From the Executive Director:

I have been thinking lately about what it means to live in time.

Not just to manage time, schedule time, save time, or run out of time—though I do plenty of all four. I mean something more like what philosopher James K. A. Smith explores in his book How to Inhabit Time. 

That phrase, inhabit time, has stayed with me. It feels different than scheduling, saving, or mastering time. Gentler. Slower. More honest. More like artmaking. More like community work. More like faith.

Inhabiting time is something like the pervasive cliché of “being present”, but Smith draws from the ancient and more complex well of St. Augustine’s strange and beautiful observation that the past and future do not quite exist in the way we often imagine. There is really only the present: the present of things past, held in memory; the present of things present, held in attention; and the present of things future, held in expectation.

At Intersect, we spend much of our life together in unfinished time. A student is learning a skill they cannot yet control. An artist is waiting for an idea to clarify. A garden bed is resting under winter soil—or tangled in summer “weeds.” A grant application is submitted, then held in the long quiet of waiting. A neighborhood changes slowly, unevenly, asking us to hold its histories in present memory and its futures presently, with careful imagination.  A neighborhood that is now, yearning for our attention. 

I’ve been reviewing our past exhibitions and I was captured by the work of Brittany R. Gilbert, whose paintings were included in our exhibition Field Guide a few years ago. Gilbert’s practice is rooted in returning to the same place again and again, painting what changes in a landscape as time passes over them. Standing in one place, she watches light shift, weather move, colors alter, forms appear and disappear. She does not try to capture everything. The succession of “nows” passes quickly. She pays attention to what can be received and rendered in that span of a moment, light creating the brackets around how long a moment might last. The resulting series of paintings becomes a chronological story: not a single, final view of a place, but a record of sustained encounter.

That feels like a kindred way to think about Intersect’s life in this neighborhood.

Our campus is not a blank slate. It is not an empty lot awaiting our best idea. It is a place already thick with passing time. Before our plans, before our programs, before our grant applications and garden beds, there was soil, trees, people, brick, migration, flight, repair, worship, more people, beauty, grief, play, and the everyday force of people inhabiting now.

To care for a place and a people faithfully, we have to learn to see it in time.  We have to look not once, but again and again, with sustained encounter. We have to notice what has been overlooked. We have to ask what has been harmed. We have to receive what is already alive. We have to imagine what might yet grow. We have to do all of this in the present we have been given. 

I am deeply grateful to share that Intersect Arts Center has been awarded a $90,000 Neighborhood Transformation Grant through the City of St. Louis Community Development Administration to begin phase one of our community park project.

This is not the whole future arriving at once. It is another moment in our sustained encounter with this place and people. 

Phase One will help us start the work of transforming our wild outdoor space, including an ADA accessible patio, protection and seating around our beloved linden tree, site fencing, lighting, pollinator bed renovation, brush removal, and artist-designed elements. 

We are calling this first phase “Gather,” and that word feels right as we seek to make this present more inhabitable. Before a park can become a place of play, contemplation, imagination, or rest, it must first become a place where people can gather safely. Where children can linger. Where artists can shape. Where neighbors can sit in the cooling shade. Where a bee can bury its face in the pollen of a blushing monarda. Where a song sparrow can worry not about tomorrow. 

This work will take time. It should.

Fast inhabiting is not always faithful inhabiting. We do not need every strategic plan, master vision, or overhaul in place before we begin practicing care. We need to stop believing that faithfulness only counts when it is impressive, measurable, or complete. 

Faithfulness can look like clearing brush. It can look like protecting the roots of an old tree. Some now to come it might look like a patio that holds music, meals, dancing, prayer, sidewalk chalk, wobbling cafe chairs, and conversations that are unable to be anything else but present. 

Sometimes it looks like believing that a neglected place can become a beloved place—not by grading or weeding its history, but by responding daily, with inclusive generosity. 

Perhaps this is what Augustine, Jamie Smith, and Brittany Gilbert are helping me understand: we do not receive a place, a future, all at once. We need the humility of standing again and again within the brackets of passing moments, until we have a record of sustained encounter with each other here. 

There will be more to share in a now not so far away: plans, timelines, ways to give and gather, and invitations into this work. 

For now, we hold the present of things past in memory: our own thirteen years in this little corner of the world, the institutional memory of those who laid these bricks a century ago, and the much much older memory held in the layers of rock and soil beneath us.

We hold the present of things present in attention: the daily weeding, watering, cleaning, tending, scheduling, imagining, rendering and toiling.

And we hold the present of things future in expectation: the hope that you will join us, gathering in this space that is lush and flourishing. 

For now, there is this present.

This grant. This old tree. This unruly patch of ground. This memory. This hope. This place we are learning, slowly and together, to inhabit.

