_JPG.jpg)
Bio
Casey Murano is a visual artist who creates drawings and practices of pilgrimage. After earning a B.A. in Visual and Media Arts Practice from the University of Richmond, she participated in a year of service and leadership development with the St. Joseph Worker Program in St. Paul, Minnesota and then lived for three years at Bethlehem Farm, an intentional community, non-profit and service retreat center in Alderson, West Virginia. She has recently attended residencies with MidMountain Collective, Grünewald Guild, and Virginia Center for Creative Arts.
​
She is currently based in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwest Virginia, where she regularly leads workshops and contemplative creative spaces.
Statement
I primarily work with paper, ephemera, and materials like colored pencil, crayon, watercolor, and ballpoint pen to create drawings that flow from practices of pilgrimage. My understanding of pilgrimage is always evolving; in general, I think of pilgrimage as intentionally embarking on a journey of transformation. Some of my touchstones in this have been Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Phil Cousineau's The Art of Pilgrimage. While I have experience journeying to traditional sacred sites, retreat centers and intentional communities, I'm especially interested in what it looks like to approach daily life with the openness and intentionality of pilgrimage. As in, can I be delighted--and transformed--by the water dancing over my soggy hands while I wash the dirty dishes? Can I experience every moment as full of possibility, no matter where I turn? Much of the time, I carry around a sketchbook and several (extra) ballpoint pens, drawing "en plein air" at meetings, the breakfast table, and in waiting rooms. Sometimes from observation, sometimes automatically, sometimes intentionally, sometimes intuitively, but all often in response to what I'm experiencing internally and/or externally. These little experiments fascinate me, especially as I learn to notice patterns...and eventually they culminate into a larger scale macro-microcosmic body of work that comes out quickly and unexpectedly. ​
​
Interdisciplinary artist and writer Deborah J. Hayne’s writing on “theology of the arts” resonates with my pilgrimage approach to life, faith, and creative practice. Like Haynes, who is trained as both a studio artist and theologian, I am drawn to “the revelatory, the prophetic, and sacramental potential of the arts.” I'm curious about how creative practice facilitates transformation on a personal and collective level.
​
Another way of exploring my approach to art, ministry, and theology and interest in practices of pilgrimage is the theopoetics conversation, which Art-Religion-Culture defines as (1) an emphasis, style, and positive concern for the intersection of religious reflection and spirituality with the imagination, aesthetics, and the arts, especially as (2) it takes shape in ways that grows community, (3) focuses on material change, and (4) affirms the importance of embodiment."
​
Grounded in this framework, I look to artists within my religious lineage who model an integration of creative and spiritual practice, such as Corita Kent, Ade Bethune, and Hildegarde of Bingen. I am also always looking for resonance of pilgrimage and theopoetics beyond my tradition and discipline, ready to be surprised and changed by each new encounter.
​