Clothing

My spiritual director asked me how I was dealing with Gabriel-
I replied that I’ve been working on Mary’s clothing instead.
Yes, she said, clothing is safe.

Safe it may be (in theological terms, at least), but it’s still hard in glass.
Lights, darks, folds- ahh!
I fret and fret, and then let it go.
A friend once told me, year ago when I was just beginning to work with glass,
to talk to the glass. Tell the glass, she said, that you and the glass are of one nature.
We are One, it just requires a shift of perspective to see it that way.

So the order for the day- cutting glass for the folds.
I always get into it-
look deeply into the pieces, there are so many colors, textures in one tiny piece!
I used to think I was being distracted from a mundane step on the way to the “real” work of laying it out on the board. Not anymore!- it’s all a process, all meditation and prayer fused into one great experience!

tools of the trade

strips of dark green to be cut

darks

lights from the same sheet of glass

Click on the photo of the light greens – you’ll see the whole world of color and texture!

a spot in the folds where the glass is to go

The Image Not Made By Human Hand

The Image Not Made By Human Hand

I got this photo yesterday and it brought a wave of emotions and memories. This is the first icon that I made in glass. This is the one that got it all started. I carried this image in my mind for years.
It’s a very strong icon, strength being a spiritual quality primarily, and aesthetic one when it come to icons.

I remember being taken over by something larger than life itself from the very start. The only way to describe the creative process that was happening is to call it mystical: time expanded and stopped, eternity took over, glass seamlessly flowed into place, all the while I existed in a state of profound peace.

When it was done, my husband and other practical voices around me strongly advised me to put a price tag on it and put it out on the market. Instead, again in that same state of peace and quiet, I brought it to a friend’s house-a friend who happened to be an Augustinian priest. His house was filled with monks and nuns that day, something was celebrated when they looked at it, their faces changed and there was quiet in the room. My husband knew what I had known from the start-this was not for sale, neither was is for keeps.

The icon now is the sole image in the office of that priest, who is now the Head of the Augustinian Order of the Eastern Hemisphere, in Villanova, PA. Everyone walking into his office sees it. He told me, ” I sit them in front of it, and leave them for a few minutes alone, and half of their problems go away. ” Those that do not, acquire a different taste, a different perspective.

I sometimes get asked, why did I let that one, the first one go, without even taking a picture? Well, not taking a picture was silly, I agree but letting it go was not. It was an act of reciprocity, what I received – I shared. And in giving it away- I came alive, and continued on creating, or as iconographers say — co-creating.

The icons travel. Sometimes, when there is a place for an icon out there, and in a strange mystical way, spirit (what they call inspiration in the art world) finds an iconographer somewhere and besieges him to create. And create he does, not knowing where the icon will go, not knowing why. But trusting, trusting fully, listening, following on the subtlest of hints, and then letting go.

Thank you to Michele Parisi for editing help.

Mary

Annunciation

I looked at Mary today as if I saw her for the first time,
and I did see something – I saw the way Mary held her hands! Her left holds a spindle (in some versions of this icon she holds a book, presumably holy scriptures, but not here) – the spindle stands for earthy life, practical aspects of existence, make thread-make cloth- make stuff for living body. Now her right hand is extended slightly over to the archangel, and the palm is open – it’s receptivity, she is open to what the archangel has brought.
It seems so simple, I know, however until now I saw her primarily as a channel, she ‘channels’ the divine, the invisible into earthly visible form. And now- I see that she also stands for a link, a connection between the two worlds- between the visible and the invisible, the divine and the earthly, the ineffable and the flesh and blood. She connects the two. Think about it- archangels and angels are of divine nature, and for the most part they are invisible to most of us- except for those (fortunate or unfortunate, depending on your point of view) in whose life they intrude with visions and messages and tasks. The majority of folk walking around are not seeing winged creatures. To connect the godly and earthly- that is Mary’s quiet yet very active endeavor. She is not just placid, receptive and passive ; she is also active in the transformation of all those energies into shape and form, flesh and blood; and not only by virtue of bearing a child- she herself embodies that connection and keeps it alive.
There is also a matter of height of her hands’ position-
in old pictorial representation height represent the hierarchy of importance. Here we have her left hand holding the spindle pointing down towards the ground, the earth, and it is much lower than her right-
her right is up, open towards Gabriel, open to heaven. Her priorities are set.

Sometimes I feel like I am making doors. I know it’s more common to refer to icons as ‘windows’, but I think that’s making it sound too pretty, people get wrapped up in a metaphor. I like doors, they are never closed, not here.
It’s as if I am on this side, and divine is on the other side- (though there are no sides, really)- and the place we meet, we co-create, and this work comes into being. It’s always there, it has been there before I even started it, my completing it and putting it on view is so secondary, not even secondary, it’s so down the list. The pulsating energy is there, the presence is there, it comes into form and shape of its own volition. I know I am a part of it, but most of the time I feel like a bystander, a witness, an apprentice, the flow of life is so strong, I just keep putting piece by piece down.

Mary

Annunciation, detail- Mary's hand

Mary

While I meditated on, or rather with, Gabriel-
I went back to Mary-

Annunciation, detail- Mary

Gabriel

If Mary is presence, acceptance, receiving with gratitude,
Gabriel is the one who bestows, or rather communicates the gift.
He changes her life, turns it upside down. Yes, she is accepting of it all as it all comes from god;
but he is the energy of change-
and not only here:
in Islam, Gabriel is the archangel communicating with Muhammed, all visions and texts (subsequently Q’aran) are received via Gabriel. (Interestingly, Islam means “surrender”, reminiscent of the energy of Mary).
Now Gabriel is saying something, but what exactly?
There is this bubbling presence, this lightness of being, pulsating energy right there, on my board, where Gabriel is to be shown in glass.
No drama, no struggle, no frustration-
there is blissful, joyous presence, telling me something.
His eyes and his nose are in place, he is quite gorgeous, really- not necessarily male or female- archangel!- there is no rush on his part to follow through with the rest of the icon. SO I sit there, content to be, content to witness his presence.

Usually I have to ‘understand’ and then I proceed. Here, I completed the face of Mary first, and while sitting with it I realized what the message was.

When god comes and says ‘ you are the chosen one’ or something along those lines-
if you get all “oh, oh, me? but I am not good enough, pure enough, spiritual enough, I have not prayed enough, etc etc” – you might think you are being humble, but that is really false humility, fake humble. What really is happening is you’ve made a boundary- you and god, you are here and god is there.
That is not what Mary did-
she accepts it. Fully and completely. There are no boundaries, lines of any kind drawn between God and herself. There is unity, oneness. Acc. to Luke, she says “Here Am I”. That’s pretty simple. No drama, no fuss. Yet how profound. (Of course, one cannot say it until one can. Al-Hallaj said “In this robes there is nothing but Allah” and was burned at the stake for blasphemy ).

So what is given, is given. No reason to question the whys. Accept it.

Annunciation, detail

Annunciation, detail