Salvador Dalí was one of the most captivating and challenging artists of the 20th century. While many remember Dalí for his notorious reputation, he was also a deeply spiritual man and frequently used his singular Surrealist perspective to illustrate scenes taken straight from the Bible.
In 1951, Salvador Dalí embarked on a 14-year project to create original engravings illustrating Dante’s epic poem “The Divine Comedy.” Dalí’s attention to detail was meticulous—he created over 100 watercolor studies, worked tirelessly with the publisher, and even personally approved the more than 3,000 woodblocks used for the engravings. The final result was a series of 100 breathtaking engravings bringing the classic poem to life.
Stairway to Heaven explored the mesmerizing world of Dalí’s Divine Comedy engravings, where the surreal met the sacred, and the ordinary was transformed into the extraordinary.
Robin Willis is the MACC’s Healing Arts Coordinator. She also works as the Exhibition and Events Manager and Director of Outreach. Robin has a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Clemson University with a minor in Entrepreneurship. She is a multi-discipline artist with emphasis in writing, mixed media abstract painting, alternative process photography, collage, and book arts and binding. In addition to her art practices, she holds several healing modalities certificates, such as extensive kundalini yoga teacher training and education, Reiki master, systemic family constellation facilitator, and depth psychology-based therapy trainings. As an avid learner, she explores and encourages others in their exploration in art, psyche, and our relationship to the micro and macro worlds within and around us. Influenced by John Muir’s quote, When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe, she fuses art, healing, and organization throughout her work and personal life as a creative-scientist minded person.
Kaylin Warden serves as the MACC’s Creative Design and Operations Manager. In this post, she oversees the organization’s graphic design work for exhibitions, events and special projects. She also coordinates the MACC’s arts outreach activities and assists with bookkeeping, among other duties. Kaylin, above all, is passionate about the arts. It comes as no surprise, then, that she is now pursuing a master’s degree in art history. When she’s not at the MACC, you can find her reading her favorite books (especially ones dealing with maritime mysteries), cooking, gardening, playing with her cat and two dogs, and cheering for the Nashville Predators.