catholic art – SIMCHA FISHER

The Catholic Home Gallery: Interview with John Herreid and GIVEAWAY

A little something to help get you through Lent! I have in my hot hands a copy of The Catholic Home Gallery: Eighteen Works of Art by Contemporary Catholic Artists, and Ignatius Press is giving me a second copy to give away! I’ll put details for how to enter at the end of the post.

Guys, the book is gor-ge-ous, and it’s more than a book: It’s designed so you can pull the prints out and hang them on your wall. Wonderful idea.

Here’s the back cover, showing thumbnails of all the prints:

Here’s a little preview flip book, so you can see how it’s set up. I was actually astonished that this book is listed at $26.96. That’s a sale price, but the full price of $29.95 is also an excellent deal. I can’t think of another place you could find eighteen high quality prints for that price. You could also keep it together as a book, if that’s what you prefer. There is a short bio for each artist; many artists have included a little statement about art, and there is an artist’s note about each print. Importantly, the book includes information about where to find more of the artist’s work, so you can follow them, and maybe support them by buying more art.

Here’s the list of the nine artists included in what I hope is the first in a series of such collections:

The book includes two pieces by each artist, with a forward by Emily Stimpson.

The other day, I talked to John Herreid, who came up with the whole idea and edited the book. He is the catalogue manager for Ignatius, and also designs many book and DVD covers for them. Herreid is an artist himself, and an art collector (as well as being my sister’s husband’s brother; I’m never sure if I’m supposed to mention that). Here’s our conversation.

SF: You say in your note at the end of the book that “I kept hearing people say such things as ‘I wish we had great Catholic artists working today.’ The thing is, we do! But with the overload of information in the digital age, it is often difficult to find these artists if you don’t know where to look.”

It does seem, though, like there has been a sudden flourishing of variety of styles of sacred art in the last several years. There are just more, and more different kinds of Catholic art, than there used to be.

JH: One of the things that facilitates that is the advent of social media, especially the kind that’s devoted to sharing images, like Instagram. But before that, there were a fair number of people devoted to making sacred art, but it was hard to encounter it.

Around maybe 2002, another artist, Ted Schluenderfritz, author-illustrator Ben Hatke, and Sean Gleeson, and later some others and I put together Smallpax, a group for Catholic illustrators and artists, and I started interviewing artists like Daniel Mitsui and Tim Jones. Deacon Lawrence Klimecki and Anthony VanArsdale were also involved. That’s where I first started seeing the early versions of [Ben Hatke’s character] Zita. Ben was still doing illustrations for Seton Home School, way back in the day. The website is gone now, into the mists of the Internets.

But I saved a bunch of images into a folder and showed them to people at work and said, “Wouldn’t it be neat to do a collection of prints?” Then I proceeded to be annoying about it for a decade, and they eventually agreed to do it.

SF: I’m really struck with how it’s not just designed to page through, but so you can take the images out and put them your home.

JH: I grew up in a house where my mom had art all over the place. A lot was stuff she was pulling out of magazines and putting in frames. When I started collecting art for my own purposes, several times I encountered these folios of prints from the WPA era. There would be just a collection of thirty or forty prints, designed so they could be detached and put on the walls. I was familiar with a loose folio that came in a folder, but the idea of a bound folio was really neat.

If you have art on the wall, it becomes part of your daily life. It informs how you think of the saints being depicted, or of the Blessed Mother, or your image of God, which is one of the reasons I really don’t like the saccharine late 19th and early 20th century treacly kind of sacred art.

If you grow up around that, you get the idea that the faith is either pretty and nice, or else it isn’t real, or else you encounter a great amount of suffering, and if this is your image of the faith, you think, well, I can’t connect with that. Some people find it deeply meaningful; they really do. But for me, that has never been something that spoke to me.


Fr. Jaques Hamel by Neilson Carlin

SF: Have your kids let you know how the art you put in the house has affected them?

JH: Some of my kids are more into visual art than others. My daughter, who is very artistic, will look at it and talk about it with me. My youngest, who is six, as soon as I showed him the proofs [of the book] that came in, he immediately told me that as soon as I get the final one, he wants St. Joseph Terror of Demons. He grabbed that one right away.


St. Joseph Terror of Demons by Bernadette Carsensen

SF: How did you choose the artists?

