Art will shine at Shelter Island’s Union Chapel on Sunday
If you walked around the Heights on a Friday evening last August during the Shelter Island Heights Illumination Night, you couldn’t help but be enchanted by the fairy lights, lanterns, and lights of every kind hanging from the eaves and porches of Heights’ homes.
This year, the same weekend as Illumination Night, Union Chapel has decided to feature the Heights as part of its Art Sunday service on Aug. 11.
The outdoor service will be followed by an indoor art display with works provided by Chapel trustees, photographer Adam Bundy, and artist/cartoonist Peter Waldner, both artists whose work appears weekly in the Shelter Island Reporter.
The art of a longtime Chapel trustee, Olive Reich, who passed away last year, will also be prominently featured.
Art surrounds us in the Chapel, always, as your eyes are immediately drawn to the Marine Mosaic windows of local artist Walter Brigham Cole. Not technically stained glass, though they equal the beauty of the other stained glass windows, Brigham’s affects were achieved by the use of shells, stones and chunks of broken glass, assembled and cemented together with a special lead compound.
Presbyterian preacher Rev. Candace Whitman, who is also an artist, picture book illustrator and writer, will speak at this celebration of art.
Rev. Candace Whitman grew up on Long Island, and after graduating from Yale with a B.A. in the History of Art, began her career in advertising, later entering the field of art and art education. Teaching art to elementary students, she was inspired to write and illustrate a children’s book about dinosaurs, followed by 12 other books for children. Her work received praise in The New York Times, Newsweek, and The New Yorker. She also served as Adjunct Professor of Art and Art Education at New York University, where she had earned a Master’s degree.
After many years in Manhattan, Rev. Candace moved to Shelter Island where she “heard God’s call to ministry,” and entered Princeton Theological Seminary, receiving her M. Div. in 2011. She said writing advertising and children’s books prepared her for the craft of sermon writing.
Ordained in the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in 2014 during a chaplaincy at Yale-New Haven Hospital, Rev. Candace, who lives in East Hampton, went on to pastor two Long Island churches and now serves Presbytery of Long Island, while remaining active in the art world. She especially enjoys leading church retreats with art as “a window to deeper faith.”
The outdoor service at 10:30 a.m. will be followed by a reception catered by Stars Café. Please bring a chair. In case of inclement weather, the service will move indoors.
Next week: Bishop Andrew St. John of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, NYC; Cottage Trio will perform.
