Ministry of music leaders and volunteers vital to parishes’ liturgical life
National Catholic Reporter, June 13, 2013
By Porsia Tunzi
Read the article, featuring a photo of the members of the Nigerian choir at St. James.
There’s a new chick
A chicken roost grows near Troost
Midtown KC Post, April 29, 2013
By Mark G. Dillon
There’s a new chicken roost a block from Troost, and yesterday mother hen Portabella and nine chicks were blessed.
Art teacher Theodore Bunch and his girlfriend Eva Louise Hall have built a 10-chicken coop adjacent to the St. James Catholic Church Community Garden next to their home at 3923 Harrison St. Read more
Churches in KC neighborhood suffering from gun violence hope to bring peace
KCTV Channel 5 News, March 28, 2013
By Laura McCallister, Multimedia Producer
By Erika Tallan, Reporter
Many lives are touched by gun violence, whether the person is a victim or not, and two churches in one neighborhood in the Kansas City metro suffering from such violence are saying “no more”.
The two churches in the Troost Corridor are standing up for non-violence in the neighborhood. The churches are using Good Friday as an opportunity to bring new hope and resolve to the Troost Corridor and plan to line the street with light and love. Read more
An immigrant, heart and soul of his parish
From Grateful Sharing Spring 2012, the newsletter of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph Stewardship Office
Artist Marilyn Mahoney’s ‘Cinematic’ has tiny details, grand scope
Drawings shine in a midcareer exhibit of her work at the Thornhill Gallery.
On display
“Marilyn Mahoney: Cinematic” continues at the Thornhill Gallery at Avila University, 11901 Wornall Road, through Feb. 17. Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday. For more information, call 816-501-3653.
If a body in motion tends to stay in motion, then Marilyn Mahoney’s drawings are images of perpetual kinesis.
Trusses, bridges, and other architectural fragments are the vehicles by which the midcareer Kansas City artist examines perspective, spatial relationships, abstraction, and underlying themes of dance, cinema, and memory.
The show in the Thornhill Gallery at Avila University has an enigmatic title, “Cinematic.” In its broadest definition, the name aptly conveys the essence of the work. Its scope is grand, yet Mahoney manipulates the most minute details with precision and dramatic flair.
By drawing, painting, and cutting on Mylar and paper in shades of gray, cream, black and rust, Mahoney designs and manipulates elements that dissolve from one thing to the next, suggesting contradictory notions of movement and immobility.
Everything can be seen in flux.
Out of the 14 works, two are traditional paintings on canvas while the rest are layered drawings on Mylar and paper. While the paintings are accomplished, it’s in the drawings that Mahoney really shines.
Interestingly, Mahoney cajoles more movement from her acutely precise, hand-cut shapes layered upon one another and manipulated with paint and graphite than she does from the relative freedom of acrylic paint. As illogical as it sounds, the paintings seem a bit staid by comparison. In “Scrimshaw — Truss,” those trusses feel stubbornly anchored to the striped background.
The paintings lack the drawings’ freedom.
“Licorice Twist,” the largest work on paper is, among all the works, the most bewitching. It is precise, lyrical, and shot through with dazzling choreography.
The drawing is a cross between an abstracted, elegant pavilion and a whirling dervish. Mahoney said it was influenced by her mother’s dancing pirouettes. Because the forms float unencumbered on the paper, the entire composition, with its sinuous curves and arching protrusions, feels changeable, unpredictable and cinematic.
In “South Pacific-Horizon,” Mahoney strips down to the basic elements that she embraces in all of her drawings. Here two nestling, recumbent trusses cut a sharp line through the ether.
Mahoney’s individual drawing components exist in a geometry of spatial relationships to one another and to the picture plane. At times the trusses and images coalesce into an abstracted object; they suggest a building or an architectural fragment, and at other times, the drawings exist in almost pure abstraction.
Mahoney meticulously investigates the push and pull of perspective in all of the work. She delves only into surface appearances in some drawings and in others she digs through layers and unearths spatial ambiguities. Even her earthy color choices imply the archeology of accretions.
In “Arthur’s Turn,” thick layers of trusses and sharp angles create a chaotic field that seems impenetrable.
In Mahoney’s abstracted choreography there is no movement without quiet and no quiet without some movement. Something is always stirring, or about to become.
The exhibition’s title, “Cinematic,” launches and summarizes this body of work. Mahoney leads us through stages of stability and instability, close-ups and long shots, as she pans across sections of changeable architectural fragments.
