Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. It's the fall season, which means new art shows are at the museums and galleries. We'll start with a show at the Bronx Museum by a woman who refers to herself as a testimonial artist. Her name is Reverend Joyce McDonald. Born in Brooklyn, New York, her life has been full of loss, healing, and transformation, and is the inspiration for her sculpture. Almost 30 years sober, she has been living with HIV. She's been working for four decades.

Now, for the first time, there is a museum exhibition dedicated to her work. It's called Ministry. The show assembles more than 75 artworks and photos between the years of 1999 and 2002. Ministry is on display at the Bronx Museum of Art starting tomorrow, Friday, September 5th. Joining me in studio is artist Reverend Joyce McDonnell. It is so nice to meet you.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: Thank you for having me. This here is beautiful, here.

Alison Stewart: May I call you Joyce?

Reverend Joyce McDonald: Oh, sure. Okay.

Alison Stewart: Joyce.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: Yes.

Alison Stewart: What conversations did the Bronx Museum have with you about having an exhibition for your show?

Reverend Joyce McDonald: Well, it was basically four years ago because I'm a longtime member of Visual Aids, that's the agency for artists that's HIV positive. Kyle has spoken about that he saw a vision of me having an art show in the Bronx.

Alison Stewart: Oh, wow.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: Myself, art is so up close and personal. That was too big for me to even think about, and here it is. I was just thinking last night, and here it is. That time has come, and so many things has happened between the time that he said this, and it's really here.

Alison Stewart: Religion is a big part of your life.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: Yes.

Alison Stewart: The show is called Ministry. How did religion come to your life?

Reverend Joyce McDonald: Religion? Well, my family were born-again Christians, and I was raised up in a Christian home, unconditional love. They used to call us the Black Brady Bunch. My dad took us on trips. He enlightened us. He used to take us around to museums and things like that. A couple of things happened in my teenage years, and I kind of strayed away. It was so slow, but I strayed away.

Before that, I believed in God because my parents believed in God, and I saw how they were, but not because I necessarily believed. When I did come to a point, after 25 years, through-

Alison Stewart: All kind of stuff.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: -all kinds of stuff, shebuilding, straitjackets, kidnapped. Everything is all through my work. I was standing on the street one day in my neighborhood and I heard a voice, because I used to always hear voices. It would say, "Jump in front of the train," negative thing. This voice said, "Go to church." I remember laughing, saying, I haven't been to church 30 years except for some of the people-- there's so many people that died from AIDS and drug addiction-- only funerals.

I went to proceed upstairs. My mom was in church, my two daughters, my sister. As an intravenous drug user, and I remember shooting these, I will say it was my last drugs, basically. Then the next thing I remember, because I always had these- seemed like out of body experiences. Next thing, I blinked my eyes, I was at the church for real. I'm like. I walk up the steps and the pastor, who is still my- he's my pastor today, he said, "We've been praying for you a long time."

I remember walking up, I didn't see anyone in church, nobody. I remember that day, he said, "You want to change your life? Come as you are. Give your heart to God." I did the prayer of imitation; asked Christ to come in my heart and forgive me. It's like my whole life changed. It didn't change that exact moment, but I felt God implanted in me.

From then on, by that time, my daughters were like 14, 15. I had been to 60 detoxes. I was always trying for something, but I didn't know what it was. I could never find what it was, but that day when I asked God the Lord to come in my heart, it really, really changed me.

Alison Stewart: Is that the point when your creative expression came forth?

Reverend Joyce McDonald: Matter of fact, what happened was I had been going to the detoxes. My sister, I was just speaking to her this morning, she brought me an art pad and a scripture key book. I couldn't sleep. That, I remember. I couldn't sleep. When I couldn't sleep, I would just read the scripture key book, whatever I was reading, and I would sketch a picture. I did like 13 or 14 pictures. I still have the book right now.

Then when I looked at it, they were the things, the deepest, darkest secrets of my life in sketch form with a pencil. That's what began to unlock. It wasn't so much of the art through storytelling. It was a lot of things I had never told anyone.

Alison Stewart: When did you get involved with sculpture?

Reverend Joyce McDonald: I got involved with sculptures in- I believe it was in 1995. Just to go back a little bit, the same pastor, Reverend Dr. Marvin C. Taylor. When I came there as a new convert. I was happy because something had lifted off me, 25 years of-- I just felt new. He asked me had I ever been tested. I didn't feel like I needed to be tested. I had gained my weight back, and I was happy. I said, "Tested for what?" He said, "Tested for HIV." He said, "I'll even take you to my doctor. I'll go with you."

He did all these things because in the community that we lived at, I had hundreds and hundreds of friends that did not make it. I did go and take the HIV test, and I tested positive, but by then, God had made such an impact in my heart, in my soul, that they said, "Well, Ms. McDonald you have HIV. You can have AIDS." I had already had HIV for 10 years.

Alison Stewart: Wow.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: My doctor, other doctor suggested I go to an AIDS Day program and educate myself. While I was there, I was like, "Wow, this--" I always promised myself I was not going to live if I was HIV positive. I seen how families, they love their family members, but not enough that they wasn't afraid to have them in the house. You know that whole 1980 era?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: They had this art therapist. I was sketching little pictures, and he said, "I'm going to give you some clay today." I remember a song my dad used to play when we would go on Trips, "He took a hundred pounds of clay." It's like when I started with clay, it's like something came alive in me. I never had classes. I never knew what I was going to make.

Alison Stewart: Oh, interesting.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: It just would come. That's how it's been. The deep, dark secrets where it came up in sketch form, now, it was coming up in clay.

