We celebrate the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi on the fourth of October. In honor of this much-loved saint, who is especially revered for his love of Creation, I will be offering Franciscan-themed pieces this month from the Sacred Art Collection made by artisans of the Americas, working in both traditional and new folk art forms. My first offering in the series is a hammered and embossed image in sheet metal by Haitian Folk Artist Nicolson Mathieu, showing Francis delivering his famous sermon to the birds with three of the eco-friendly saint's feathered friends eagerly fluttering around his ascetic, elongated form. Mathieu learned his craft in the metal art workshops of the market town of Croix-des-Bouquets, where folk artists fashion these elaborately decorative pieces from hammered-out oil drums, recycled from the harbor of the Haitian capital of Port-du-Prince. Mathieu's portrait of St. Francis joins other metal sculptures by mostly anonymous artisans in the Haitian Oil Drum Art page in the Schools of Sacred Art section. (John Kohan)