Artist turns anti-gay DVD into inclusive art

A Minnesota artist is transforming an archbishop’s anti-gay DVDs into art with an inclusive message.

Artist Lucinda Naylor has come up with a creative way to counteract 400,000 anti-gay DVDs that are being mailed to Catholic households across Minnesota this week by Archbishop John Nienstedt.

“Give me your DVDs and I’ll recycle them into art: transforming a message of fear into hope,” she says on the “DVD to Art” Facebook group that she started.

Because of the protest, Naylor was fired on Sunday from her post as artist in residence at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, losing about a third of her income. She had held the position for 15 years.

Naylor is asking everyone who receives the DVD to give it to her for an art project. She plans to use the DVDs to build a large sculpture with a positive theme using fire or water as a symbol of the Holy Spirit.

Naylor got the idea for the project last week when she read the news about the pre-election mass mailing. The DVDs have a 14-minute video message urging Catholics to seek a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage. They were produced by the Knights of Columbus with mailing costs paid by a secret donor.

In news reports, Naylor said she was prompted to act by the experience of her friends who are mothers of gay children. They wrote to Nienstadt earlier this year begging him to soften his rhetoric against same-sex marriage. All they got in return was a form letter questioning their salvation.

Volunteers are helping Naylor collect the DVDs in front of churches and at drop boxes at supportive businesses.

“I have a button that says ‘art changes everything,’ Let’s use the Archbishop’s DVD to change the message from one of division and fear into a piece of art about inclusion and the joyful Spirit that moves among us,” Naylor says.

For more info, click these links to visit:

DVD to Art Facebook Group

DVD to Art Blog

Video news report

Don’t forget to check out her beautiful art at LucindaNaylor.com. Naylor has done hundreds of Christian images in a variety of media.

(Special thanks to Terence Weldon of the Queering the Church Blog for giving me the news tip about DVD to Art.)