This charcoal drawing from Filipino-American Artist Wayne Forte was specially commissioned by the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection for the 2017 Advent art exhibition, Family in Flight, looking at the journey of Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus to Egypt in the context of the strident debate at the time over who was welcome in America. I asked Wayne to…
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In Giotto’s depiction of the Flight into Egypt, the Italian Medieval Master shows the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child riding sidesaddle like a Queen and heir apparent in a royal procession. This image and countless like it down the centuries mask the grim reality of the story in the Gospel of Matthew, when an angel warns Joseph to…
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German-American Illustrator Fritz Eichenberg created the image I've chosen this week for the Feast of the Epiphany, a wood engraving of the Adoration of the Magi (with a difference) to commemorate the United Nation's International Year of the Child in 1979. Eichenberg has recast Joseph, Mary, and the Christ Child as Vietnamese boat people to draw attention to the…
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And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in
swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there
was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2:7, KJ)
Find a place for "them" in your heart this Christmas season
The Sacred Art Pilgrim
…
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The story of Joseph, Mary, and the Baby Jesus taking to the road has special global resonance at a time when the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates there are close to 125 million "forcibly displaced" people around the world. This Advent Sunday, I'm presenting six pieces on the Flight into Egypt by international arts and crafts workers in…
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Man. Woman. Child. Animal. These four universal motifs all come together in art about the Flight into Egypt, offered in two contrasting styles in my picks this week on the theme from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. Cypriot Icon-maker Charalambos Epaminonda presents the post-Christmas story in a neo-Byzantine manner where the donkey looking…
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There was no question what my choice of a subject would be this year for the Advent and Christmas seasons, given the bitter and defamatory debate over "illegal aliens" during the election campaign. Beginning this Sunday and into the first weeks of 2025, I will be posting images from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection of the Flight into Egypt,…
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My fifth biblical diorama offers a modern reading of Psalm 148 aimed at climate change deniers. Each verse in this paean to God is matched with images of the ways humanity has despoiled and destroyed these wonders of Creation that praise their Maker in the ancient text. While God looks down in grief…
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The Puritans came to the New World to found what their leader, John Winthrop, using the words of Jesus, called “A City on a Hill,” a model society for all to follow based on Christian values. In my fourth collage story box, we fast forward to the…
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Growing up in a Fundamentalist church, I came to know by heart moral tales in the Bible like the Old Testament story of how the ravenously hungry Esau gave his birthright away to his trickster brother, Jacob, for a bowl of soup—called “a mess of pottage.” My third collage box is directed at Evangelical Christians who have compromised their…
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The assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 must never be forgotten, doubly disturbing for me because of the pictures of Christ carried by the rioters Donald Trump instigated to “Save America” and overturn the presidential election results by violent means. My second collage story box contrasts this event with a…
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Regular visitors to the website who know of my passion for the contemporary sacred art of Ukraine will not be surprised to learn the theme of my first collage story box in fifteen years is the tragic human cost of Ukraine's struggle against Russian invaders. Inspiration came from a sticker of "Saint Javelin"…
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While reorganizing my art collection recently, I took a closer look at three “found object” artworks in display boxes I made over 15 years ago. A lot has changed since then.Thousands of images can be downloaded on the internet, all kinds of unusual objects can be picked up from on-line sources, and there is no shortage of boxes from…
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On this day honoring the hosts of heaven, I've selected six images by international artists in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, depicting angelic activities in heaven and on earth. The top row shows angels praising God in heaven. French Printmaker Jacques Beltrand offers the most classical view of angelic music makers. An unknown Haitian metalworker has cut out two…
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My final "Angel Artist"in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection is Russian-Ukrainian Printmaker Konstantin Kalynovych, best known for his exquisite book plates with borrowings from the works of Great Masters of Art like Bosch, Durer, and Rembrandt. Kalynovych describes these detailed pastiche pieces as “winter dreams,” where the meanings are “murky, like a dream on a foggy winter night.” He…
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My third featured "Angel Artist" in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection is Benton Spruance, a Philadelphia-based printmaker who can rightly be called the lithographer's lithographer for his innovative use of this stone slab graphic art technique. Spruance had no great love for organized religion but was drawn to the great themes of the Bible. He was especially interested in…
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We return to Georgia this week to meet the second major "Angel Artist" in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection--Rudolph Valentino Bostic, the self-taught painter from Savannah who created illustrations of Bible stories with house paint on recycled cardboard. Bostic was a visionary artist who depicted what he saw with the eye of his imagination rather than copying from life,…
