For Catholic artist Kelly Luong, a month-long residency at St. Gertrude’s Monastery became much more than dedicated studio time. Immersed in the Benedictine rhythm of Mass, prayer, silence, work, meals, and community, she said God taught her to rest, create freely, and see her vulnerable artwork as a way of loving others.
St. Gertrude’s Artist in Residence program gives women visual artists, musicians, and writers the opportunity to live at the Monastery of St. Gertrude in Cottonwood, Idaho, for a month, with studio space and participation in community life.
“I was raised Catholic, and my art and my faith are heavily intertwined,” Luong told ChurchPOP.
Luong said the residency began with a prayer during a difficult period in her life.
“One afternoon, I was praying on the verse about how new wine needs new wine skins otherwise it would burst,” she said. “I felt like I was bursting at the time, that I wasn’t molding and growing with God’s grace, but I was breaking and failing.”
She brought that pain directly to God.
“So I asked God, how do I become a new wine skin? It was that night I had the thought to look into artist in residence programs that were also Catholic and I