For now,

Sarah Bernhardt
Executive Director
Intersect Arts Center

Art at Home is a new Intersect initiative that brings original art out of the gallery into the rhythms of everyday life.

Intersect is developing a permanent collection of artworks that will be available for one-year loans to people’s homes. Each household that hosts an artwork will also be invited to host a dinner for 8–12 guests, with a chef provided by Intersect. Gatherings might include familiar friends, new acquaintances, artists, or curators, along with guided questions that invite conversation about the beautiful and complex connections between art, current events, everyday life, philosophy, faith, and hope.

A neurological study commissioned by the Mauritshuis found that viewing original paintings in the museum produced a positive emotional response approximately ten times stronger than viewing poster reproductions. The research offers a compelling reminder that encountering an original artwork in person can engage our attention and interior lives in ways that reproductions cannot fully replicate. 

In the book Your Brain on Art, Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross place this kind of finding within the emerging field of neuroarts. They synthesize research showing that art and aesthetic experiences engage complex networks throughout the brain and body. Novel, beautiful, and even challenging artistic experiences can stimulate neuroplasticity—the brain’s capacity to change and adapt—encouraging the development of new neural pathways and supporting cognitive flexibility, creativity, memory, emotional resilience, and social connection. 

Artists give us new ways into meaningful conversations. Through Art at Home, we hope to make living with original art more accessible, create new forms of connection around the table, and develop alternative ways to support the livelihoods of working artists.

Interested in hosting an artwork, donating or selling work to the collection, supporting an acquisition, or attending an Art at Home dinner? Contact Assistant Curator Megan Kenyon at mkenyon@intersectstl.org.

Let’s look, live, and gather! 

In the Gallery:

Wash-U IVC Recap:

This past spring, we once again hosted the Washington University Masters of Fine Arts in Illustration and Visual Culture thesis show in our gallery! Thank you to all who came for a wonderful turn out out and for witnessing the incredible work created by the class of 2026. You can learn more about the graduates and there projects here.

Dream Street Exhibit

At the end of May we launched our summer show! Dream Street is a collaborative installation created by our Artventures staff and students. They spent the year reading and reflecting on Tricia Elam Walker’s book Dream Street, and imagining ways to describe and invite viewers into their neighborhood. We kicked off the show with a Dovetail event, showcasing the students' work and enjoying performances by the poetry, dance, and theater classes. Many thanks to our Artventures staff this year for all their hard work and creativity to make the show happen! Also special thanks to The Black Rep for leading our theater class this past year, and Pacia Anderson for mentoring the poetry students! 

Dream Street is up now through August 22, 2026. Our regular gallery hours are Monday - Friday 11am-5pm.

Cabinets of Curiosity

Cabinets of Curiosity: Dream Street

Our current Cabinets of Curiosity exhibition features work by ceramics students in the Artventures program, and community members of our neighborhood, Gravois Park, who participated in a local call for art to share favorite places in the neighborhood. Be sure to check out the work in the cabinets when you next stop by Intersect!

Call for Art - Cabinets of Curiosity 

Speaking of the Cabinets of Curiosity, we have a call for art out for our fall exhibition: Never Gonna Give You Up:

Even if you’re not sentimental about objects, chances are you have something in your home that you don’t use or display, but also can’t get rid of: the tiny, faded newborn hat that came home with you from the hospital, the rubber dinosaurs you loved and knew all the names of in 2nd grade, the middle school sports trophies you’re still a little proud of, or the cross stitch with your name on it that your grandma spent many hours making for your high school graduation.

This exhibition in miniature is a celebration of that which is, perhaps, functionally useless, but somehow precious. We may have a variety of feelings about the things we’ve saved: tenderness, frustration, guilt, gratitude, obligation, but probably not apathy. So, for once in their long material lives, let’s bring them out of the boxes and into the light. Chances are you have something like that. Chances are, it has a story to tell. 

Objects will be displayed in a set of historic cabinets. Any 2-D, 3-D, time-based, or digital work will be considered. 

Click here to learn more and apply to the call!

In the Artrooms:

From our Education Director, Aida Hasanovic:

As I reflect on this year's showcase, Dream Street feels like a powerful reminder of what can happen when young people are given the time, space, and support to explore their own experiences through art. Inspired by the book Dream Street by Tricia Elam Walker and Ekua Holmes, students spent the year considering the neighborhoods that shape them, the streets they walk, the people they encounter, the places they remember, and the worlds they imagine. 

Through collage, painting, ceramics, installation, dance, and performance, we transformed those reflections into an immersive exhibition that was both deeply personal and imagined collaboratively. Seeing families, neighbors, and community members move under the Dream Arch, through the Bedroom Fort, explore the Garden Room, and witness students sharing their stories was a beautiful culmination of this year. More than an art show, Dream Street became an invitation to glimpse St. Louis through the eyes of young people and to recognize the possibilities they bring to the places they call home. I am incredibly proud of our students, teaching artists, and staff for the work they created together, and grateful to everyone who joined us in celebrating it.

