Exciting News from Vita Poetica!
Dear Vita Poetica friends,
After more than two years and an ongoing pandemic since our first gathering in early 2020, it is with much excitement and deep gratitude that we can say—Vita Poetica is now an officially recognized nonprofit organization!
If you’ve followed this journey from the beginning, you know what a ride it’s been. And if you’ve joined us more recently—welcome! Thank you for being here and for continuing to believe in our mission to connect and uphold artists of faith, enlivening spiritual conversations through the arts.
We’d like to take this opportunity to introduce our inaugural Board of Directors: Caroline Langston, John Morris, Keith Seat, Deborah Sokolove, Lisa Shirk, and Julie Wan. You may recognize some of these names, as we’ve had the pleasure of connecting with some of you through events and journal issues, and we hope there will be more opportunities to do so down the road. In the meantime, you can get to know a bit more about us here.
One of our first initiatives as a board is to invite your input on the needs and interests of this community. Whether you’re based in the Washington, DC, area or elsewhere, we’d love if you could take a moment to share your thoughts with us through this survey. As we’re a small team of volunteers with limited resources, your responses will help us determine how best to focus our energies. In appreciation of your time, each survey completed by Sept. 15 is eligible to enter a drawing for a gift from Vita Poetica.
We also welcome your involvement in every way. As an arts and faith collective, Vita Poetica exists at an intersection of intangibles. Creativity, contemplation, and community are not values that are frequently recognized or easily measured. But we are people who believe in the unseen and unknown, and who seek to make it lived in the world. Together, we affirm that our creative leanings are something more—more than a means toward enriching our lives, more even than a way to deepen our faith. Our creativity is not ornamentation added to the substance of our actual lives. It is life itself. It is who we are and who we were created to be.
Will you join us in this effort? Whether it’s spreading the word, helping with a program, sharing your skills, or making a financial donation, this community depends entirely on the participation of its self-chosen members. Vita Poetica was dreamed up and created by individuals, and it is still individuals—all of whom are independent artists—who keep it going and make it accessible. We especially welcome any financial support at this time as we seek to restart some of the programs we began in 2020, as well as to continue our work of publishing quality content through our quarterly journal and podcast. And now as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, we hope we are in a better position to invite your contributions.
Through all the starts and stops these past couple of years, we’ve been touched by the encouragement of so many already. We’re especially grateful for Seekers Church, which has supported us not only through several grants but also with incredible collaborators and participants. Special thanks to Keith Seat and Michele Frome, who have been instrumental in helping us form as a nonprofit. Thank you also to Becca Thongkham for her ongoing design work for us, and especially for her creation of our new logo. And we’re grateful for our wonderful journal editors Maggie Swofford, Emily Chambers Sharpe, Judy Ko, and former editor Lila Stiff, who join forces from various corners of the country every quarter to help put out our journal issues.
This project has always been an experiment in both creativity and faith. And as we forge onward, we trust that inspiration will continue to emerge from what is yet unknown, and from the One who shapes that journey, making art out of the messy stuff of our lives.
With our deep thanks,
The Vita Poetica Team