JH: It’s a wide variety of styles, and that was conscious. There were people I really wanted to get in there: Tim Jones, Matthew Alderman, and Jim Janknegt. Those were the initial people I envisioned building this around. Matt Alderman is doing a black and white sort of art nouveau style;


The Wedding at Cana by Matthew Alderman

Tim Jones is doing a classic realistic style,


The Immaculate Heart by Timothy Jones

and Jim Janknegt is doing a modern style with colors that explode off the page.

Miracle of the Sun by James B. Janknegt

With those three, you get an idea of the kind of variety you will find in the book.

SF: Did anything surprise you as you went through the process of putting it together?

JH: One person said, “I’m glad you decided to include some images of recent saints and soon-to-be saints,” and I said, “Oh, I guess I did.” I have Blessed Solanus Casey [by Matthew Alderman] and Servant of God Fr. Kapaun [by Elizabeth Zelasko]


Servant of God Father Emil Kapaun by Elizabeth Zelasko

I hadn’t really consciously set out to do that, but I am interested in recent saints.

I also didn’t realize that I had put quite so many Marian images in there. There’s . . .seven, eight, nine, fully half these images. I brought a copy to the Marian Library at the University of Dayton to give them in their library collection, and I said something like, “There aren’t that many Marian images,” but then I looked at them and I was like, oh, I guess there are!


Mary, the Mother of Life by Michael D. O'Brien

SF: I know some people have rules about sacred art, like not combining it with secular art in the same space. Do you have any rules?

JH: I personally do not. I grew up in a house with a jumble of images, like a Padre Pio statue in a shrine made out of an old tofu press hanging on the wall.

SF: That’s the most Herreid thing I have ever heard.

JH: I do think, looking back, it’s funny that Padre Pio is Mr. Redmeat saint, and there he is in a tofu press.

Saint Padre Pio by Matthew Conner

SF: I have seen the photos you’ve been posting on social media as you’ve been hanging up the prints in your house. It’s a good tip to find high quality frames in thrift shops. Frames are expensive! Do you have other advice for people who want to incorporate more sacred art into their homes?

JH: I collect art of all kinds. I love having things on the walls. One thing I think people get too finicky about is having to be very intentional about having to set up a special sacred spot in their room. That’s great if you can do that and have the room for it, and the room is architecturally appropriate for it, but often times you may not be able to do that. In that case, you may want to just put things where they fit and gather around them for prayers.


St. Benedict by Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs

As far as collecting sacred art, antique stores are a great spot, although it’s often the more saccharine style of art. I found a great Madonna and Child, made by a great sculptor, for $8 at an estate sale. It’s huge, actually impractically huge.

Our neighbor once brought a friend over to talk about home brewing, and the guy walked into the door and was confronted by all this Catholic imagery. And he said, “So, is the Catholic thing an aesthetic, or . . . ?”
I said, “No, I actually believe it.”
And he said, “Oh. O-kay . . . . . okay.”

SF: Sure, you’re the weirdo.

Is there anything else you want people to know about this book or about art in general?

JH: I really feel strongly that we made sure to include information about each of the artists, where you can find them online, their social media info, and where you can purchase their art. It drives me bonkers when people share images by working artists and don’t credit them, and don’t say where it’s from.

Sacred art in the past was commissioned by the wealthy and powerful, and they would be responsible for funding it. We’re no loner in a world like that. Most artists depend on people like me and you to buy art from them. I feel like it’s only just to find artists online and try to support them.

If one of these images [in the book] jumps out at you, go look them up and find out what else they’ve done, and maybe purchase a few prints directly. That’s the only way they’ll be able to continue doing this work, if people like me and you support them.

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And now for the giveaway! Nice and simple. Just leave a comment on this post, and you’re entered. I will use a random number generator to choose the winner on Monday the 13th, and I will contact the winner by email. Thanks to Ignatius for sponsoring this.

FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE, PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT USING A NAME CONNECTED TO AN EMAIL ADDRESS THAT ACTUALLY WORKS. If the winner left a comment using the email address “nicetryfeds@noneofyourbeezwax.com” I will make rude chimp noises and then pick someone else, and then you won’t get your art.

I read the museum cards when I look at art!

Last week, we went to a museum without any kids, and so the last bit of museum pressure was off. I was absolutely free to look at whatever I wanted, for as long as I wanted, in whatever order I wanted. We even took a break for coffee and scones, because museums are exhausting. And if I wanted to read the card before looking at the painting, I did.

