The Ministry of Joyce McDonald's Sculptures

"The Reverend Joyce McDonald found sculpture around the same time that she rediscovered God. McDonald had grown up attending church services, but decades of addiction and abuse had waylaid her. She eventually got clean and returned to church; then, in 1995, she tested positive for H.I.V. Soon after, she began working with clay in an art-therapy program and the experience was transformative. "I started doing sculptures, and they unleashed the deepest, darkest secrets in my life," she has said."

"McDonald's themes are universal, but each of her sculptures is vivid and specific, as if she were summoning souls from within mounds of clay. That perception is enhanced by the works' material details, as she incorporates elements such as costume pearls and paper towels. "Ministry" offers a chance both to see how McDonald's art has evolved over the decades and to commune with her creations."

Reverend Joyce McDonald overcame decades of addiction and abuse, got clean, returned to church, and in 1995 tested positive for H.I.V. She began working with clay in an art-therapy program, and sculpture became a transformative practice that unearthed deep personal secrets. She works on a small scale, creating intimate figures engaged in rest, struggle, and prayer, sometimes incorporating pearls and paper towels. A museum exhibition gathers roughly seventy-five of her works and traces their evolution. Ordained in 2009, she leads the Keep Your Pearls Girls ministry and counsels women in prison and shelters. Many figures display closed eyes and meditative expressions, emphasizing internal journeys over dramatic moments.

Read at The New Yorker