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Spirit of Ministry: Affiliate Violeta Abitia travels parallel
paths of spirituality and artistry
The Spirit of Ministry feature celebrates the Ministry Renewal Program aimed
at refreshing affiliates in their current ministry or stretching them to embark
on new ministries. As a part of this series, Perspectives highlights
covenant affiliates and their ministries. This is the fourth story in the series.
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Local artist and FSPA affiliate Violeta Abitia has always felt connected to
nature, and throughout her life her relationship with Franciscan-related values
has grown. But one particular day when walking into the La Crosse Myrick Park
marsh, she had an epiphany which fused Franciscan spirituality and art in her
mind. “It was a day when the wind blew around from all directions, its
powerful invisible force, the Ruah of God, was reshaping forms around, sculpting
ripples on the surface of the water, teasing the crowns of trees, ruffling the
grasses, exposing the hidden,” she explains. “It was a holy moment
where I thought, ‘this is the hand of God.’”
She had her camera with her, and captured the moments on film. In that instant
her art series, entitled Genesis and the Marsh, was born. It was the first time
she had consciously linked spirituality and art, but the two would continue
to connect, time and time again, in her future.
A classically-trained artist, Violeta spent a year in Barcelona, Spain, and
six years in Vienna, Austria, studying master techniques from the age of 19.
But when she got married, her career as an artist faded into the background,
and she didn’t finish her studies. She moved to Canada where she lived
with her husband and raised her two children, then eventually found her way
to La Crosse.
Once here, she and her husband separated, and eventually divorced. Violeta decided
to refocus on her career. She had begun taking courses at the University of
Wisconsin-La Crosse and eventually moved her studies permanently to Viterbo
University, trying to finish her degree in art education. Again, she became
sidetracked due to health problems and an unexpected turn in a career path.
She had begun moving into interpreting for Spanish-speaking patients at Franciscan
Skemp Healthcare in La Crosse and the surrounding areas. The move allowed her
to provide for her family and offer a much needed service to the growing Hispanic
community in the area. “I started moving away from art, and moved into
the art of interpreting.” Violeta explains. She became adjunct staff teaching
Spanish and Latin American Studies at Viterbo University, where she was given
the opportunity to embolden many students with her passion for the Spanish language
and arts. “I started looking at the possibility of making that my career,
I became very proficient at it, but there was this void.”
In the spring of 2005 she launched the Genesis and the Marsh series, which was
displayed in the Franciscan Spirituality Center at a public art show and lecture.
Every piece of the series sold to a private collector, save one, which Violeta
kept for herself. It was Genesis 1. “I kept number one because that was
where the light was separated from the dark. And that became very symbolic to
me that whatever cloud was within me for many years that wouldn’t allow
me to faithfully walk into that place where one creates, was partly lifted.
And I knew that I have no option but to be an artist.”
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Meantime her relationship with the FSPA continued to grow outside of her job
at the sponsored institution. She says Sister Laurian Pieterek had become very
special to her, and would often pose challenging questions to Violeta, questions
she sometimes didn’t wish to answer. One day, Sister Laurian asked Violeta,
“But aren’t you an artist, and isn’t that how you should be interpreting?”
At the time, Violeta was incensed, but eventually Sister Laurian’s message
took hold, and about a year ago Violeta withdrew from her position as a medical
interpreter to refocus her energies on her art and spirituality. She had spent
eight years moving away.
Already a prayer partner, in 2006 Violeta strengthened her ties to the FSPA
and became an affiliate. She continued her studies and obtained her license
in art education at Viterbo University in February of this year. “It was
under the guidance of Professor Lisa Schoenfielder and other exceptional individuals
that I came to recognize my strengths in art and teaching.”
On a chilly winter’s day, Violeta strapped on a pair of cross-country skis,
put on a backpack and headed over the frozen waters of Trout Lake at Marywood
Spirituality Center in Arbor Vitae, Wis. To any bystander, it might appear that
she was setting out to take in the natural beauty of the area, maybe to get
some exercise. In fact, her journey across the lake to an island on the other
side was much more. “I believe true forgiveness is one of the hardest transformations
one ever goes through,” says Violeta. “But when you come to a place
in your life when you ask yourself, why am I holding on to this? Why am I bringing
a bad memory that causes resentment that doesn’t enrich, doesn’t even
harm the other person if that would be the purpose. It’s completely void
of any enriching or enlightening energy for the one that committed the offense
or for the one who was offended. Really it’s just bad energy.”
Once at the island across the lake, she would deposit the stones of resentment
and anger which she had carried for so long, remnants of her painful divorce.
The ritual would free her up to fully embrace the rest of her journey, which
would take her again to the crossroads where spirituality and artistry connect.
“Letting go means really letting go,” explains Violeta, “which
means that there is not even that kind of communication where I’m going
to have a mean thought about something. That’s when I realized that we
hold on to these things because we think of these hurts as our precious possessions,
because it allows us to remain victims.
“I put these things that I had drawn and pasted with collage and I put
them all into a bag and I skied across Trout Lake with my rocks, with all my
resentment on my back. It was so heavy.”
Like any journey, she encountered challenges on her trip toward healing. She
forgot to ask whether the lake was frozen all the way across, which resulted
in some terrifying moments on the ice. “I said to myself and I said to
God, ‘Look, you didn’t bring me all this way here to make me drop
through the crude, cold water to disappear. I am working on forgiveness. And
you said one can walk on water, so if one can walk, I can ski,’” Violeta
remembers. She made it safely across the water and back again, with a considerably
lighter load.
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In the summer of 2005 Violeta was commissioned to create a piece commemorating
the 20th anniversary of the Franciscan Spirituality Center. Though it wasn’t
her first foray into work that tied art and spirituality together, the experience
was significant to her, another sometimes challenging journey. “Some days
I remember waking up and thinking, ‘Oh, no. I have to go there again, to
face this blessing, this demon.’ It’s like somebody trying to find
the steps to a dance or the writer trying to find the words for a novel. How
do I want to say this, and how does it need to be said for it to be understood
by each individual, not with my own vision, but with the true spirit in art?
“Once I took more care to pay attention as to what the print needed, then
images began to emerge that I did not know needed to be there. It was a real
prayer.”
From student to teacher, from medical interpreter to artist, Violeta’s
journey has at once been fragmented and purposeful, winding and cyclical. Yet
throughout the Franciscan influence was a constant guiding presence, which the
FSPA continue for Violeta today. “I am truly grateful for the sisters’
blessing because that has been a truly enriching lifeline for me. I have been
emboldened and ignited, prayed for and cared for in many, many ways within this
circle.”
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