Becky McIntyre
In the spring of 2024, Becky McIntyre, friend of the Handmaids, moved into St. Raphaela Center to pilot a new Artist-in-Residence program. Over the span of three months, Becky found belonging, nourishment, spontaneity and spaciousness living with Handmaids and collaborating with staff members. She led two visual community projects to commemorate the 100th anniversary of St. Raphaela’s death — creating a mural connected to the fruit-bearing theme of the Centenary celebration and painting a peace pole that will be placed in a new garden on the grounds.
Becky McIntyre (she/her) is a freelance printmaker, muralist, and digital artist living in Philadelphia. She met the Handmaids through Spiritual Direction at St. Joseph’s University. Her work, inspired by community, the environment, justice, and the Spirit, seeks to bring awareness to sociopolitical issues and to activate and inspire new ways of being. Bex believes in the transformative and healing nature of art, especially art done in the context of community and relationship. Bex also works as the visual artist for the Synodality in Catholic Higher Education in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia (SCHEAP) project, to continue imagining ways to bring the arts to the global synod process called for by Pope Francis. She is an extended member of the Catholic Worker community and is an artist within the movement. Her work can be found at www.sanaartista.com and on Instagram at @sanaartista.
En la primavera de 2024, Becky McIntyre, amiga de las Esclavas del Sagrado Corazón, fue a vivir en el Centro Santa Rafaela para iniciar un nuevo programa de “Artista en Residencia”. Durante el transcurso de tres meses, Becky encontró un sentido de pertenencia, alimento espiritual, espontaneidad y amplitud viviendo con las Esclavas y colaborando con miembros del personal. Lideró dos proyectos visuales comunitarios para conmemorar el aniversario centenario de la muerte de Santa Rafaela: la creación de un mural relacionado con el tema de dar fruto del Centenario y la pintura de un poste de la paz que se colocará en un nuevo jardín del terreno del Centro.
Becky McIntyre (Bex) es una artista freelance que trabaja en los medios de estampados, murales y arte digital que vive en Filadelfia. Conoció a las Esclavas a través de la Dirección Espiritual como estudiante en la Universidad de San José. Su trabajo, inspirado en la comunidad, el medio ambiente, la justicia y el Espíritu, busca crear conciencia sobre los problemas sociopolíticos y activar e inspirar nuevas formas de ser. Bex cree en la capacidad transformadora y sanadora del arte, especialmente el arte realizado en el contexto de la comunidad y las relaciones. Bex también trabaja como artista visual para el proyecto Sinodalidad en la Educación Superior Católica en la Arquidiócesis de Filadelfia (SCHEAP), continuando la búsqueda de maneras de integrar las artes en el proceso sinodal global convocado por el Papa Francisco. Es un miembro de la comunidad extendida de Trabajadores Católicos y es una artista dentro de este movimiento. Su trabajo se puede encontrar en www.sanaartista.com y en Instagram en @sanaartista.
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For the past 3 months I lived as an Artist-In–Residence at St. Raphaela Center (SRC). This position was a new journey for all of us – myself, the Sisters, and friends of the retreat center who wondered who this person was with paint-covered pants who never seemed to leave!
As I made the huge transition to living in a retreat center with Handmaids, I found myself questioning how I fit in with everyday life – I’m not a sister, not quite a staff member, and not a retreatant either. Over time, though, I started to see that not fitting into a mold was very much what makes me an artist: being willing to find connections between worlds that have been separated, weaving together stories of people who never met with a stroke of a brush, going beyond borders and categories to create bridges into new ways of thinking. What I mean is this – it took a lot of creative energy to figure out, for everyone, how to imagine our time together. And the sisters, this community, and this place afforded me the time and space to transition and to land into my truth – that this creative energy is a deep calling of the Spirit – it is spontaneous and it breaks molds.
