Open Gates: Photo Prayers by Danny Schweers on Exhibit in Arden, Delaware, March, 2020

Photographs and Text by Danny Schweers in Wilmington, Delaware.

Scroll down to see images from the show.

This exhibit opened on March 6, 2020, at the Buzz Ware Village Center in the Village of Arden, Delaware. Three days later the building was shuttered due to the COVID-19 — ironic for an exhibit called “Open Gates.”

On Saturday, September 5, 2020, as part of the Arden Artisan Trail, the exhibit was open for a day! At most, four people were in Room 3 of The Buzz at any one time, wearing masks and socially distancing. Outside, I had a table set up with greeting cards and photographic prints. Some 50 people came by over five hours, a pleasant pace. I sold lots of greeting cards!

In November, 2020, I heard that Westminster Presbyterian Church in Wilmington was having services again, so I offered to move the exhibit to their entrance hallway, a lovely exhibit space with lots of natural light. That exhibit continued through January, 2021.

Many of these 18×18-inch framed images with engraved text are for sale. Click here to contact me.

Art At Vote Counting — Danny Schweers had an Art Loop reception for his solo photography exhibit “Open Gates” on March 6, 2020, at the Buzz Ware Village Center in Arden, Delaware. It was well attended! It was also the first time he experienced social distancing, from perhaps 20% of those attending, people already alarmed by the spread of the coronavirus. By Monday, March 23, when this photo of his exhibit was taken, the COVID-19 pandemic had forced Governor Carney to issue an emergency health declaration and several ever-stricter amendments including one limiting gatherings to ten people. On the night of this photo, the Village of Arden held its town meeting at The Buzz but most attended by phone. Eighty-eight people voted, including 47 in person. They came in one at a time or in married pairs, keeping well away from others, using their own pens to mark their ballots. Danny was one of the vote counters. In this photo, we see the other nine people who were counting votes that night, with his exhibit in the background. Four couples sat at four tables ten feet apart to count the votes. Couples were chosen thinking that, if they were infectious, they had already infected each other. Eight months later, we all remain healthy!

Every week — well, most weeks — I write a deeply philosophical prayer, pair it with one of my stunning photographs, and email the resulting Photo Prayer to my hundreds of adoring fans. Click here to learn more.

A few of the 643 Photo Prayers that I have created since 2007 are on exhibit in Room 3 of the Buzz Ware Village Center, 2119 The Highway, Arden, DE 19810.

“OPEN GATES” represents what I consider the best of my recent Photo Prayers. The images people see in the emails I send out are only 700 pixels wide, as you can see on my PhotoPrayer.com website. In this exhibit of prints, the images are 4,050 pixels wide; they are inked, not pixelated; archival, not transient.

The presentation format for this exhibit at The Buzz is something new for me: the text is engraved into black-core mat board using a laser-etching device at NextFab Makers Space. This gives the words the same three-dimensional quality you find on letters chiseled into stone.

I began this Photo Prayer project in 2007 while working at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Wilmington. I am delighted that Westminster continues to email my prayers to its congregation once a month, and I am fascinated each month to see which of my recent efforts they pick.

These prayers are often philosophical. I studied philosophy for four years, completing the course work for a Ph.D. before deciding the world would be better off with me practicing philosophy rather than teaching it. I’m not saying the world is a lot better off!

Religion? I think of myself as a liberal evangelical Christian. I have been a member of the Episcopal Church since I was baptized in the Pedernales River in Texas in 1973. I currently attend Saints Andrew and Matthew in downtown Wilmington and serve on its vestry. It is an amazingly diverse church racially, and is special in many other ways. While I believe these prayers adhere to some kind of Christian orthodoxy, I am grateful so many people of other faiths, or no faith at all, find my prayers pleasing and, at times, inspiring.

I have been making photographs since 1969. I am currently on the board of the Chris White Gallery, and am a photography instructor at the Delaware Art Museum and Mt. Cuba Center. I am a member of the Brandywine Photo Collective (former chair), the Texas Photographic Society (past president), and the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center. I have worked most of my life in publishing, including years on the staff of an underground newspaper in Austin, Texas — The Rag — and other publications; years as the owner of a Schweers Typesetting; and six months as managing editor of Image: A Journal of Art and Religion.

These framed photographs with engraved text are priced at $167 each, with 10% of the proceeds going to The Buzz. The vivid prints were made by Eric Russell at Colourworks in Wilmington.

GALLERY OF IMAGES

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