My offering today is Mary's love and comfort to all the broken people. May those who are suffering, lonely, alienated, hungry or feel less than and invisible feel her warmth, compassion and healing. This is a set from my creations on Polyvore.
To see the offerings of other participants in Rebecca Brooks Twelve Days of Mother Love, go to Recuerda mi Corazon.
Queen of Stars Variation 1 - Polyvore
Queen of Stars Variation 2 - Dreamscope Fractal Filter
Queen of Stars Variation 3 - Dreamscope Highlight Filter
I created the first image Queen of Stars in Polyvore in March 2016. Last night I played with filters in an application called Dreamscope. When I have time, I like to try out various filters with my own photography and with images I make in varied media. Over the centuries the divine feminine has been created by countless artists in many mediums. If you haven't tried this app, it opens up new artistic worlds--and even a way to worship in new ways.
Visit Rebecca Brooks Recuerda mi Corazon to see other people's offerings for today in the 12 Days of Mother Love meme.
Thanks to Rebecca at Recuerda mi Corazon, the annual meme 12 Days of Mother Love continues this first week in December. It ends on December 12, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The purpose is to rejoice through art, photography and language that the divine feminine helps us to make sense of the complexities of our sacred ordinary lives. On Fridays Rebecca always hosts Haiku My Heart so today the two memes are combined.
Even while waiting
She asks why she was chosen
To give the world hope.
This digital Polyvore art and expression set features detail from Botticelli's The Virgin and Child With Saint John and an Angel, 1490. A few years ago Meri Arnett-Kremian posted some of her Polyvore sets and a new world of digital art opened up. Meri, thanks so much. Visit Recuerda mi Corazon to see other offerings from other participants.
Variation on Botticelli created in Polyvore by Redondowriter
Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the final day of Twelve Days of Mary Love hosted by Rebecca Brooks at Recuerda mi Corazon.
This Polyvore set does not feature a Guadalupe image but it is the Mary detail in Botticelli's Magnificat Madonna. I find her face to be so exquisite that I wanted to "borrow" her to make my own creation. Just staring at her surrounded by other images I have chosen to include brings me a sense of momentary peace. If you visit Rebecca's site, I'm sure there will be lots of Guadalupes for you to see. I love the Guadalupe story and flash back to when I visited her shrine in Mexico many years ago.
Rebecca, thanks for hosting us--and thanks to all of you who participated. I'm not sure I would have had the same quality of life I've had the past 12 days if I hadn't had this meme to look forward to. Being with Mary and being with all of you has been a blessing.
The Prayer Of Mary
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever.
(Lk 1:46-55)
Blue Madonna SoulCollage® made in Polyvore by Redondowriter
One of my favorite madonnas was painted by Carlo Dolci, Italian, 1616-1687. The focal image here is his madonna and I'm making a variation for one of my favorite art processes, SoulCollage®. You can access information at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida about the original art. I created this SoulCollage® card in Polyvore, however, not cut and pasted by hand like I usually create cards.
In the SoulCollage® process, you write "I am the one who" statements to personalize the experience. I am the one who has hidden inside your unconscious long before you became Catholic. You came into life loving the color blue and when you became upset as a child, you'd shut your eyes and think blue to calm yourself. In your 30s I came to you tangibly the first time in a reproduction you found in an art book. My image has brought you comfort ever since.
We are encouraged to ask the card a question and mine would be, "Now, thanks to the wealth of information on the Internet about you that I never knew, how can I make you part of myself in a more meaningful way?"
I am one of several women joining Rebecca in celebrating her 12 days of Mary love at her blog. Everyone is invited. While this is not about religion, it is about sharing, opening hearts, rejoicing in ultimate mother love. It is about light, compassion, inspiration, and the sweet chance to begin each day together in beauty and peace. Thanks, Stephanie at Mango Studio for the words in this paragraph.
Today is the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the final day of Loving Lupita: Twelve Days of Mary Love. It's also Friday so that means Haiku My Heart. I have had so much fun participating; my creative juices are flowing again.
This is a Polyvore creation I called "Our Lady of Christmas."
Advent means Mary
when I create with others
loving lupita
Thanks so much for hosting us the last twelve days at Recuerda mi Corazon, Rebecca Brooks.
"Queen of Heaven" is a Polyvore set made more than a year ago.
To see what others have posted who are participating in Loving Lupita: Twelve Days of Mary Love, go to Rebecca Brooks Recuerda mi Corazon blog. At her site today she has a beautiful photo of Mary prayer flags.