A crazy amount of intellectual guilt needed shucking off, to arrive at that decision. I have always been told to look first, look long, and only then to read about what I have seen. Encounter it plainly and openly on its own terms before you let your experience of it get shaped and tutored by whatever few sentences some curator thinks are vital.

But when do we encounter things completely openly, for real? Never. It’s as if we live on one planet, and a work of art lives on another, and maybe the atmosphere there will suit us, and maybe it won’t, but we do need to bring some oxygen with us for the trip. Because we are human. We bring what we have, who we are, with us when we encounter a work of art, because we can’t breathe without it. We bring our prejudices and our contemporaneous contexts, but also just the information we have gathered in the course of a lifetime, information about what it means to be alive. This happens whether or not we read the museum card. There is no such thing as coming intellectually innocent to a work of art. That’s just not how human beings operate. If a body (me) meets a body (art) coming through the rye, my petticoat is gonna draggled. It just will. It’s not a big deal.

I already knew this, but it became so obvious to me when so many people came to see the Catholic works of art, which I understood, and they did not, because they had no context, no frame of reference to behold them with. For instance, I saw more than one madonna and child that was clearly painted as a rejection of Manichaeism. It’s an ode to the inherent goodness of human flesh; but without context, it just looks like the painter had no idea what a baby’s body actually look like. Silly old painter!

People of faith would like to believe there is something so innately human and universal about what is depicted in sacred art that it will speak to people directly whether they know anything about the faith or not. And some of this is surely true, sometimes. Think of Flannery O’Connor’s snarly Parker who gets women pregnant even though he doesn’t like them that way, who meets the “Byzantine Christ with all-demanding eyes” and is knocked right out of his shoes. It happens. I’ve been struck spiritually by works of art depicting faiths I know nothing about. Power is power.

But it is also true that when museum-goers had the option to push a button and hear some snippets of eastern chant to go along with the altar frieze on display, almost every one of them laughed. A tenor called out “Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One!” into the echoing gallery, and they giggled. I don’t know why. It just startled them, probably, or maybe it sounded spooky, or maybe they were not used to hearing a man sing in that register. But despite the best efforts of the museum, this fragment of beauty did not translate well to many, at least not instantly. It did not enhance their wonder; it just confused them.

And of course the same failure of translation happened to me in other galleries. We beheld the art of the Marshall islands, and I had no idea what I was looking at. Even with the cards to help me see what I was seeing in those hollow eyes, rounded mouths, jagged teeth, elongated limbs, the best I could do was to remind myself that what I was seeing was very different from what the people for whom it was made would have seen. I offered a humble shrug, that was as far as I got.

Not all the examples of “I am here, they are there” were that jarring. There was a very odd 1618 Flemish painting depicting the artist as Icarus with his father, and his expression was peculiar, almost a smirk, and the postures were enigmatic. I did giggle, because I had no idea what I was looking at, and I checked the card, and it said it was not known what the artist intended. Even the experts thought he didn’t quite pull it off. Too dated! Not my fault!

And sometimes it was very obvious that I was misreading what I saw, but I couldn’t help it. I read the card that said the hands of this Asian deity were in gesture called “the fist of wisdom,” and I raised my eyes to behold it, and oop, it sure looked like the thing that Howie did in second grade at the lunch room, and everyone laughed and the teacher got mad. The card told me what to see, and it didn’t help at all, because part of me is still in second grade. A planet too far.

I saw a painting that looked like it had been commissioned in 1957 for a John Coltrane album cover, but when I checked the card, I almost fell over to read: “John Singer Sargent, 1879-1880.”

Sargent was incredibly sophisticated, and clearly anticipated a lot of what was to come; but he also stood out in his own time, painting in a style of his own, ruffling feathers. I suppose this is one of the marks of genius, to be able to see the style of your own era for what it is, with its strengths and its limits, and not to be confined by it.

But we tend to feel that an artist is especially good if they break out of the mold of their era, and this is an odd thing to do, if impossible to avoid. It pits one style against another, and makes us consider everything in terms of being a response to something else, rather than existing on its own terms. This informed approach to art enriches our understanding of what we’re seeing, but at the same time, it narrows our ability to perceive it openly. Would it be better to look at a painting without knowing anything at all about art history? Just to look? Better? I don’t know!

