celebrating Christ and Serving Brooklyn
Throughout the Easter season we encourage you to give to the Mercy Team Fund in addition to your usual giving. Your additional gifts enable our network’s ministry of compassion and mercy throughout the year to those in need within our congregations and in our neighborhoods. Please mark “Mercy Team Fund” in the memo and place your checks in the offering plate or give online.
Artist: Christy Hayner
Title: “Torn Christ”
Description: Paper and glue on cardboard
I am originally from northeast Georgia. I studied painting at Asbury College in Wilmore, KY and moved to New York City in 2003, receiving my MFA from New York Academy of Art in 2005. The human figure has always been prominent in my work, and I have long been interested in and inspired by the history of sacred Christian art. I have paintings in many private collections, including HRH Prince of Wales and have exhibited work in group shows during the last 10 years around the U.S. In addition, I paint portraits on commission, dabble in collage, and have the honor of teaching high school art at Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice in downtown Brooklyn. I live and work in Brooklyn.
I use alternative materials and extreme processes to create abstract artworks that explore the delicate balance between life and death related to the body and afterlife. I received my BFA in Painting from the Art Academy of Cincinnati and an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School of Design. I am currently an artist in residence with the Chashama Studio Program in Sunset Park. www.mdwart.com
Every culture develops unique calendars to mark important moments in the story that is supposed to shape its members. Considering holidays in America, our calendar teaches us to honor pilgrims, patriots and presidents because they cultivate in us a love of freedom. As the archetypal community, the church has a calendar that transcends all national borders and linguistic barriers.
The church calendar is organized around two primary cycles, between which is “ordinary time.” The incarnational cycle centers around the birth of Jesus, beginning with Advent, climaxing at Christmas and ending with the celebration of Jesus’ baptism on the Sunday following Epiphany. The paschal cycle centers around the death and resurrection of Jesus and is the more important of the two cycles (for there would be no celebration of Christmas were it not for Easter). The paschal cycle includes the season of Lent, Holy Week and Easter, ending with Pentecost.