Local artist Anastassia (Tess) Cassady is perhaps best known for her iconography and the watercolor depictions of saints that she created for John and Katie Cavadini’s children’s book, “Saints: A Family Story.” Her new solo exhibit at Holy Cross College’s St. Joseph Gallery provides an opportunity to not only experience some of her icons and see the original copies of some of the saint portraits but also to get a glimpse of her wider oeuvre, which covers a range of mediums, including charcoal drawings, block printing, and oil painting.  “Ascension: Artwork by Anastassia Tess Cassady,” opened in late August and will run through Friday, December 20. A gallery reception, which will include a question-and-answer session with Cassady, will be held on Saturday, November 2, from 11 a.m. to noon.    The exhibit’s title was taken from a Byzantine icon Cassady created specifically for the show. Second in size only to the oil painting of one of Cassady’s daughters, which is also included in the show, the icon holds a prominent place in the exhibit. Written on a uniquely shaped 30-inch by 30-inch board, there’s a continuous movement and element of balance to the piece, which features Christ surrounded by a mandorla, flanked on all corners by angels. Angelo Martinez, the program director of Holy Cross College’s Visual Arts program and the director of the St. Joseph Gallery, decided to name the exhibit after this piece and shared how its title speaks to the unifying thread throughout Cassady’s work, telling Today’s Catholic, “‘Ascension’ is the title of a central painting in the show, but I thought it also worked well for the entire exhibition, because all the works are intended to lift us into a closer relationship with God.” Explaining the assortment of pieces selected for the exhibit, Martinez said: “I really wanted to show a wide variety of her work, because I think a lot of people know of some of her work – like probably the icons, because she’s done some commissions for local churches, and certainly the illustrations from the book. A lot of people know of that work, but I thought it’d be really nice to include some of the portraits also, because she’s so passionate about them. I know they’re important to her as an artist, and they’re also just really beautiful. She’s just technically so talented at capturing the human spirit through portraiture.” Local artist Anastassia (Tess) Cassady’s linocut block print of St. Gemma Galgani is one of the pieces in her “Ascension” exhibit at Holy Cross College’s St. Joseph Gallery. The exhibit will be open to the public through December 20. “Even the works that are not sacred art necessarily, the portraits in particular, it seems like she’s always kind of looking for that: She’s looking for the essence of the human person and that dignity of the human person, the beauty of the human person – I guess the truth, beauty, and goodness that comes from God and is kind of placed in all of God’s creation, but certainly within the portraits that she’s investigating,” Martinez continued. As the curator of the exhibit, Martinez highlighted this unique gift of Cassady’s in some profound ways; his curatorial hand helps to elevate all the art, through the intentional groupings of pieces which then lead the viewer to draw deeper connections. This is perhaps best seen on a wall that features watercolor paintings of St. John the Baptist and St. Augustine side by side with two charcoal portraits Cassady created as part of her “Homeless of South Bend” series, which previously showed at Art Prize in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Photos provided by St. Joseph GalleryThe artwork of Anastassia (Tess) Cassady is displayed in a new exhibit at the St. Joseph Gallery at Holy Cross College. The series was inspired by one of her daughters, who would notice and ask about homeless people she saw around South Bend. The dichotomy between a child’s inclination to look at a person with wonder and Cassady’s learned response of avoiding eye contact struck her. “I realized I felt like I couldn’t look at homeless people sometimes because I just felt so guilty or just uncomfortable,” Cassady shared.  So, she decided to step outside of her introverted tendencies and meaningfully engage, using her craft as a bridge to facilitate encounters and bring a sense of dignity to the people she met.  “It was probably more of an emotional challenge for me than artistic,” Cassady reflected. “The artistic part of it wasn’t the difficult part; it was me trying to muster up this kind of energy to speak with people I didn’t know.” In the end, “It was really, really powerful,” Cassady told Today’s Catholic. “It was more about the process than the end result for me.” Cassady highlighted the sense of being seen that those who posed for a portrait often expressed, and said, “I wanted to really, deeply look at them.”  Cassady provided several “Homeless of South Bend” pieces for the exhibit in part to display her charcoal work. But, more significantly, in showing these pieces, she seeks to honor the subjects. She said that several people who saw the pieces at Art Prize recognized the subjects from seeing them around town, and she hopes that some patrons of the Ascension exhibit will as well.  Regardless of whether patrons recognize them, Cassady told Today’s Catholic: “I just find it really important for people to just look at [the subjects] if they could. It is kind of a continuation of just that opportunity for encounter with them.”  Echoing Martinez’s insight, she shared, “It’s not necessarily sacred art, but I feel it is sacred in a different way, a more human kind of way, in that we all are made in likeness and image of God.”  Martinez’s placement of the portraits alongside the saints was a meaningful surprise to her. “I’m super spoiled,” she said of receiving his curatorial oversight; and she noted that having John the Baptist displayed in line with two homeless men was a great choice, pointing out that John’s weathered looks fit right in.   In sharing her hopes for how the exhibit will be received, Cassady told Today’s Catholic that she hopes the exposure to different mediums of art, and different forms of “sacred art,” makes an impact. “My favorite thing about teaching art history is exposing people to … different types of art,” she said. “I think, for me, my hope would be just for somebody to fall in love with like one piece, even if it’s not the composition, just like, ‘wow, what is this medium?’ Or like, ‘I’ve never seen a block print; I didn’t know they did this.’”  “So, I would say just exposure – exposure to art and different types of sacred arts and different types of art that can be considered sacred,” she concluded. “Even if it’s not explicitly a saint, but it is a person and somebody that should be loved and seen.” The post Holy Cross Displays Sacred Art – and Art of the Sacred appeared first on Today's Catholic.