"I was very close to the earth, and I loved nature," recalls Sister Orlanda Leyba, a photographer and Dominican nun. "I was always the one taking pictures of everybody." She hasn't stopped snapping since.

Her photos of purple coneflowers and water lilies have been displayed at the Dominican Center at Marywood, the historic motherhouse in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she took her first vows more than 40 years ago. She considers her art a way to proclaim the power and beauty of God.

"My photography is a sacred thing I do," says Leyba, 65, a teacher at Divine Child High School in Dearborn, Michigan. "I find such connection with God through the lens."

For Leyba, Sister Jude Bloch and Sister Lucianne Siers, the arts are one way to fulfill their calling as Dominicans, a worldwide community of sisters, priests and brothers known as the Order of Preachers.

"My little designs, I think of them as joyful preaching," says Bloch, a graphic artist from Grand Rapids. "Art touches the soul, touches the senses, touches things people value like joy, peace, presence. Sometimes the spoken word doesn't do that."

The three women are among dozens in the 300-member Grand Rapids Dominican congregation who express their spirituality in painting, sculpture, poetry and music.

Some sisters are members of the Dominican Institute for the Arts, an international association that aims to "encourage the creative efforts of the Holy Spirit in every person." The group has identified more than 325 Dominican artists, including musicians, actors, weavers and filmmakers.

At annual gatherings, an award of excellence is given, named after Fra Angelico, a Dominican Renaissance painter known for his paintings of Christ's life and frescoes adorning monastic cells in Florence, Italy. His example looms large in the history of the Dominican order, founded in 1206 by St. Dominic de Guzman in devotion to prayer, poverty and preaching.

Dominican sisters serve as teachers, health care workers and in social service. They say the arts seamlessly serve the common Dominican mission: "To contemplate and to give to others the fruit of our contemplation."

"Part of the history of Dominican life isn't just to pray with words," said Siers, a sculptor from Brooklyn, New York. "It's the enfleshing of the imagination in our spirituality."