What's Happening

June 2, 2019, Adrian, Michigan – A recent article in The Daily Telegram, newspaper of Adrian, Michigan, recounts the story of Sister Barbara Cervenka, OP, and her commitment to creating 1,000 paintings of origami cranes. Drawing from the Japanese tradition of folding 1,000 cranes for peace or health, Sister Barbara took on the task of painting the cranes to raise funds for the ministry of the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena in Iraq to thousands of Christians and other minorities who were in refugee camps in northern Iraq. They had been driven out of their homes on the Nineveh Plains in Iraq by ISIS. Read the full article by News Editor David Panian.

May 31, 2019, Milwaukee, Wisconsin – The artwork of two Adrian Dominican Sisters will be on exhibit at the Alfons Gallery in Milwaukee Sunday, June 16, 2019, through Wednesday, July 28, 2019. 

Sister Suzanne Schreiber’s photography exhibit, “Quiet Spaces,” will be exhibited in the gallery with a reception from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Sunday, June 16. A display of 160 of 1,000 small paintings of origami cranes by Sister Barbara Cervenka, OP, will be on exhibit during the same dates at St. Joseph Hall, adjacent to the art gallery.

In “Quiet Spaces,” Sister Suzanne’s tinted black and white photographs invite viewers to see beyond the surface of the ordinary. She will speak about her photography at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, June 16, 2019, during the artist’s reception.

A musician and writer as well as a photographer, Sister Suzanne is the Coordinator of INAI: A Space Apart, an art gallery, quiet space for contemplation, and reading room adjacent to Weber Retreat and Conference Center on the Motherhouse Campus of the Adrian Dominican Sisters. 

Sister Barbara, an art professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan, drew inspiration for her 1,000 Cranes for Iraq project from the famous story of Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl exposed to radiation from the bombing of Hiroshima who sought to fold 1,000 paper cranes to bring about her wish to be healed from leukemia.

Sister Barbara created 1,000 paintings of origami cranes and continues to invite people to adopt one of the cranes in exchange for a donation of $100 to help the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena in Iraq for their ministry. The Sisters and hundreds of thousands of Christians and other minorities were expelled from their homes on the Nineveh Plains on August 6, 2014, with the arrival of ISIS. For years, the Sisters ministered to those who lived with them in internal displacement in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. Many have since returned home, to find their homes and churches devastated. Visitors to the exhibit will have the opportunity to adopt one of the cranes for a donation to help the Sisters in their ministry.

Alfons Gallery, located at St. Joseph Center, 1501 S. Layton Blvd. in Milwaukee, is a ministry of the School Sisters of St. Francis of Milwaukee. The gallery is open from noon to 3:00 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday.