Scala Launches New Website!
Support Our Mission to Rebuild The Cultural DNA
Dear Friends,
As Scala approaches its tenth anniversary in the summer of 2026, my husband David and I have worked hard to re-design Scala’s website. We are grateful for the artistic and technical assistance Carolyn McKinney, who leads Perceptions Studio. Carolyn also improved the look of this online magazine The Graced Imagination, as well as David’s Substack The Way of Beauty.
Since David and I married nearly four years ago, Scala’s mission has developed a unique approach to revitalizing the culture, especially in education and the arts. We will continue to host summer programs, organize public events, produce videos, conferences, books, and interviews, and conduct speaking tours.
In David’s expanded role at Scala as not only our Artist-In-Residence but also our Director of Strategic Partnerships, we are work intensively with students and families in our local community of Princeton to transform their lives through the Way of Beauty and become culture creators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Through partnerships with organizations across the United States and in the United Kingdom, we are sharing the resources we have created to expand our impact through collaborations with key partners.
Would you take a few moments to read our revised mission statement and testimonials of our impact from students, artists, educators and clergy? Please support our mission with a donation today!
Our Vision
Culture is the DNA that informs every aspect of life through which we find meaning and direction. An ugly culture breeds discontent, uncertainty, and vice. To ensure the youngest generations don’t keep getting drawn into ideological movements, we need to rebuild a beautiful culture.
Winning political arguments and passing legislation cannot replace misery with deep, abiding joy. Political advocacy — though vital — won’t provide the substance needed to live with courage, creativity, integrity, and hope.By reestablishing the architecture of traditional spiritual formation, we can transform hearts and offer hope, joy, and creativity to the world — a creativity that can inform every human activity, from the fine arts to the natural sciences. By pioneering the Way of Beauty process of formation, we have developed a model that transforms lives by cultivating habits for a lifelong practice of joy and creativity in all that we do.
Our Unique Approach
We face an epidemic of despair—the natural consequence of this widespread alienation from traditional education for divine beauty. Generations of those who have the potential to be inspired doers, thinkers, and creators of a noble culture can neither envision a future where their lives have enduring meaning nor where their work effects lasting good, leaving them vulnerable to manipulation.
The formation we provide does more than change opinions; it changes how people see themselves, empowering them to find joy, meaning, and fulfillment. We inspire people to contribute to the common good through creativity in study and work in the arts and sciences. Through this, people discover joy in the everyday labors of a family and a career.
Transforming Culture through Beauty, Creativity and Joy
Scala exists to challenge a cycle of meaninglessness. By creating paths to an encounter with true beauty – and connecting beauty to personal vocation and the common good – we are reversing the damage done to our culture by an ideology of misery, despair, and anger.
Once, all were formed to love the beautiful order which underlies all classical literature, music, the arts, and the natural sciences. But now, too many are squeezed through soulless technical training programs, pushed into embracing violent political ideologies, and abandoned to a culture of hedonism.
The Way of Beauty Formation Process
The Way of Beauty approach builds upon David’s published books, The Vision for You and The Way of Beauty, and decades of insights from mentorship and small-group fellowships. The weekly fellowship is modeled on John Wesley’s Class Meetings and other Christian fellowships. Our unique approach combines forming habits of faith, prayer, and service with commitment to creating something beautiful each week.
The Way of Beauty is the name given to a process by which we, who have been through it, discovered our true calling in life—what we call our ‘personal vocation’ and through which we discovered the Great Fact—that we have a choice in life. With God’s help, we can choose to be happy or to be miserable.
Our goal is to be happy and to become, more and more, the people God intends us to be. To this end, we aim to lead a joyful, creative, and beautiful life as we progress along the Way of Beauty.”
This is the “Way of Beauty preamble” – a statement read out at the beginning of every Way of Beauty fellowship meeting.
Through this process of spiritual formation, service, and the learning of practical skills in the pursuit of beauty, we discover our personal creative calling and contribute to society beautifully, gracefully, and joyfully, in service of God and neighbour, and for the good of all. The outcome of the Way of Beauty process of formation is to establish new habits that sustain lives of faith, carry them into any field of study or profession, and fuel inspiration and creativity, thereby promoting the common good through beauty. All of this is ordered to a life of faith and joy.
Informing and guiding all human activity, giving it purpose, meaning, and beauty, The Way of Beauty is a process of formation for people of all backgrounds, with any (or no) artistic ability. It is a Christian formation based on what was given to the great artists of the past.
Cultural Entrepreneurs and Educators
“Thanks to Scala’s programs and Margarita’s personal mentorship, I have found ways to integrate my intellectual work on John Henry Newman and my creative work in film-making and journalism. Scala helped me to build a community of creatives and intellectuals in both the UK and the US.” Dr. Lauren Spohn, graduate of Harvard University, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and Assistant Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Texas in Austin’s School of Civic Leadership.
“In my early attempts at being an icon carver, David Clayton was the first writer to see my potential and promote my work. His articles for the New Liturgical Movement and his blog The Way of Beauty (now on Substack), have been instrumental in rekindling liturgical art in the West. When we launched the Orthodox Arts Journal in 2012, David’s writing on The Way of Beauty and The New Liturgical Movement’s approach were our model and inspiration. His desire to present beauty, proportion, and the creative retrieval and participation in tradition as the true root of art will remain a touchstone in the cultural return to sacred art and the evangelization of the wider culture.” Jonathan Pageau, liturgical artist (see pageaucarvings.com), public speaker, and YouTuber, and noted commentator on contemporary culture; founder of The Orthodox Arts Journal and The Symbolic World podcast, magazine and online learning community.
We Are at a Crossroads
Today’s cultural entrepreneurs are fleeing the mainstream institutions in droves, but they don’t know how to use their talents for the common good. Like the Medicis, patrons of great artists of the Renaissance, with your support, we can build a network of creative leaders in many professions whose work will outlast any election cycle.
Your donation to Scala will empower people to find meaning, and fulfillment and to contribute to the common good through creativity in study and work in the arts and sciences.
The question is not whether you can afford to support Scala. The question is whether you can afford not to. Making your annual or monthly donation to Scala today will catalyze our efforts at cultural renewal.
Margarita Mooney Clayton, PhD
Founder and Executive Director, The Scala Foundation
Scala Foundation is a non-profit public charity under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of the United States. All donations to the Scala Foundation are tax-deductible.
