Chelsea Fraser - Prospering the City Through the Arts
The Eddy Network Podcast Episode 227
When we think of the fine arts and the world of religion, many think that the arts must have a religious subject matter. It is that which makes religious art.
A sharper eye to what artists create shows that the context is what Christianity would call the creation of God, meaning people and the world as a whole. This is where the arts, science, and religion each bring a perspective that is worth discovering.
Chelsea Fraser is a poet and the director of a Fine Arts program at First Presbyerian Church, in downtown in Greenville, SC. I met her at a poetry reading and discovered a person who is multi-talented with a wide range of experience.
I met Chelsea at a poetry reading in Charlotte earlier this year. In our conversation, she reads one of her poems. The text appears below the video.
Large
5 feet 9 inches.
Size large.
Resonant vocalizing
Large, too.
Thoughts myriad
and often
Large.
Capacity?
Large.
But if you need less
then I will shrink
and fade
like a shadow,
Large,
but without substance—
falling behind.
And in that flattening,
I recognize wrong.
My dimensions were established
when there were none.
My vapor life
creating atmosphere for more.
All of a mountain
lends its Large to homes,
to perspective,
to beauties hulking invisible
until you embrace their climb.
My largeness is needed.
Can I un-shrink
the way a shadow might?
Embodied substance
standing into itself
Large.
Chelsea Fraser
https://www.firstpresgreenville.org/fine-arts
https://www.chelseafraserwrites.com/
https://www.chelseafraserwrites.com/
Chelsea’s debut poetry collection, The Mother Tree, will be available for purchase everywhere on April 25, 2025.
-Deidre Bradley, writer, editor, speaker, author of The Shapes I Take