Posted on Wed, Feb. 08, 2012 12:00 AM
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/08/3415080/cinematic-has-tiny-details-grand.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy
Kansas City Star www.kansascity.com
National Catholic Reporter ncroline.org
Parish, community unite to bless symbol of healing
By Kevin Kelly
Catholic Key Associate Editor
The people of St. James Parish in midtown Kansas City bless “Unite,” a sculpture at the bus station at 39th Street and Troost Avenue that expresses the prayers for unity on both sides of Troost. With elected and Kansas City Area Transportation Authority officials in attendance, the sculpture was blessed and dedicated following Mass on March 6. (Kevin Kelly/Key photo)
KANSAS CITY — In cities all over the country, there are streets named “Division,” Deacon Ross Beaudoin told the congregation that filled St. James Parish on March 6.
Kansas City’s version of “Division Street” would be Troost Avenue, that runs a few feet from the altar at St. James where Mass has been celebrated for more than a century.
But March 6 was a special Sunday in the long history of St. James Parish, located at the intersection of 39th Street and Troost which is also the third busiest public bus station in the metropolitan area.
On that day, the congregation along with elected and appointed officials helped dedicate “Unite,” a 20-foot tall sculpture that expressed the mission and dream of the parish for healing across Kansas City’s historic “division street.”
And it was more than appropriate that the blessing and dedication take place just three days before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Christian season of healing and reconciliation, said Deacon Beaudoin, parish administrator.
“Divisions between people must be healed or violence results,” he said in his homily during Mass. “That violence may be physical, social or economic. But it will happen.” “Unite” was commissioned as one of three pieces of public art installed along
the ATA’s new Troost MAX express bus route to downtown Kansas City.
ATA General Manager Mark Huffer told the congregation assembled outside for the dedication that the ATA surveyed the neighborhood, and the themes of unity, reconciliation and healing along both sides of Troost Avenue came through loud and clear.
Miami, Fla, artist Jefre Manuel then conceived the towering sculpture, bringing to mind two hands joined in prayer. Backlighted at night, the sculpture also incorporates the artwork of neighborhood children, expressing their dreams of their futures.
Deacon Beaudoin told his congregation at Mass that St. James is located where it is for a purpose.
“Our trials and tribulations are the trials and tribulations of Troost Avenue,” he said. “We can and we must contribute to the healing of divisions in our community.”
Deacon Beaudoin briefly outlined the history of Troost as the de facto dividing line between white Kansas City and African-American Kansas City, between rich Kansas City and poor Kansas City, as financial institutions as a matter of policy “red-lined” black Kansas Citians east of Troost, refusing to grant them mortgages to move west.
“Troost became a racial, economic and social divide,” Deacon Beaudoin said to his congregation that could scarcely be more diverse in its own racial, economic and social composition.
But, he said, now is not the time for self-congratulation. Now, at the dedication of a work of art that expresses the parish’s special mission, is the time to re-dedicate to the goals of healing and reconciliation, Deacon Beaudoin said.
“You can’t give what you haven’t got,” he said. “No one among us is going to be an agent of healing and reconciliation for Troost Avenue if we aren’t actively an agent of healing and reconciliation in our own lives.”
He urged the parish to follow the example of Jesus even more closely as they begin Lent.
“Jesus accepted every person who came to him. No one was turned away,” Deacon Beaudoin said.
“Jesus cared for and gave his life for everyone,” he said.
Deacon Beaudoin reminded his congregation that the Gospel readings leading up to Lent have focused on the Beatitudes, “teachings we need to live by if we are going to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation.”
He also told the congregation that in the Gospel that day, Jesus exhorts his followers not only to listen to his Word, but to act on it.
“We do that because we do not want to add another ‘division street’ in our lives,” Deacon Beaudoin said.
“Our prayer this Lent can be Jesus’ prayer to heal our divisions,” he said. “Our fastings can be for whatever continues to divide us. Our almsgiving can be given of our time to one another, to listening, and to helping.”
Every time the parishioners see the sculpture “Unite,” they should be reminded of the special mission God has given to the church at 39th Street and Troost Avenue, Deacon Beaudoin said.
“We will bless and dedicate this sculpture that symbolizes the coming together of both sides of Troost,” he said.
“We will together take one more step in healing our divisions,” he said. “We will commit anew to living our lives now as we will live them in the hereafter — one family of God.” (Go to Catholic Key’s website)