Nancy Wynn, Associate Dean & Department Chair of Creative Arts, Design and Architecture (CADA), set out to capture twenty years of something that’s hard to define; part gallery, part ministry, and part long-running community experiment in what art can do. That something is the Clare Gallery at the Franciscan Center for Urban Ministry, a not-for-profit exhibition space tucked inside a Franciscan urban center in downtown Hartford, Connecticut. Since 2003, the gallery has hosted over 90 exhibitions, some as solo shows, others as large-scale collaborations, as well as related educational programming. Though, all of them were anchored in a mission: use contemporary art to explore spirituality, interfaith understanding, and social justice.
Graceful Partners: Art and Spirituality is a field report from that mission. The book, newly released and designed by Wynn herself, weaves together documentation, personal essays, artist reflections, and stories that don’t usually get written down—it adds to the knowledge and study of the visual arts from a particular perspective. “We have a website,” Wynn says, “but a website is different from a book. This way—in an organized fashion, documenting all of the impact that the gallery has had— helps disseminate the knowledge and makes it easy to digest.”
Wynn has been curating Clare Gallery since its founding, commuting over two hours one way for the better part of two decades. What started as a simple idea proposed by a pastor (“Why not bring contemporary art back into the Church?”) grew into something much larger.
At the time, Wynn didn’t consider the work spiritual or ministry. “I was not heavily religious, and I don’t even consider myself heavily religious still,” she says. “But over time, I have seen the impact it has had emotionally and spiritually. Now, I am a true believer in how spirituality and the energy of the world can be communicated through art; not just in a church, but outside of that.” Over the years, she’s come to see it as ministry. Not in the doctrinal sense, but in the original sense: to serve.
The work at Clare has always been about presence and response. One exhibition featured master craftspeople who had come to Hartford as refugees; shoemakers, lace weavers, costume designers, and more. In their home countries, they were respected artists. Here, they were often overlooked. Clare Gallery gave their work a stage, and their stories a platform. Their families came. Interpreters translated. People saw them differently. “Seeing yourself as an artist in that space, it changes you,” Wynn says.
In another moment, a group of refugee visitors came to see that same show on a freezing winter day. “Their hands were freezing,” Wynn remembers. A staff member brought out hot coffee, then sandwiches. “They came to see art, but they also had their hearts and minds filled, a hot drink, and some food.”
As a designer, Wynn was drawn to the challenge of building the book herself. She spent over seven years collecting exhibition details, asking artists and writers for contributions, editing, laying out pages, and so much more. “You learn a lot when you write and publish a book,” she says. “Working with an editor, managing the design, setting deadlines, and staying committed.” She’s glad she did it. “I learned a lot, which then I can help my students when they want to create books.”
After twenty years, Clare Gallery is still inviting the world in. It is still showing what can happen when art, care, and curiosity are allowed to work together; quietly, gracefully, and without giving up. Recent shows have looked at memory, mysticism, neuroscience, and nature. Their most recent exhibition, “Inner Visions” by Shannon McCarthy, reflects the artist’s experiences with seizures and paintings of visions she receives during them, offering another lens into how knowledge is formed, beyond logic and language.
The work continues. And for Wynn, so does the teaching. “What I try to tell my students is this: You have to be open. Open to the energy,to the creativity, to whatever you call it—the spirit, maybe. It’s out there. But you have to invite it in.”
This past fall, Wynn was interviewed for the TV broadcast Write Now with Gayle C. Heney: November 2025. Write Now, HC Media’s television program, explores the act of writing and celebrates authors who have published works. Gayle C. Heney has been producing Write Now since 1999.
Graceful Partners is available for purchase on Amazon, or you can check it out at McQuade Library or the CADA lounge. More information on the gallery can be found at their website.
