Haywood Street Fresco

Religious Arts Award

Haywood Street Congregation

Asheville, North Carolina

Affirming sacred worth, restoring human dignity, and sabotaging the shame of poverty, the Haywood Street Fresco announces, in plaster and pigment, that you matter. Many of the world’s great art masterpieces were inspired by religious themes and faith stories. But too often, religious art was made over in the image of those in power who were paying for the work. God was rendered European and male. Jesus was more prince than peasant. Salvation meant being upper class.

The mission and ministry of Haywood Street Congregation, located in downtown Asheville, North Carolina, aims to shed light instead on the God who abandoned heaven to take up residence as a homeless man on earth, who loitered on dirty street corners, who broke bread with outcasts and touched the untouchable. He most loved what—and who—the world had discarded.

The Haywood Street Fresco portrays Jesus’s most enduring sermon, the Beatitudes, where he begins, “Blessed are the poor.” Adorning the wall of the church sanctuary, the beautiful 9.5-by-27-foot fresco inspires congregants and visitors from all over the world, and reflects Haywood Street’s mission: relationship, above all else.

Jury Comments

The congregation is among ‘the least of these,’ which is this community’s ministry. The art tells the story of this place and the people who they serve.

Project Team Members

Christopher Holt / Principal Artist
Caleb Clark
Anselme Long
John Dempsey
Jill Hooper

Project Consultants

Rev. Brian Combs, Founding Pastor, Haywood Street Congregation
Christopher Zaluski, filmmaker, Theirs Is the Kingdom
John Warner Photography
Charles Burns, Haywood Street Congregant (in memoriam)
Pam Siekman, Chairperson, Fresco Steering Committee

Photo Credit / John Warner Photography