Visions of the Sacred - Interviews
This is a companion page to Kim MacQueen's book Visions of the Sacred: Conversations with Bahá'í Artists, published by ABS in 2024. The contents of this page belong to the author and the artists interviewed; please do not duplicate without permission.
Otto Don Rogers
Otto Don Rogers served the Bahá’í Faith in many capacities including on the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada and as an International Counselor. He inspired an endless stream of students as a university art professor and was a generous guiding hand to many evolving professional artists. His easy eloquence encouraged his listeners to understand the purpose of the arts in new ways. He is greatly missed.
Sasha Rogers
Sasha Rogers exudes a deep understanding of the invitation that the arts offer to those who engage with them. She is one of those rare people who can, through language alone, take us to a deeper understanding of painting by connecting a two-dimensional road map to an underlying reality that transcends dimension. She brings clarity and soul to each conversation.
Sky Glabush
Sky Glabush is an artist’s artist. He embodies the spirit of curiosity, and his work, in its content or construction, often balances on some kind of edge. Sky marries a sense of discovery with determination. He is a natural teacher and imbued in me a new and fundamental appreciation of the power of metaphor, for which I am very thankful.
Siamak Hariri
Siamak Hariri is deeply respected within his profession and beyond it, and has received many accolades and significant awards for his work. He is an artist with an emotional and spiritual understanding of what makes a space amenable to the sacred. He designed the extraordinarily beautiful Bahá’í House of Worship for South America in Santiago, Chile.
Paula Murray
Paula Murray’s work with porcelain is nothing short of breathtaking. I was particularly fascinated by the lengths to which she is able to push her material, demonstrating an exceptional level of skill in the craft. Paula is well known for her focus on natural shapes, and for her deep awareness of materials, meaning and metaphors.
Carol Evans
Carol Evans simply put, is a national treasure of Canada. Her work is deeply embedded in the land, sea, and sky of British Columbia, and so is her heart. She is perhaps most recognized for her phenomenal ability to transfer the qualities of light and water to paper with watercolors. Carol is represented in more than eighteen galleries in Western Canada alone.
Hooper Dunbar
Hooper Dunbar has served the Bahá’í Faith in many capacities, culminating in service as a member of the Universal House of Justice from 1988 to 2010. He has always been involved in the arts. He has been an actor, worked with mosaics, designed books, been a photographer, created a documentary film, founded an art school, and more. Most recently he is admired as a prolific painter of compelling canvases.
Pancho Amenábar
Pancho Amenábar is well known for his consummate story telling in Chile and beyond. After learning to play the santour in Europe he returned to Chile and partnered with a talented musician, creating a fusion of sound that united the Eastern santour and the Western guitar. Pancho’s resonant voice is his trademark, often heard in his work in radio and in concert performances.
Roger Bansemer
Roger Bansemer’s deep curiosity has led him to painting, to own and pilot a hot air balloon, to create a number of books of paintings and to produce and film over 130 episodes of a television show on PBS along with his wife Sarah. Painting and Travel with Roger and Sarah Bansemer ran for more than fourteen years, and featured Roger painting local scenes and sharing his techniques.
Shadi Toloui-Wallace
Shadi Toloui-Wallace saw a need for the Writings of the Bahá’í Faith to reach youth meaningfully when she was a youth herself. She began creating music to combine with those writings, using an ear schooled in both Western and Eastern musical traditions, all the while learning production and arrangement skills and encouraging youth as she went. She continues to have a commitment to the grassroots development of music, especially music in service to the Bahá’í Faith.
Shaughnessy Johnson
Shaughnessy Johnson is a gifted sculptor and teacher. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago, and studied architecture and design in Tuskegee, Alabama. He is passionate about bringing the work of African American artists to light in all of his work. He has a clear artistic vision, and the skill of making meaningful connections with people of every background and culture which serves him well in his work as co-curator of a local gallery.
Lisa Puzon
Lisa Puzon is a Renaissance woman. While she holds both a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Auburn University in Alabama, and a doctoral degree in transpersonal psychology, she is also an art therapist, teacher, facilitator, co-curates a local gallery and of course, is an accomplished artist. Her passion is reaching out to young people through the arts.
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It has been a joy to prepare these videos so that others can visually experience these artists’ expressions as they convey their thoughts, and hear the full complement of language each used in the conversations. Each artist offers a rich collection of ideas steeped in experience and wisdom gained through true engagement with their art.
The videos themselves vary from 30 minutes to an hour depending on the length of the conversations, and are edited for interruptions, technical glitches, and occasional bouts of silliness among us.
Credits:
Videography – Julian MacQueen
Editing and more – Aaron Ball and Ann Kelly
http://www.mediatechdirect.com/
Music – used with permission: Radiant Heart (instrumental) - Shadi Toloui-Wallace