Seek Things Above
The mission of the Mount Angel Institute is to share the rich ways of Mount Angel Abbey’s Benedictine monastic life with Church and World. In this podcast, we share talks from monks, faculty, and guest speakers at Mount Angel that generally focus on the rich ways of prayer, community life, deep reading or lectio divina, life centered on the Eucharist, Benedictine hospitality, arts and culture, and caring for the land and environment.
Mount Angel Abbey (Saint Benedict, Oregon) is a community of Benedictine monks founded in 1882 from the Abbey of Engelberg in Switzerland. Today, the community continues to serve the spiritual needs of western Oregon and beyond through the parish church of St. Mary’s, a seminary (founded in 1889), a guesthouse, and other works that welcome all visitors and guests in the spirit of Benedictine hospitality.
For more information about Mount Angel, visit https://www.mountangelabbey.org/.
Seek Things Above
Sacred Art, New Evangelization, and Sacred Scripture with Tomasz Misztal
Sponsored by the Mount Angel Institute, artist Tomasz Misztal shares how art and its creation has transformed and affected his life. Focusing on the sacred and incorporating figurative and abstract elements in his pieces that express the human condition and spirit, learn how his artistic approach has transformed and evolved over time.
Misztal was born in Poland and currently lives and works in Portland, Oregon. He earned his Master of Fine Arts and PhD from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk, Poland, and taught as a faculty professor there from 1982 to 1993. He has also taught art privately throughout his career.
Misztal has worked in many international museums and institutions, including Sachseln, Switzerland; Lisbon and the Azores, Portugal; Berlin, Germany; Warsaw, Gdansk, and Warka, Poland; and most notably, the Vatican Collection.
Misztal’s talent has been recognized numerous times, including with a silver medal in the category of Work on Paper at the 2011 International Biennale of Modern Art in Florence, Italy. He has also had several solo exhibitions in the United States and abroad.
Because of his focus on sacred art, Misztal has created artworks for many commissions, for private and public entities, including many churches and monasteries. You can find his Last Supper sculpture in our guesthouse dining room. His piece in the Vatican Collection was commissioned for the Solidarity Movement on behalf of the Gdynia dock workers as a gift for Pope John Paul II in 1987.