Paintings, Sculptures by La Grange Park Nun Featured at Local Gallery

Sister Mary Southard sees art as something she has to do, to build a stronger relationship between creativity and spirituality.

A sculptor and painter, Southard's 30-piece collection "Landscapes of the Soul"  is on display through Aug. 26 at the La Grange Art League Gallery and Studio, 122 Calendar Ave., her first exhibit at the gallery, but not her first ever—galleries from Massachusetts to California have featured her work. 

Several of her sculptures and paintings appear prominently at the Congregation of Saint Joseph Ministry Center, 1515 W. Ogden Rd. Southard, a Catholic nun, has been a member of  the Congregation since 1954, where she now lives and leads programs and retreats on the subjects of spirituality and creativity.

Nancy Green, a framer at the La Grange Art League Gallery and Studio, said Southard's collection has a spiritual quality to it—a quality unique to her style.

Southard's sweeping, fluid, brush-stroked bold and pastel colored paintings, and life-sized sculptures, focus primarily on the themes of feminism, compassion and attunement with the world.  She said her art conveys life and spirituality that inspires her work.

"It's what you don't have words for," Southard said. "Words come from a place that analyzes things. Art comes from the heart—from intuition and it comes before thinking."

Southard's painting "Women's Spirit Rising," in which women from three different cultures are joined together, made an impression on Grace Skalski, manager of communications at the Congregation of St. Joseph.

"I knew in my head we're all brothers and sisters, but that [painting] got it into my gut," Skalski said. "Now, I actually feel that, not just think it."

Though Southard has dabbled in art since she was young, she didn't always see a connection between creativity and spirituality.

She said she didn't have a clear sense of the importance of creativity when it was suggested she study art after joining the Congregation—a Catholic community located in seven states and in Kyoto, Japan that serves through education, healthcare, pastoral and parish ministry, social work, spiritual care and faith development.

"Now, I would not hesitate to suggest this is what I'd like to do for the rest of my life," she said. "I kind of fell into it, but I'm so happy I did."

Southard's original pieces are available for purchase, along with prints of her paintings, sold at the Congregation of Saint Joseph gift shop.