‘GOD IS BEAUTIFUL’

‘To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower …
To hold infinity in the palm of your hand …
… And eternity in an hour’

Gerard Manley Hopkins                    

Friar Vincent Petersen (55) of El Paso, Texas describes himself as primarily a landscape artist who works mostly in oil medium. Since childhood he has had a love affair with the beauty of the earth. Growing up in rural Minnesota he credits the shapes, the seasons, the dimensions and the moods of creation for coloring his understanding of God and spirituality. As a Conventual Franciscan friar and Catholic priest, he derives much of his energy and inspiration for ministry from what the earth has to say.
“She is nurturer and life sustainer and she has a personality and a heartbeat - if we would only listen to her. At present she is going through violent convulsions due to an unprecedented environmental assault by the human species. And she is trying to make an appeal to the deepest and truest part of ourselves. We have lost our sense of reverence and wonder for creation, substituting ‘shock and awe’ and ‘entertainment’ for our natural contemplative abilities. As long as we continue to treat her as a commodity and take her for granted we are doomed. We must learn to live again in relationship with her - for what we do not love – we will not save”.
Friar Vincent tries to capture the beauty of both the wild and the remote as well as the near and the subtle. “I am enchanted with the colors and the drama of the Southwest”, he says. Rarely does he include signs of human encroachment such as roads or houses in his paintings. He prefers to celebrate pure and unblemished vistas as well as thought provoking perspectives. Working from memory he wants to help the viewer develop a deeper appreciation and love for what could soon be lost due to the excesses of land ‘development’ and human greed.
In 1980 Friar Vincent received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Arts from St. Louis University and a Master of Divinity degree from Washington Theological Union. Since ordination in 1985 he has worked in a variety of parish and retreat ministries and has spent some time in the foreign missions. In 2001 he enjoyed some sabbatical time in an art school in San Miguel Allende, Mexico where his spirit for painting was reignited. He lives in community with other Franciscan Friars in the Mission Valley of El Paso and is involved in parish ministry there. He is presently convener of Pax Christi of El Paso which is the local chapter of the Catholic peace movement.

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