A Creative Leap of Faith
Artist-turned-seminarian fashions a unique journey toward the priesthood
by Daniel Gallio
MOSAIC, Summer 2007

Art and spirituality work together for first-year theologian Craig Giera. The 60" x 46" untitled work combines fabric sculpting with acrylic painting. View his other work at www.homepage.mac.com/cagiera.

It's often said the call to the priesthood comes quietly, in gentle hours of meditation. For Craig Giera, the "still, small voice" of God came calling while sawing frames and slapping acrylic onto canvas in a cramped art studio in Hamtramck, Michigan.

Craig, twenty-nine, is a first-year theologian studying for the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Detroit. Before entering Sacred Heart in 2004, he was an up-and-coming fine artist whose work was selling successfully throughout Metro Detroit.

After graduating from high school in Sterling Heights, Craig decided to follow his artistic inclinations and enter the College of Creative Studies in Detroit. He studied graphic design but "didn't feel fulfilled sitting in front of a computer." So he transferred to Wayne State University and earned a BA in Fine Arts, specializing in large works of "mixed media" that combine both sculpture and painting. His art began to attract attention at local exhibitions and at the Robert Kidd Gallery in Birmingham, where Craig worked in sales and was encouraged by the owner to display and sell his work. The income allowed him to rent a small studio in a converted commercial building in Hamtramck, a well-known haven for artists and musicians. Craig later took a part-time catering job that permitted more time for sculpting and painting, now conducted in a two-bedroom flat he converted into studio and living space.

A future of professional accomplishment seemed to lay ahead for Craig Giera. But in the silent hours of his solitary work during Christmas season 2003, he began to perceive another calling.

"I spent many hours on my knees in my tiny studio with my hands plunged into buckets of paint, or slathering paint onto stiff fabric and found objects. I would often pray during these times. It was a great time to find the Lord—or the Lord to find me." In this receptive state, Craig says he "really heard God calling. It was like a nudge. He seemed to be saying, 'Pursue art full-time . . . or consider the priesthood.

"The priesthood was always on the backburner, I just didn't think too much about it," recalls Craig. Throughout college and career, he had continued practicing his faith at SS. Cyril and Methodius Parish in Sterling Heights. He even made a missionary trip to the Ukraine and later traveled by train throughout Europe, visiting art galleries but also religious shrines. "I thought I was going to look at art, but somehow God was guiding me through it all. It became a spiritual pilgrimage for me."

Craig shared this heavenly nudge with his parish priest, Fr. Ben Kosnac, who "really urged me along. He made sure I was close to the sacraments. He really fostered that awareness." Craig decided to apply to Sacred Heart and received his acceptance letter during one of his first solo exhibitions.

At first, Craig found that adjusting from an unstructured lifestyle of an artist to the ordered routine of a seminarian was "shocking." Soon, it became a source of stability.

"There are different movements, different seasons, in our lives. I don't feel compromised at bit." In fact, Sacred Heart's administration encouraged Craig to continue to use his art for spiritual and creative self-expression. Craig was permitted to convert an unused storage room into a small studio. There, in his (very little) spare time, in the serenity of his mornings and evenings, surrounded by brushes and canvas and textiles, he completed recently an untitled mixed media work that seems to reflect his ongoing journey toward the priesthood.

"I might not be creating any great pieces," says Craig, "but the space allows me to use that imagination the Lord has given me for the good.

"In art and in our vocations, sometimes the greatest leaps we make are when we're sitting still and quiet."