From the Chaplaincy to the Art Studio

God often surprises us in ways we never expected. Just ask the Rev. Denise Mosher, chaplain AND artist.

Denise entered Claremont School of Theology in 1993 with one goal: to love and serve God and neighbor.

“Unlike my parents, grandparents, and much of my family of origin,” she said, “I had had a very deep and profound encounter with the living Christ early in my 20s, though I wasn’t a church person. I had not grown up with a church community, youth group, and church camps like so many in the CST classroom. We just didn’t do that in my family.”

Her CST professor, the late Dr. James Sanders, assured her that none of Jesus’ first followers went to church camp either. “His humor, grace, stunning teaching, and authentic love for his students was a gift,” Denise said. 

Earning a Master of Divinity degree in 1996, Denise became a Presbyterian minister of word and sacrament, serving as a chaplain and interim pastor for most of her active ministry. 

“I completed an internship in ecumenical campus ministries at the University of California – Riverside, and really believed that I was going to spend most of my ministry life in campus ministry and campus chaplaincy,” she said. “I love the rhythm and flow of academic life and the ecumenical – and often interfaith – nature of university campuses. My husband Paul had worked in science labs at a few colleges. I had ‘my’ ministry all planned, tied neatly in a bow.”

Denise spent the next two decades working primarily as a chaplain, and she was content.

“I love people who live and work and form community together – in colleges, workplaces, military bases, retirement homes,” she said. “I was privileged to serve as a chaplain in all these settings. These communities, where life and death happen, asked me: What does it mean to be friends with Jesus in the midst of the everyday living of life? How does the ethical call to love and accept love from others really work in community? Onboard a ship? In the classroom on campus? In the apartments or dorms at night? In the hallway with an adult child as their parent is in their last days on this earth? In our families and neighborhoods?”  

In December 2019, after almost 25 years of full-time ministry, Denise was nudged to “to make the move from head to heart,” she said. 

Leaving her position as a chaplain at a large retirement community, she struggled to find her niche. She was certain that her passions would lead her in the best direction.

“But God called deeper to me,” she recalled, “and wanted more of me, and from me, than what I was ‘already good at.’ What I could do on my own skills and natural talents, and sort of ease into a new life, but one that patterned and very much resembled my old one.”

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. 

“Right in the middle of my trying, doing, proving, and planning (using the same strengths I already had),” Denise said, “I began losing the use of my right arm. At first, we thought it was a repetitive stress injury due to so many Zoom meetings. Then the same problem began migrating into my left arm.” Still not knowing the origin and unable to do anything besides physical therapy, resting, and rehabilitation, she began painting.

“I had never done anything artistic before and had never painted,” Denise said. “Paintings began emerging, birthed in my studio from the silence onto canvas.”

She discovered that real creativity happens when she listens – “when I drop my agenda, not doing, trying, or analyzing, but just wait for Divine leading of hand and heart,” Denise said. “And in my little, humble studio, a dog snoring by my side, and in the very midst of laundry and elderly parents to call, thank-you notes to be written, and emails to return. 

“I do not paint in silence. I paint in stillness – interior stillness, a fleeting gift from God.” 

In her online biography (www.DeniseMosherArt.com), she writes, “My work is vibrant and energetic, both in its process and outcome. Using plaster trowels, gravity and palette knives, I can often be seen tossing paint onto large canvases in my outdoor pop-up studio, while little boys on bikes cheer the process. This work is inspired by the daily joy and privilege of living, and the creative, still voice inside.”

Denise doesn’t plan her paintings. “I merely put a canvas down, shut up, and see what happens,” she said. “It has taken me almost a lifetime not only to know this, theoretically, in my head, but also for it to reside and be deeply seated in my heart. Sit. Paint. Pray.”

She continued, “When I stop doing and pushing and, instead, embrace friendship with Christ in the most everyday, mundane and quotidian of places, interesting color, paint, and movement occur on the canvas. About the time I start planning, composing, and thinking about what I’m doing in the studio? Utter garbage.”

Denise completes about one painting a week. 

“One thing I have learned about myself as a friend of Jesus and an artist,” she said, “is that I cannot be an artist unless I sit and live in, and into, ‘the one thing needed’ (Luke 10:42), hearing God in all and then going about being this for my neighbor.”

Accepting the creative process is new to her.

“I’ve always been a ‘planner,’ not a ‘let’s just do and see what happens later’ person,” Denise admitted. “But I enjoy the creativity, not only the studio time, but also how the work is narrative and presented on my online art gallery. I’m in charge of curating all of that, and it’s deeply fulfilling. Also, to be a maker and a creator. All Christians are called to be creators, I believe, because we are all called to see and give witness to God, who is here with us now, closer than our every breath.”

Denise cherishes her new adventure.

“I sit in contemplative prayer under a tree, within walking distance to a creek, here in Salem, Oregon,” she said. “Then I go to a Zoom lecture on how to use social media to share my work and the story of their creation. One foot (begrudgingly!) in the digital age, and most of my body, heart, and soul in a more ancient, quiet path, I am learning something new every day. Being pushed past my normal limits and talents, perhaps for the first time. 

“And here, beyond the limits of myself, I am speaking of God’s grace, the manna and love that falls upon us when we are not looking. That is why I call what God is doing with these imperfect human hands in the quiet ‘Painted Prayers.’ Prayers that have been viewed on cell phones during emergency hospital visits. Prayers hung in deacons’ offices, on walls of Buddhists and Christians and seekers. Prayers asked by the servant who witnessed their creation, ‘Who is God for you today?’”

The rest, Denise asserts, is a miracle.

“I deeply believe,” she said, “that God is speaking to every human heart, singing from all creation, ‘You are loved. You are a child of God. You are enough. You are eternally mine.’”

Denise’s business is designated as a “Trusted Art Seller” with the Art Storefronts Organization

https://artstorefronts.org/