From Rome with love
FRANKLIN — A taste of the Eternal City – and eternity itself – can be found in sacred art light shows created by Dawn and Dale McGiboney, owners of Highland Mediaworks.
Their first project was in Charlotte for the Diocese of Charlotte’s Year of St. Joseph in 2020. Images of the earthly father of Jesus as depicted in sacred art were projected in a spectacular, larger-than-life light show on the Diocesan Pastoral Center for a week in early January – just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
The show sparked wonder, awe and curiosity about Catholicism from passersby.
“Many people will never make it to Vatican City, and so for Charlotte to see what Catholics have been doing for 2,000 years in the midst of hardship and to respond so well, it was miraculous in my opinion,” said Dawn McGiboney. “The neighbors of the Pastoral Center would walk by with their dogs, and we’d come and talk about Catholicism. I just felt that it was a ministry at that point. People would walk down every night and say, ‘I love this. Thank you.’”
Lights, projectors, action!
Highland Mediaworks added three Catholic churches to its portfolio in 2022. Converts to the Catholic faith from the Baptist Church, the McGiboneys produced light shows for St. Patrick Cathedral in Charlotte, St. Mark Church in Huntersville and St. Francis of Assisi Church in Franklin, their home parish. They have a host of secular clients as well, including those in the furniture, hotel, golf and entertainment industries. Every project is different, they said, and brings new challenges. Yet, it’s a labor of love.
“We’re always looking to do something different because that’s the nature of business,” McGiboney said. “You always want to continue to grow and do cutting-edge stuff, so we started with projection, and it was very hard.”
The McGiboneys began with an indoor installation for The Bascom: A Center for Visual Arts in Highlands and then experimented with different media, including cars, planes and even wedding cakes. Almost any target will work, McGiboney said, even a waterfall. They worked for four months to get permission from the U.S. Forest Service to project onto Dry Falls in Highlands, where visitors can view the falls and walk behind them.
“It’s the most beautiful, most perfect water there,” McGiboney said. “We took our projectors down there and used generators for electricity.”
Finding healing in sacred art
Soon the couple met Monsignor Patrick Winslow, the newly appointed vicar general of the diocese, and his interest led to their start in sacred art.
“We really want it to be intentional. We would like for people to enjoy it, but also for there be a healing element,” McGiboney said. “Jesus is light, so you can see it was an attractive thing for us as Christians.”
First came the Pastoral Center project in 2020.
“We met Father John Putnam, the pastor of St. Mark Church, when we were at the Pastoral Center for the light show, and he said, ‘Holy images are miraculous, but when they’re that big they’re even more miraculous.’ As converts we were intrigued with this whole new way of looking at Christianity. All the answers that Catholicism contains were missing (to us) as Protestants. When we heard that kind of response, it was really a powerful time for us.”
In 2022, St. Patrick Cathedral in Charlotte hired Highland Mediaworks to project images of its stained-glass windows onto the exterior of the cathedral from March 14 to 19, in conjunction with its patronal feast day. The windows needed repairs, and the light show not only highlighted the need to raise funds but also served as a method of outreach.
“It was truly exceptional to have the community members feel like they’re inside the church when they were outside. It really drew them in. I stood there and handed out brochures the church had given me describing the windows, but I also invited them to come to church,” McGiboney said.
The project at St. Mark Church in Huntersville was different in that it was for an annual parish festival held in September. “The challenge was to find the balance between sacred time and then the fun stuff with the media,” McGiboney explained. “We projected images of the stained-glass inside onto the bell tower.”
In October, the McGiboneys projected images of their parish patron onto St. Francis of Assisi Church in Franklin to help raise money for the local food pantry.
“It was just such a powerful thing for our congregation to see the way he (St. Francis) looked and to put him on our building. All the different parishioners loved it. It felt like he was right there with us, encouraging us to be the best we could be as parishioners,” McGiboney said. “The silent auction that evening raised more money than I expected.”
The McGiboneys have found that the projected shows shed a light on the Church in a way that resonates.
“They really show what Catholics have done very, very well, which is take care of the history of Jesus Christ and all the artists who put these masterpieces together,” McGiboney said. “All of that can be attributed to the Catholic Church. When we first started working in sacred art, it was a great moment for us. We felt on top of the world.”
— Annie Ferguson