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Western Christians celebrate Michaelmas on September 29th, the feast day commemorating the Archangel Michael and All Angels. In this month devoted to the hosts of heaven, I'll be highlighting four "angel artists" in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection who have often depicted these divine emissaries in their art. Howard Finster, the preacher-folk artist…
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In this week's tribute to James Quentin Young, I have two newly acquired artworks by the late Minnesota assemblage artist to add to the gallery of his biosketch page, revealing the ingenious ways he transformed odds and ends of found objects into strikingly different cross images. Young expressed his lifelong fascination with roadside…
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One of the first artworks to be added to the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection was the beautifully minimalist assemblage cross, From His Side, by James Quentin Young, won in a silent auction at a 2009 Christians in the Visual Artists conference. It would be followed in the years since then by other "found object" cruciform pieces by the Minnesota…
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So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever: we will shew forth thy praise to all generations.( Psalm 79:13, KJV)
For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears. (Revelation…
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The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for… more >>
I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not… more >>
What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours,… more >>
He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. (Isaiah 40:11, KJV)
Before you head off on a summer search for still waters and green pastures, I've selected art from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection with…
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My series on Marian art for the month of May from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection comes to end this Sunday with a depiction in ceramics of an image of Mary from Mexico that has found particular favor among Roman Catholics around the globe: the Virgin of Guadalupe. According to tradition, the Virgin appeared to the Aztec peasant, Juan…
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For Pentecost Sunday in this Marian month, I'm featuring artworks of the Virgin Mary and the Disciples at the descent of the Holy Spirit by two 20th century French artists in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. We see her depicted as the central figure amid Christ's followers at Pentecost in her role as Mother of the Church, a title…
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May is the month traditionally devoted to the Virgin Mary, and I'll be showcasing Marian-themed pieces in the coming weeks by international artists in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. As we remember our mothers this Sunday, I have a particularly caring and maternal image of the Mother of Christ to present known as the Madonna of Mercy, where the…
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Christos Anesti!
Alithos Anesti!
Khrystos Vokres!
Voistynu Vokres!
Happy Easter to my Eastern Orthodox
and Ukrainian Greek Catholic friends!
The Sacred Art Pilgrim
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Mary stood at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked in, And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman,… more >>
The first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst...But Thomas, one of the twelve...was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the… more >>
Two of [Jesus’ disciples] went that same day to a village called Emmaus... And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know him. And he said unto them, What… more >>
In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from… more >>
It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole more >>
land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed,
and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus,
crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands
I commend my spirit.” Having said this, he breathed his…
“I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know more >>
me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. And
I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not
belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen
to my…
He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing more >>
in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised
and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with
infirmity, and as one from whom others hide their faces, he was
despised, and we held him of no account. Surely…
In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered more >>
them. To you they cried and were saved; in you they trusted
and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not human,
scorned by others and despised by the people. All who see me
mock me; they sneer at me; they shake…
Then [Jesus] said to them all, “If any wish to come after me, let more >>
them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who
lose their life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit them
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Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say
that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the
world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth
listens to my voice.” Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”
(John 18: 37-38, NRSV)
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When I paint Jesus there are so many different facial expressions I can get. You could paint an infinity, millions, and trillions of pictures of Jesus and every single one will be different. (Peter Howson, When the Apple Ripens, documentary film, 2023)
British Artist Peter Howson has been fascinated by Christ portraiture,…
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Carl Dixon has taken on over forty commissions in the fifteen years he has worked with the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. My final new offering from the Mississipi-based self taught artist, on the eve of the season of Lent, posed a particular challenge for him. It is a single mixed media, carved wood…
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Southern Visionary Artist Carl Dixon takes on the contentious issue of gun violence in this week's new mixed media carved wood panel painting from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. The scene at the top of the picture shows Cain slaying his brother, Abel, tracing the murderous intentions of the human heart back to…
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