Throughout her career, Messiah College Professor of Art and Design Kathy Hettinga has traveled the globe to take photographs of churches and cemeteries, places that provide what she calls “a balm to grief.”

Documenting cemeteries is the latest chapter in a career-long project that began when she was widowed at 24 and designed her late husband’s gravestone. The experience prompted her to begin studying and photographing grave markers in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado, where she grew up.

Over time, Hettinga’s photography has become well known and has been displayed in galleries across the country and even internationally. She is actively involved in design and handmade artist books. (more…)

While dance currently is an accepted form of both recreation and study — a dance minor began in the fall of 2010, and this past fall a dance major was added — for many years Messiah College, as a part of its founding Brethren in Christ denomination, took a firm standpoint against it. “The major source for opposition to dancing over the years basically came from the denomination, which was opposed to a number of ‘worldly’ activities, including dancing, playing cards, attending movies,” said Morris Sider, a member of the College’s faculty from 1963 to 2009. (more…)

School of the Arts alumni showcase talent around the world

Perhaps a hidden gem of Messiah College is its School of the Arts.  It is there that aspiring actors, musicians, and artists hone their skills in creative and public expression. Graduates from the School of the Arts have gone on to be international performers and excel in instilling their artistic vision in the communities where they work and live in while creatively contributing to the larger, global artists’ community. Mipa Lee (’05), Efthymios Mavridis (’89), and Jesse Baxter (’02) are all alumni from the School of the Arts who work internationally.
(more…)