The Welcome Wagon: Keepers of the Faith Thrive in the Hipster's Den

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So just who are Vito and Monique Aiuto? Are these two Christian believers just a couple of simple-minded reactionaries, shipped to New York City from America’s evangelical hinterlands? It’s certainly possible to play with this stereotype, given the homespun, retro cover art adorning their album. As Stevens writes in the dryly humorous liner notes: “Monique arouses tales of Puritan neatness, with sanguine maxims and beneficent characters. A naive farm girl reared by a gentleman farmer father and a choir-teacher mother, Monique’s boyish good looks and lackadaisical charm bring a good country wholesomeness to the mix.”

But this is only part of the story. Monique Aiuto arrived in Manhattan from Michigan (yes, from the farm) to enroll in the fine-arts program at The Cooper Union. Then she continued her studies at Columbia University, earning an MFA and landing a job making crafts at Martha Stewart Living magazine in Manhattan. As she notes, her art training and the practical wisdom of the farm aren’t as disparate as one might think. “If you need something, you make it,” she says, is a useful ethic in both worlds.

Today, despite devoting most of her energy to keeping up with Isaiah and supporting a husband whose job has few off-duty hours, Monique has wedged an easel into her bedroom, and most of the evocative but enigmatic artwork in the album’s packaging is hers. Contributing not just artwork but also vocals, glockenspiel and production ideas to The Welcome Wagon, the project is a much-appreciated artistic outlet for this busy urban mom who, after a good decade in the city, is “a naive farm girl” in the way Andy Warhol was the son of a coal miner from Pittsburgh.

Monique’s husband shares her love affair with New York City. A fan of poetry and boxing (the “Jerry Quarry” in his book’s title was a champion-contender heavyweight boxer), he finds plenty of outlets for both in just a few subway stops. His steadfast faith and professed love for “songs about Jesus” is informed by a Princeton Theological Seminary education, and he’s every bit as self-aware as his generational peers.

This background is worth keeping in mind while taking in the album’s artwork, which now seems like obvious ironic self-awareness in its retro-earnest cover and propagandistic Sunday-school illustrations of children hugging Bibles. It’s almost on the same level as the bohemian appropriation of thick mustaches and mesh trucker hats, with one nagging exception—on some level, it’s not really ironic.

“It’s fun to have a nod to that, and fun to be tongue-in-cheek about Christian culture and Christian kitsch,” Vito says. “But I don’t mind owning that a little bit—that’s who we are. All these songs are about blood and death and ‘Jesus is my friend’—those are all things we think are true.”

According to Vito Aiuto, Resurrection Presbyterian is what’s known as a “parish model” church, focused specifically on its immediate area. In this case, that means Williamsburg, Greenpoint and the nearby Brooklyn neighborhoods. Putting it more simply, it’s an intentional community, seen when Vito and Monique run into people they know on neighborhood streets and when they greet servers at their favorite nearby restaurant like old friends. It’s a community with its heart in the Aiutos’ typically tiny apartment, where they host friends and occasionally break out their instruments.

My over-thinking, overanalyzing and ill-fitting theories aside, it dawns on me that this is what The Welcome Wagon is. Vito and Monique Aiuto aren’t about to lay aside their lives to hop in a van and play gigs in grubby rock dives. (They only make it to Pete’s Candy Store, the venue practically in their backyard, about once a year.) And they’re too immersed in building a life and shepherding a congregation to craft grand, conceptual artistic statements about doing so.

But if you’re beaten down by life, in need of faith and music that affirms it, they’ll do their best to welcome you in. True to its name, the album is the sound of  two faithful people opening their home, and singing songs to encourage themselves and others. It’s not much more complicated than that. “There’s no veneer,” Stevens says. “It’s a Presbyterian ordained minister and his wife, playing religious songs. Take it or leave it.”