As those of you who know me well, I have found such a fantastic stress-buster but also a way to be creative in a new way: Polyvore. Created originally as a fashion sharing/selling site, its easy-to-use layered collage software called the "clipping tool" has enriched my life so much. For me it's like a free Lumosity; I have to constantly use this aging brain, but it also has become a psychological/spiritual tool as well. It takes me about 15-30 minutes to create a set and I pin each set to my Pinterest account and often share my creations on Facebook. I also print each set out twice. One copy goes in my Polyvore scrapbook and the second copy is cut apart and the pieces are often used in my art journals or SoulCollage® cards. You can see all my sets to date at Redondowriter's Polyvore.
Part of the Polyvore experience can be entering the variety of "contests" that are always available in the groups that you join. My groups are all in the art and expression category. The moderator of a group calls creation guidelines for contest sets. I have only entered 3 contests and won none, but I just love entering nonetheless. I'm not a trained artist, but I am a well-trained writer. The contests give me the same rush as writing to a topic or subject.
The three black and white Polyvores I'm sharing here were created for the Creative Coalition's black and white clip art contest. They were far more challenging than creating in color. The guidelines said, "Create an ART set using only black and white (grey's ok) clipart/illustrations. A *hint* of _one_ other color is ok. B&W text ok too." I don't easily think out of the box with my art but I find myself beginning to. The trick for me is to find copyright free images from the Internet to put into my Items folder.
When you really think about it, the commercial celebration of Valentines Day is a silly tradition. Culture has set us up for romance which is bound to bring expectations, sometimes fulfillment, but often disappointments. Yet, we all know that love is given and received in so many different ways. Valentines Day reminds me of one of the reasons I like to go to church regularly. It's like going to the gas station and getting a fill-up. Maybe Valentines Day is a yearly fill-up of love, a reminder of how important love in all its flavors really is. As for me, the concept of three kinds of love (romantic, filial and agape) long ago sunk in. I do, however, celebrate all of you who are blessed with romantic love today and every day. I do have some lovely memories. So,I give you three ways I honored Valentines Day with my art--and with one haiku for Rebecca's Haiku My Heart Fridays.
Not just on this day,
But every day, practice love
and the world will heal.
This is an art journal page I made this week.
And this is a page created on Polyvore.
And here is Sophia the Art Mannikin who is celebrating quietly downstairs.
Though I am deeply drawn to Mary and images of the divine feminine, I rarely use images of Christ in my art. I was so deeply drawn to the focal image of Jesus on a friend's Pinterest site recently, however, I added it to my palette of items in Polyvore. This Polyvore digital art set kind of poured out of my mouse tonight and became "The Way of the Cross."
I am what I call a quiet Christian, but I definitely am a Christian. Born into a non-practicing Christian family, my mother (who had been raised Dutch Reform) did join the local Baptist Church when I was a kid because I asked to start attending there. It was literally my second family until I was in high school. We Baptist kids couldn't dance at our church, so I began church shopping--and I really have never stopped. I have been on a spiritual path long before I even started kindergarten. My dad, by the way, claimed to be an atheist.
At 21, I converted to Catholicism because I married a Catholic man and had always been drawn to the mystery of the mass and all the symbolism. I embraced Catholicism passionately and was deeply involved in the life of our parishes during all the 27 years of my marriage and for many years after that. In the 1980s, I received my M.A. in Comparative Religions and loved my studies. My thesis was on Fr. Thomas Merton. I'm a student by nature and will be until the end of my life, I hope.
About eight years ago I began seriously attending a few of the Episcopal churches in my area as the doctrine and dogma of the Catholic Church began to make no sense to me. But, I feel most at home in a liturgical Christian church. Six years ago I joined a tiny Episcopal Church, Christ Church, just a block from my house and I've found a church home and a wonderfully, inclusive community. For the past four years I have been attending a weekly study group called Education for Ministry which has been an intensive study into the Old Testament, the New Testament, church history, philosophy, theology, and the church in the modern world. Again, the student in me continues to find her niche.
Two years ago my friend Mary Lou and I made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and though I'll admit that many doctrinal/dogmatic things about Christianity trouble me, walking where Jesus Christ had lived and died was a real game changer for me as a Christian.
This past Sunday I was "accepted" into the Episcopal Church in a beautiful liturgy celebrated by Suffragan Bishop Diane Jardine Bruce. I have already been baptized and confirmed as a Catholic. My rector Robert Cornner has been a real inspiration to me. Inclusivity is his hallmark and the foundation of Christ Church. I jokingly call myself a heretic, but at my church, I feel fully accepted just the way I am.
Holy Week begins this Sunday and I guess this Polyvore set "The Way of the Cross" is my way of saying, "Thanks, Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the gift of my life."
Thomas Merton says best how I feel about my own Christianity.
From the Love of Solitude, Part II, “Thoughts in Solitude,” by Thomas Merton
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
Recent Comments