Dan Donato
Abandoned Church Project
Architectural Drawing on Paper
15″ x 22″
2021
My practice stems from questioning the tension between the physical Catholic Church and my spiritual faith in God. Do I need the church to be connected to God? This project is about a Catholic Church community center located one mile from my home, abandoned for over 20 years now. The abandonment of this Church in my community has put a strain on my community faith. In this project, I documented images of the church on how it stands today, neglected. I repurposed the church by drawing how I remembered the hopeful impact this church had on my youthful community and me. The drawing now lives in my art studio, like how a lovely memory sits on a wall framed and preserved forever in spirit.
Dan, this drawing is a melancholy reflection on an important part of your history. It involves looking back on the source of your faith. It is fine as a work of art. However, it does not relate to the theme of Beyond Death which involves transformations of materials that occur now and into the distant future. Perhaps you could incorporate an actual component of the decaying church showing moss or some other life form receiving nourishment from the rotting wood. In this ecological manner, the church remains a source of support so some entity can thrive and grow. These transformations generate opportunities for ‘faith’ and ‘wonder’, but these attributes are transferred from a deity to an earthly life form. Perhaps you can think of other ways to direct this artwork to the Beyond Death theme.