%1

Muralist and community arts educator Michelle Angela Ortiz has created large-scale works that are a voice for the voiceless. Placed sometimes in front of Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices or other government buildings, her works call for justice and compassion and are often based on stories of specific parents and children who’ve been separated. “I am emphasizing the importance of presenting the stories of families affected by detention and deportation in ways that people can connect, empathize, then channel that energy into action,” said Ortiz.

As the newly elected Pope Leo X, Giovanni de’ Medici chose Raphael to design wall coverings for his private chapel, the Sistine. The ten tapestries, woven in Brussels from cartoons made by Raphael, were to hang beneath the frescoes commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV in the early 1480s. Few visitors to the Sistine Chapel today realize that the chapel’s decoration is incomplete without the tapestries. Those narrating Paul’s life were located beneath the painted life of Moses and were put up only on special occasions. The Sacrifice at Lystra illustrates the story told in Acts 14.