The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/22/09 Section: Variety

Media Credit: JIM DIFFLY Fourth year graduate student Stacy Isenbarger uses religious rituals as inspiration for her sculptures. Her sculptures maybe too popular - she thinks some have been stolen. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: JIM DIFFLY Stacy Isenbarger's floor art consists of hundreds of plaster camels. [Click to enlarge]

Editor's note: Every Wednesday, variety writer Katie Andrew will profile a different local artist. This is the eighth installment in the series.

From The Creation of Adam to Vitruvian Man to Piss Christ, religious art has gotten a lot of attention throughout history. Master's sculpture student Stacy Isenbarger taps into the market from a totally different angle.

"Mostly it's spiritual rituals that interest me, but it's all subjective to whoever it is that's watching or participating," Isenbarger said.

Out of her fascination with human reaction to religious scenarios, Isenbarger created an installation piece involving a hanging silk screen that resembles a cathedral window, with three columns of objects below that are made to look like bars of light entering from the window. The objects on the floor may look like just splashes of blue and gold color from afar, but Isenbarger spent hours making 3,400 small toy camels.

"I was thinking about stained glass windows and how if light were to fall through that," she said. "I used nativity camels because camels don't come from our culture. They became a little reminder that this thing isn't about the European notion of what a church should be."

Unfortunately for Isenbarger, her camels have become increasingly popular among her fans.

"I think people are stealing them," she said. "I haven't counted yet. In fact, the night of the show my grandmother stole three when she thought I wasn't looking."

Throughout the execution of this piece, it was very important to Isenbarger to make sure no one misunderstood her work as a testimony of her own faith.

"It's not a statement of judgement," Isenbarger said. "I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in peoples' reflection in these places, when they go into an environment and they feel like they have to act a certain way."

This interest in behavior and environment may have been sparked by Isenbarger's own Catholic upbringing.

"[There have been] weird situations in my life, in church basements with people speaking in tongues, or in Conyers going out into fields with people praying the rosary out loud in all these different languages - I think those things linger," she said.

In her art, Isenbarger also emphasizes the way those situations blend with daily life.

"I would go to those things, then the next day I was at school with all my friends eating peanut butter and jelly in the cafeteria," she said. "You mix these everyday things with these other things that are supposed to be so poignant, and they all just weave together."

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