For five years, St. Louis U. High has held its annual Art Retreat at the start of the fall season to give artistic members of the student body an opportunity to further their spirituality and connection with God through the arts. This year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic shortening their schedule, the Art Retreat was held once again with wide praise and mass creative inspiration.
    Held at Toddhall Retreat Center in Colombia, Ill., the art retreat began on Tuesday, Sept. 22 and ended the following day. Art teacher Sean Powers led the event and was accompanied by English teacher Chuck Hussung and choir teacher Addie Akin. The 24-hour period was spent on communal prayers, presentational talks, and workshops, which all focused on the relationship between art and the world, art and God, and art and oneself.
Due to the new block schedule, what was usually a three-day retreat was shortened to one full day and a night. To accompany the new 85-minute class periods, the retreat started on the latter half of Tuesday and all of Wednesday, which allowed students and teachers to only miss a single Faber Day and still attend classes on Thursday.
    While the change in schedule was not perfect, both the retreat leaders and students adapted and were still able to do what they intended: make great, spiritual art.
    “It wasn’t the most ideal thing to do, but it was either that or have the retreat be rescheduled, or possibly even cancelled, so we decided it was best to do it this way,” said Powers. “That being said, there is some precedent for having it this way: the very first art retreat was about 24 hours, only an overnight retreat, so we were prepared for the change.”
“It definitely hinders a lot more completion of the art, but it was still very possible to come up with a complex piece of art in under 24 hours,” said senior Alex Unseth.
Another change due to the pandemic was the social distancing. Since retreats are so centered on closeness and bonding, many expected this to be another hindrance, but ultimately, the hard work, creativity, and unity of making art and praying together brought the group together and made the students and faculty feel closer than before, even if they had to be six feet apart.
“It felt very foreign to sort of be ‘around’ people in this way and having to be separated from someone, but in a way we were coming together in the way we made art, which allowed us to be even closer than we were before,” said Unseth. “What was really awesome were the friendships that continued to blossom there. Especially now because we hadn’t seen each other for months and getting to spend time with one another was a very good bonding experience.”
“You often think ‘what is a retreat if you can’t be close to one another, if you can’t hug and give high fives or share a meal with big groups at a table,’ but honestly the good spirit and good will one everyone at the retreat brought us together, despite having to be physically apart,” said Powers.
A majority of the art created this year was music and drawing, with the occasional written piece. Some standouts this year were an impressionistic ragtime composition by Unseth inspired by the flowing feelings of a river, and a song about a man in 1920’s New York City who missed his train, which was written and composed by Carter Fortman and performed by Albert Harrold and Rob Brooks.
At the end of the retreat is the much anticipated “talent show” where the end results of the retreat are shown off by each artist, and the incentive and explanation of each art piece is also presented. 
“The most fruitful thing about the retreat is that our students have a lot of time, space, and freedom to be praying individually on their own through the process of making art, which really shows in the end where we have a ‘show and tell’,” said Powers. “The kids make astounding works of art—be that music, improv, or visual art—and every year students have produced some very outstanding and very profound artwork.”
“I think art, the making of art, and encountering art—not as the artist who created it, but as someone who sees it, hears it, takes it in—it is a soulful activity, and so to take that and put it in a religious context … there's no strain to doing that, you don't have to warp anything to get it. It fits so beautifully in that context, so the show and tell at the end, it’s a sharing of gifts, offering gifts, and receiving them, and applauding them, it’s quite nice,” said Hussung.
Overall, the 5th annual art retreat was met with praise and joy, especially for the success amid the sudden changes it had to adapt to. 
“I think it is one of the most prayerful retreats, because art is such a powerful medium, and you can transcend the spoken world into a world where you can simply express the talents that God gave you,” said Unseth.
“The artist in me is overly grateful for what the students produced during the retreat. As a visual artist who has been working with visual media for so long, being able to hear musical compositions that were made in such a short amount of time was especially inspiring, as it’s something I don’t do. But everybody’s work was great, and being able to see and experience it …  it warms my heart,” said Powers.

Art | Nathan Rich