A Jesuit Regent’s Continuous Expansion of the Heart
By Rachel Amiri
The brightly lit studio classroom filled with paintings and sculpture at Jesuit High School of Tampa has become a place where Jesuit regent Giovanni Díaz Jiménez, SJ, cultivates both the fine arts and the art of accompaniment.
“Walking around the studio, helping my students individually, gives me the opportunity to care for them. Not only in the arts, but also personally,” he said.
Over the three years of his regency, the period of Jesuit formation that missions Jesuits to full-time ministry, Díaz has taught theology, painting and sculpture and served as chair of the fine arts department. He’s also been involved in the operation of the school’s Antinori Center for the Arts and assisted with campus ministry.
His work in fine arts has been an unexpected gift and consolation, Díaz said. His art interest had been a hobby until his final year of first studies at Saint Louis University, when another Jesuit was giving away paints, brushes and other art supplies. “I said, ‘Hey, can I take that?’,” he said. His Jesuit superiors at Bellarmine House of Studies in Saint Louis granted him permission to use one of the empty rooms to start an atelier.
His formators took note of his talents, and art came up in conversations about where he might serve during his regency. He was missioned to Tampa Jesuit, where a fine arts teacher was needed. The experience taught him a lot about Jesuit formation.
“They know things that maybe I didn’t know about me,” Díaz said. “I always thought I was not that good. Art was something private for me. But the Society of Jesus saw that talent and said, ‘We want you to do that professionally. We want you to go public.’”
Tampa Jesuit offers around 30 different classes across four areas in the fine arts: 2D and 3D visual arts, digital journalism, theater and music. Each student is required to take a semester-long course during freshman and sophomore years, and many choose to continue fine arts coursework throughout their time in high school.
This brings many inexperienced students through the studio classroom’s doors. Díaz enjoys cultivating in these young men a “sensibility for beauty,” as well as a confidence in their capacity to create art.
“At the beginning of every semester, some of these students who are here because they are required to take this class, say ‘Hey, Mr. Díaz, I’m not an artist. I don’t know how to draw. I don’t know how to paint.’”
He enjoys guiding them through the basics of drawing, from simple shapes to adding shadows and highlights. “It’s amazing to see the reaction of the students when they realize what they can do. [Not only] to produce art, but also to realize all the many talents that God has given them besides that,” he said.
His efforts have led to a revival of the fine arts at the school, said Jesuit High principal Mike Scicchitano. “Some of the work his students are producing, especially in his sculpture class, is pretty incredible. We’ve seen significant growth in the number of students choosing to take fine arts classes since Mr. Díaz has led the department.”
Many student projects feature Jesuit saints, as his coursework draws on the great artists of history, with many religious references. “Art is a great way to evangelize, and it’s part of the tradition of the Church. We’ve used art to evangelize, to put faces to situations, to things, to people,” he said.
Díaz seeks to teach students that good art captures reality without always being realistic, using examples from surrealism and abstract art. One assignment involves creating an image of Jesus in a surrealistic style.
“I push them not only to approach new media, color and style, but to give them the opportunity to create the image of Jesus that’s in their mind, their heart, to start a conversation,” he said.
During his time at the school, new liturgical art has enhanced the beauty of Jesuit’s Chapel of the Holy Cross. Principal Scicchitano credits Díaz for helping complete the installation of stained-glass windows depicting the resurrection of Jesus. Former president Fr. Richard Hermes, SJ, had led the chapel project until his new assignment last year. Following his departure, Scicchitano and Díaz worked with the artist and installers to see the final windows installed last summer.
The warm studio environment and casual conversations with students provide Díaz the opportunity to share about his Jesuit vocation and answer questions, while also helping them feel valued as people, even on tough days. Díaz hopes to help students become aware of the ways that God walks with them, so that they can bring God to others.
Beyond the art studio, he assists with liturgies, leads small groups and has facilitated mission trips to Guatemala. There, he said, students put faces and names to realities like poverty and immigration that might otherwise remain abstract.
He is storing up the consoling experiences of his regency in his heart as he looks ahead to the next stage of formation.
“My experience of regency has been a continuous expansion of the heart, putting everything inside and loving everything,” he said. “I’m so grateful to my superiors, to the Society of Jesus, because all the consolation I’m experiencing is thanks to that care for me and for the mission to believe that, ‘Giovanni, you are capable. We believe in you. We trust you.’”
Explore how you could put your talents in God’s service as a Jesuit at www.BeAJesuit.org.
An Artistic Addition to the Jesuit Community’s Nativity
The Nativity scene of the Jesuit community consists of polychrome, painted clay pieces handcrafted in Spain. I wanted to depict Saint Ignatius of Loyola teaching one of our students how to pray and contemplate the mystery of the Incarnation, so central to our spirituality. The Bell Tower of the Jesuit school, next to the Antinori Center for the Arts, serves as the backdrop, symbolizing the continuity of the Jesuit mission in Tampa today, just as we received it from Saint Ignatius and the Church. This piece is made of clay, and I have sought to model it in the same style as the other pieces.
~ Giovanni Díaz’s explanation of his contribution to the Nativity scene at the Jesuit Community of Tampa