It has been a joy to live and work here, most especially with the new addition of the Center’s Art Studio in the House of Hope. The sisters and the staff of the center have been so incredibly welcoming, hospitable, thoughtful, and generous with me. In order to truly lean into this creative spirit moving in me, I would be remiss not to acknowledge the stretch in generosity and imagination that the sisters extended. The Handmaid Associates (ACI Family) and SRC community have also been deeply kind and supportive of my presence and work. I truly dropped into a beautiful community here at the Center, and I have been welcomed with open arms. I’m grateful to have felt my body and spirit so encouraged and nourished, and especially inspired by so many hard-working and spiritual women. As an artist that desires to create with and for community, it feels valuable to have a community of people around me who continuously share with me the meaning and inspiration they find in my work.
Time really flew by quickly. I just started to land only to then take off again on the next new adventure. Yet no matter how fast I was moving, it was hard to ignore the beauty of the place and people. Being at SRC consistently reminded me to appreciate the beauty in the everyday small things and pulled me back to the ground in the moments when I was overwhelmed or rushing from commitment to commitment. Beauty was in stopping to appreciate the blooming rainbow of ranunculus that Sr. Michelle grew by the pool, and in the personal, chef-made omelet that Steven brought me for lunch one day after watching me stare indecisively into the fridge. Beauty was in the occasional evenings that I remembered to sit in the hammock and watch the sunset through the trees. Beauty was in Sr. Lyan’s hugs and laughter, María Edel sneaking a piece of pie for me from the retreatants, Mary Breslin’s ever-present invitation to use her tiny office as a gathering space, regardless of the number of emails she had to answer, and the diligent Associates who showed up ready to every mural paint day. And beauty was in the many other moments when relationship made me pause and delight – reminding me that no matter where or how I do or don’t fit in, that I belong and that there is always a new invitation to consider if I stop to pay attention.
At this time, I’m leaving St. Raph’s with two projects that I focused on during my time – the mural and the peace pole. The mural, “Bearing Fruit,” was inspired by the theme for this year’s Journey of Hope, the Handmaids’ annual gathering of supporters. The theme for the gathering, “Her Mission Bears Fruit,” was inspired by the life of St. Raphaela, co-foundress of the Handmaids, whose over 100-year legacy continues to bear fruit. The vision was to create something communal, something that people could participate in during the event, that could then remain somewhere on the grounds. We landed on a mural in the Art Studio – a space where retreatants can pray through clay, paint, collage, printmaking, fabric and mixed media.
The mural design captures the global nature of the Handmaids as international women through the range of fruits displayed, and the tree reflects the words of St. Raphaela, “The Eucharist is our life as the root is the life of the tree.” With the help of volunteers, we cut out and painted 150 paper fruits – ranging from apples to cherimoyas to durians and everything in between. Then, at the Journey of Hope, each person received a piece of fruit during the program and was invited to write with the prompt: What is bearing fruit in my own life right now? After sketching the design on the garage doors that open to the studio, we hosted community paint days for people to join in the painting of the mural. Then, each fruit was glued onto the mural, placed in the large basket on the picnic blanket or on the tree. Now, coupled with the freshly painted garage floor, the mural helps create a warmer atmosphere in the garage-turned-art studio.
Making a peace pole was another fun collaboration with the community, where folks painted letters of St. Raphaela’s words, “May we be people of peace and celebration,” in 6 different languages: English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Hebrew, Arabic, and Chinese. The pole will be installed in a new “Signs of the Kingdom” garden on the retreat center grounds. It was exciting to watch many people engage in participatory arts – and it leads me to dream more about opening that opportunity for people.
Although my time as an Artist-in-Residence has been brief, I feel that many benefited from the beauty and creativity of the past few months, and I hope people will continue to find ways to explore the arts as an expression of spirituality and an avenue for faith at the Center. My stay at St. Raphaela Center has borne great fruit in this chapter of my life, helping me land into and nourish the creative and boundless wellspring of truth from the Spirit: that I am called to make art in community to help continue expanding our imaginations of how we can live in this world together with more love, tenderness, connection, acceptance, and care.