Alison Stewart: Wow. My guest is Reverend Joyce McDonald. She has her show at the Bronx Museum. It's her first. It's called Ministry. One of the earliest pieces in the show is called Glory (A Taste of Sweetness after Near Death) from 2001. You can see it on the Bronx Museum website. It's a picture of a woman in a purple dress with her hands clasped, looking up at the sky. She's not that big. Tell us a little bit about this piece and what story it has with your life.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: The piece that you're speaking about-- It's like different art pieces bring out different things. I believe it was around the time when I got diagnosed with a hurtful cell at Sloan Kettering and they had to take my thyroid out. In that surgery, which was supposed to be a day surgery, I had a near-death experience. I had code blue. I wound up in the hospital for a week.

When I was there, when they gave me the surgery, they didn't get a chance to take-- They did the surgery, they took me back to my room, and then I began to bleed profusely in my neck. Then I remember telling the nurses and doctors I'm HIV positive. They all went out, they came back with those big space alien--

The thing about that moment was I feel like I felt God. I met God. They recut my neck open. They had pumps and everything. I was code blue, but it was this taste of goodness, this taste of free. Was like they were even people were coming saying, "Are you going to sue?" I said, "No, I can't." This was the best-- I would have never met God like I did.

Alison Stewart: You were able to create this piece [crosstalk]--

Reverend Joyce McDonald: Afterwards, I was on home rest. That was the piece, the first sculpture I did. It had staples in the neck.

Alison Stewart: Oh my gosh.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: I believe in there somewhere that has staples. The lady in the purple was like the goodness. I could just feel it when I was making the sculpture. I never know what expression or where anything is going to come from. That was like a moment of just to see appreciation, love for God.

Alison Stewart: For people who go through the show and they see your sculptures, what do you hope they think?

Reverend Joyce McDonald: I hope whether they read the story or they may identify something for themselves, that they know the situations that you go through, like the situations you live through, the situations you make, it is not the end, the simple fact. With the things that's represented in my art that I didn't plan to show anybody, it's like shared healing. It's like hope. It's like there's just nothing too hard for God to do, no matter what depth.

I felt like I lived in a depth of despair. I felt like I lived in hell. I have a lot of sculptures that represent my mom. My dad passed away early. He was a photographer. My mom, I believe she prayed me out of hell.

Alison Stewart: For anybody who's interested in seeing some of Joyce's work, you can go to our Instagram stories. @allofitwnyc. I'm speaking with Reverend Joyce McDonald. Ministry is the name of her show opening at the Bronx Museum on September 5th. What is a piece in the show that you knew had to be in the show?

Reverend Joyce McDonald: Well, I have a piece that I'm going to bring to this show. Out of all situation, I have, the last two years where I thought I had been through something before, I've been--

Alison Stewart: She's pulling it out of her bag. She's pulling it out of her bag. Can I see?

Reverend Joyce McDonald: This was my first piece.

Alison Stewart: Oh, she's gorgeous. Oh, she's gorgeous. It's a woman. She's bent over.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: Yes. I have made this sculpture many times because there's sometimes during this 30, 40 years, my spirit feels that way. Sometimes it's comforting, it's a poor woman crying out. I don't know what made me put her in my pocketbook.

Alison Stewart: When you're speaking to people who are looking for an outlet, a creative outlet of some kind, what advice would you give them? Someone who has lived quite a bit of life?

Reverend Joyce McDonald: Well, I believe everyone has creativity in them. I believe everyone, if they just put their hands on some clay, I believe everyone can bring something from the inside to the outside that is a healing power that come through creativity. Sometime, I wake up in the middle of the night-- not sometime, most of the time. I happen to walk past some clay that happened to be on the table. I don't plan to make anything. I don't plan to. Matter of fact, most of my work is unplanned. I don't know what it's going to come to until it's finished. I don't. Some of it. I don't know what it mean until after.

Alison Stewart: You don't have any sense of it.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: No.

Alison Stewart: What kind of mind are you in when you're creating a piece like this?

Reverend Joyce McDonald: Light. Like I said, I started at the AIDS Day program. They said, "We hope there's no fire because she can't hear." I go all the way into a place. I remember one while it was something going on and I wasn't creating and I didn't understand why. I was doing my prayers. I was doing what I do to stay spiritually strong. Then once I got back to clay, because I never took a break off it again, I felt that something was missing. I had to create.

It's like the story about the potter and the clay. God spoke to Jeremiah and said, arise, Jeremiah. Go down to the potter's house. There, you will see him working on a wheel. Jeremiah went down to the potter's house and there, he seen the potter reworking the clay. My work represents reworking. I'm being reworked daily. I just came to a "thank you, Lord." I had a stroke on my 30th sober year that morning; caused a bleed.

Then the very next year, I got diagnosed with sinus cancer. I have some sculptures of that. I think that's why I brought this with me, too, because it's dear, because I went through 33 radiations in my head and neck. I still created. I create. At one year, I had shingles. I had a--

Alison Stewart: You're always creating.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: It was called between the screens. I would do art between the screens, most of it. I remember when I had the code blue I told you about, and they had called my parents, they called everybody to come.

Alison Stewart: All I can say is I am so glad you are having a show at the Bronx Art Museum.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: [chuckles] I'm so glad to be alive to be there.

Alison Stewart: Yes and yes. The show starts tomorrow. It is by Reverend Joyce McDonald. Ministry is the name. It's at the Bronx Art Museum. Thank you for making the time to come and see us.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: Thank you for having me.

Alison Stewart: Thank you for showing your art to us.

Reverend Joyce McDonald: Yes.

Alison Stewart: We'll be back after a break.