I do know that the galleries with contemporary art were filled with pieces that absolutely required you to know something — not only to read the card, but to be trained in how to see what you were seeing so that it looks like anything at all. And the kicker is, I am the audience this was designed for. I live in this world. And yet I still needed help to see what I was seeing. My husband said that many artists are now making art for a culture that exists only in the art world, and not for the public in general. The art world is the context. Once, visiting a different museum with a bunch of squirrelly kids, I was at the end of my energy. Wondering if I should make the effort to climb yet another flight of stairs to get to the 20th century wing, I peered through and said to the guard at the entrance, “It’s hard not to feel like something went wrong,” and he said, “I know.”

Of course, maybe he was wrong, too.

What a puzzle it is, trying to sort out the things that are actually timeless and the things that simply happen to speak to us in our time. People have never stopped adoring Rembrandt, as far as I know. Gauguin, I myself have made the forty-year trip from mistrusting him and feeling bad about it, to adoring him, to thinking, “If I found this painting on fire, I would look for water, but I wouldn’t run.” Cy Twombly, I didn’t even go to that floor.

Which is not to say that we are doomed to distort what we see. Only that we can feel at home in not knowing everything there is to know. If you can take your ego out of it, and subtract the pressure to be the smartest person who understands things very well indeed, it’s actually comforting to recall how at home we actually are in the time and world we live in. So many of us feel so alienated and displaced and out of communion with our own culture. I look at TikTok or a video game or the previews for upcoming movies, and I think, “What planet does everyone else live on?”

But we are more at home than we realize, more a creation and a creator of our own culture then we may know. It’s just that we may not know it until we step away from it, find some distance, and see what it would be like to be truly on the outside. And that is what happened to me.

Poor William Shatner went up into space and found that distance. He suddenly realized for the first time that earth is small, temporary, finite. I suppose going to the art museum could have me feel the same way. So much distance, so much fragility. Here was a massive marble building dedicated to showing me . . . everything. Everything there was to show, everything people thought was worth preserving, and yet so much of it is opaque to me. I suddenly felt very keenly the distance that is there between me and so many other worlds of experience.

But I thought of “Having Misidentified a Wildflower” by Richard Wilbur. It’s such a short poem, I suppose I can get away with quoting the whole thing:

A thrush, because I’d been wrong,
Burst rightly into song
In a world not vague, not lonely,
Not governed by me only.

People sit down with their brush or their sculpting tools or their beads and loom, and I suppose sometimes they are trying to make something immortal, something that will speak to the human heart in every age. But the living artists I have met are not like that. Their aims are so much more humble, in general. Many of them are simply trying to capture something because they know it’s fleeting, and they have no illusions that what they create will somehow be more permanent. (Well, we’ll talk about the Egyptians some other time.) Making art is a way of naming the unnameable, of finding a familiar spot in a vastly uncatalogueable universe of experiences.The very fact that we keep doing this is familiar enough for me, and I smiled and smiled my whole way through the museum.

I suppose I’m just happy, happy to be a member of a tribe that sees the world is fleeting and decides, I know what to do! And makes something.

Tell me about your home altar

I’ve been steeping in Catholic social media for more than 20 years, seeing into the lives and homes of people who identify very strongly as Catholics. And yet somehow all that time, I’ve been able to resist the idea of putting together a home altar. It always felt like something that other people do, people with tidier home and more orderly lives.

It’s not that I’ve kept some kind of aggressively secularized home, goodness knows. I’ve always hung sacred images on my walls, and our bookshelves have been as festooned as anyone else’s with little headless and handless Catholic statuary, and I don’t even want to think about how many year’s worth of dried out palm leaves are secreted in various cabinets, fruitlessly waiting to be burned. Growing up, it affected me very much to live surrounded with the faces of saints and angels and the eyes of icons.

But for some reason, I’ve always resisted gathering everything together into a dedicated spot that has no other purpose than to be a sacred space. Possibly I’m afraid that, if we have religious images everywhere, we can just live with them more or less passively, according to our abilities; but if there’s one spot that’s for nothing other than prayer, it will become very obvious when we’re falling down on the job. Even more obvious than it already is.

But for whatever reason, I recently finally pulled the trigger. I cleared off the top of the little piano and laid out a cloth. I bought a standing crucifix, arranged some robust potted plants around it, hung some icons and holy images on the wall behind it in a way that is visually balanced and also makes a sort of narrative spiritual sense to me, and put together the books we refer to for spiritual reading, and I guess . . . there it is.

