Created in Reverence: The Artistic Process of Dony Mac Manus

Welcome

What drives an artist to create? For the viewer of the drawing, painting, or sculpture, mystery often surrounds the creative process. It is also true that what motivates an artist varies amongst artists.

For Dony Mac Manus, Lecturer of Drawing and Sculpture in the Department of Art, Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art, the starting point is often a commission for a work of liturgical art. Like many artists, he develops his ideas first through sketches inspired by primary source readings and visuals from museums, churches, and books. However, deep faith, prayer, and contemplation are the critical ingredients that differentiate his creative process from that of many others.

The items on display will give you a glipmse into Mac Manus's approach based on Thomas Aquinas' definition of art as recta ratio factibilium or right reason in regard to the making of things.