In the Studios:

A long time collaborator and studio artist here at Intersect, Aloha Mischeaux, recently participated in NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Contest, which St Louis Public Radio reviewed. You can see the concert Aloha filmed in her studio with her band and listen to the review by STLPR, and be sure to give her a follow on social media as her new album drops later this summer

Two of our studio artists, Sarah Knight and Austin Toledo Roberts, have work in GCADD’s summer show! Located just across the river in Granite City, they have open hours on Saturdays when you can check out the shows!

Happening later this summer, two of our studio artists, Jamie Harris and Sebastian Llovera, will have work featured in St. Louis’ public art triennial, Counter Public. Be sure to check out the Counter Public website for events and locations of the works.

Follow Studio member, sound artist, and chef Alex Braden’s Nothing Sacred Kitchen on Instagram for pop-events all summer long!

Staff Changes at Intersect

Its been a summer of change here at Intersect! We’ve created two new roles, hired new staff, and celebrate with staff on sabbatical for the summer!

Megan Kenyon, our Administrative Assistant for the last 4 years, is shifting into a new role as an Assistant Curator. She’ll be working with exhibitions and planning for Intersect and our sister gallery Mezzo, as well as helping Holy Cross Lutheran Church develop an artist in residence program for next summer. If you are interested in connecting with her, you can email her at mkenyon@intersectstl.org.

Stepping into a new role as Program Coordinator is Jada Dorsey. Jada interned at Intersect in the summer of 2023 as part of the Gyo Obata internship, and we are so pleased to have her back working with us again! Jada is a recent grad from Washington University, a fantasy fiction author, and (with her family) a two time contestant on Family Feud!

Our office hours are changing with the staff transition; We are now open Monday - Friday, 10am - 6pm.

In The Gardens

Intersect is very excited to announce our new gardener, Marc Finley! Marc will be working in all the various outdoor spaces on both the Holy Cross campus and Intersect property, and we are so excited to watch these spaces continue to grow under Marc’s stewardship.

Hello! 

I’m Marc the new Horticulturist at Intersect. I’m excited to be here and am ready to be part of the next chapter at the Art Center. I bring a couple decades of immersion in the Plantscaping & Design worlds and I love to chat about both. My other interests and “spare” time are spent restoring historic homes, yards, furniture, and vintage Volkswagens. I hope to see you soon in the Galleries & Gardens!

From the Board

 Jim has led with care, hospitality, generosity, and a deep commitment to the health of both people and place. His leadership has helped shape a culture where work-life balance is not treated as a luxury, but practiced through family leave, sabbatical, generous PTO, flexibility, and creative autonomy. Jim supported a vision of what can happen when we treat people and places not like channels through which resources run, but like reservoirs to be filled—trusting that what overflows from a well-tended life can bless a whole community. Over seven years, we have seen proof of that overflow and its blessings. 

Jim is one of the most productive people we know, yet he has consistently reminded us that productivity is not the only measure of a thriving organization. He has championed experimentation that converses with deep tradition, and he has helped us imagine how the arts can expand our world, deepen our relationships, and open us to one another across differences.

While Jim is stepping out of the president’s seat, he will continue to serve on our board as a member-at-large. He also continues his broader professional and personal mission of facilitating collaboration among institutions and individuals across the country.

Jim, we are deeply grateful for the love you have poured into Intersect that continues to flow out in blessing.

Intersect is pleased to welcome a new Board President, Erika Petsch!  Look forward to hearing more from Erika in our next newsletter!

In Collaboration with Holy Cross

Coming up in September, Holy Cross launches it’s 2026/2027 Feast Service Season. This year, each service focuses on some aspect of the Nicene Creed, starting with Visbile/Invisible. Join for church Sunday morning on Sept 13th, with lunch following at Intersect!

Feast Service Schedule: 

September 13th 10:30 |  October 25th 10:30 | November 1st 10:30  |  December 24th 6:00  |  February 7th 10:30 | February 10th 6:00  |  March 25th 6:00  |  March 26th 6:00 | March 28th 10:30  |  April 25th 10:30  |  June 6th 4:00

You can learn more about this service at holycrossstl.org/feast

Mezzo’s summer show, Metaphor and Mystery, features works by Grace Carol Bomer. Using encaustic and other painting methods, Bomer creates colorful, layered, abstracted works that find unique ways to invite viewers to behold mysteries and inhabit stories. Metaphor and Mystery is open by appointment. Appointments can be made by emailing Megan at hclcstl@gmail.com.