Now what?

I am well past the notion that any kind of physical thing you can buy and set up in your house is going to magically, automatically make a meaningful difference in your spiritual life on its own. It just doesn’t work that way, and I know it. Still, I’d like to use this home altar, now that we’ve got it. Who’s got ideas for me?

We’ve done fairly well so far keeping it reserved just for sacred things, and we’re not letting random junk pile up on it (other than burnt-out matches and some dead leaves, but I’ll get to that!); but I’d like to put it to good use. I’m not really worried about doing it wrong, because I know it’s entirely optional; but I like it, and I’d like to do more.

I have a candle in a glass cup (which I bought when a priest friend said Mass in our home!), and when we manage to say our prayers at night, we light the candle in front of the crucifix first. On the anniversary of my parents’ death, I lit their yahrzeit candles there, as well. We do have little girls in the house, and when they bring in violets and dandelions and pretty rocks, I’ll encourage them to bring them to the altar.

What else? I know we can decorate it liturgically, as the year goes on. I would definitely like to emphasize more to my family how the year is anchored liturgically, and live less according to the retail seasons. This should help.

Tell me your home altar stories. Has it actually enriched your family’s spiritual life? If you’ve had a home altar for a while, have you changed your idea of what it should look like or what it’s for? Do you have rules about what belongs there, or do you let family members contribute whatever seems appropriate to them? I want to know!

A version of this essay was first published at The Catholic Weekly on May 16, 2022.

The O Antiphons reimagined: My interview with Sr. Ansgar Holmberg

Ansgar Holmberg, C.S.J., 86, didn’t paint her O Antiphon series to edify or instruct anyone. They were meant only for herself.

Ansgar (she likes to be called by her first name) has been with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet for 67 years, and although she has spent time teaching children and offering spiritual direction, she created these seven paintings over the course of three years as a personal way to contemplate Scripture.

“I had read what other people had said, but I decided to paint them for myself, for me to understand them better. That’s one of the ways I learn,” Ansgar said.

Now the seven paintings, done in brilliant gouache (a kind of opaque watercolor), are gathered in a small book, Praying the Advent Names of God, paired with poems composed by another sister in the community, Joan Mitchell, C.S.J.

The O Antiphons are a series of seven verses dating from the sixth century and prayed during vespers during the last week of Advent. Each antiphon is a name of Jesus taken from Scripture, and they are the basis for the popular Advent hymn, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”

Ansgar’s images are saturated with color and inhabit a strange space between iconography and myth. Ansgar said she did not set out to express a theological idea with her works; she simply followed her intuition.

“I didn’t have any rules or laws or requests put upon me, but it was my own expression of where I was at that time as I worked with these,” she said. “I put my own spin on it, and it went a bit more cosmic.”

Wisdom, for instance, is frequently portrayed in Western art with symbols like a lamp, a book or a female form enthroned; but in Ansgar’s conception, Wisdom is a figure descending fluidly from the heavens, grasping the sun in one hand, breathing out waters and engraving the bed of a riverbank with the other hand. Wisdom, Ansgar said, is proceeding from the womb of God.

Read the rest of my latest for America Magazine.

Image: “O Wisdom” from Praying the Advent Names of God by Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ, and Joan Mitchell, CSJ, used with permission

I’m giving away FOUR books by Tomie dePaola!

Tomie dePaola is a beloved author and illustrator for good reason, and in addition to his dozens of charming and lovely books about Strega Nona and Big Anthony, he published many Catholic books, including books on the saints, Bible stories, and other religious works. Ignatius Press with Magnificat has recently been reprinting some of these in hardcover. I got to review four of them, and they’ve given me four to give away to you! The titles:

Queen Esther
Brother Francis of Assisi
Noah and the Ark
Mary, the Mother of Jesus

Enter by using the form at the end of the post.

If you don’t win, or if you just want to order some or all of the books, I also have a 25% off code for these four books.

Use the coupon code STOMIE25 when you order any of these four books from Ignatius and get a 25% discount starting today and ending Saturday, Nov. 21 at midnight.

And now for the books!

Queen Esther (first published 1986) A simple and dignified telling of the story of Esther, the Jewish woman who was chosen for her beauty by the Persian king, and who risked her own life to protect her people.

Esther is rendered in blues and grays, very elegant but rather severe and sad, which seems right to me. She didn’t ask to be put in that position, but she did what had to be done once she was there.

A good true “princess” story about a girl chosen for her beauty, who musters up courage and strength for her people.

The story is somewhat simplified, good for young kids, and is nicely dramatic

The final page notes that her story is commemorated on the Jewish feast Purim. “On Purim, Jews give gifts to the poor and one another. This spring holiday often falls during Lent, when Catholics recall the courageous faith of Queen Esther.” I didn’t realize this was so, but he’s right! The Mass readings during Lent tell her story, paired with an exhortation to ask God for what we want and trust he will give it to us.

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Brother Francis of Assisi (first published 1982)
I had this one when it was first published, and as a result, I’ve always been a little afraid of St. Francis, as is appropriate. He is most certainly not the fuzzy wuzzy pal to our furry friends that pop culture has turned him into, but was an intense, passionate, singleminded man.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s not a scary or graphic book, but it doesn’t shy away from how hard Francis was on himself.

I had a hard time getting through the Pope’s dream where Francis holds up the crumbling walls of the Church. Oh boy. Give yourself time to compose yourself if you’re reading this one aloud.

It does include favorite stories, like Francis preaching to the birds, and dealing with the wolf of Gubbio,

and also has some lesser known stories, like Francis allowing himself to indulge in some honey almond cakes made for him by a patroness,

and a story about Francis recreating a manger scene and being visited by a real holy child who smiles at Francis and strokes his beard.

And here — get ready — here is Francis receiving the stigmata

This is one of de Paola’s longer books at 47 pages, and it includes the Canticle of the Sun and a timeline of Francis’ life, including his and Clare’s feast days. Good stories about Clare and her sisters, as well. The illustrations were painstakingly researched on site, and you get a real sense of place, as well as a sense of who Francis really was. Excellent.

*****

Noah and the Ark (first published 1983) I struggle with children’s books about Noah’s ark! I know it has animals and a rainbow, but it’s not really a children’s story, and it bothers me when it’s portrayed as cutesy or rollicking. DePaola’s version avoids this, and is told very simply and has a sort of mythical air to it, which works well.

God is shown as a powerful, bright hand emerging mystically from the heavens, and the animals are animals, not cartoonish sidekicks

DePaola’s mastery of color is on full display here. There are two pages with no text, just the flood waters:

and then the next page pulls back a bit and shows the ark still being tossed on the waves, but with the threatening clouds receding.

A solid rendition, bright and dignified. 32 pages, for children ages 5 and up.

*****

And now for the crown jewel of these new editions!

Mary, the Mother of Jesus (first published 1995) 33 pages, and there is a LOT in here. An astonishing book, luminous, illuminating. If you’re looking for a religious book to give a child for Christmas, this is the one.

It covers the whole life of Mary, from before her conception to her assumption and coronation, and it draws on scripture and also on pious legend, including things like the child Mary climbing the steps to the temple by herself,

and the staff of Joseph miraculously flowering. It also, to my surprise, describes Mary as gently dying and being laid in a tomb, with Thomas meeting an angel who has him roll the stone away and find her winding sheets left behind. My kids were a little dismayed, having been taught (by me!) that Mary didn’t die, but was assumed into heaven body and soul without dying first. It turns out there’s no actual dogma definitively saying whether she died or not. In any case, the illustration of her assumption got me right in the kishkes:

Reading the whole thing from start to finish helped me remember what a straight up good story it is, and how many angels came to this family.

All the illustrations are striking, and the expressions on the (clearly middle eastern) faces are subtle and thought-provoking. Here is Mary proud but protective as the wise men appear to visit her little son

Here are the parents angry, dismayed, and confused to find Jesus in the temple:

Here is Mary calmly and knowingly, with a glimmer of a smile, telling the stewards at Cana to do whatever Jesus tells them

and look at this angel, busting through into the room of this young girl with her long braid

Extraordinary. It says ages 7 and up, and honestly I would give this book to an adult convert to introduce him to Mary. It’s so lovely and heartfelt. Each section is introduced with a short excerpt from the liturgy of the hours. So good.

That’s it! Good luck! You have until Friday the 20th to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you can’t see the Rafflecopter form, click this link and it will take you there.

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P.S., Did I ever tell you my Tomie dePaola story? It’s not a very good story, but it’s what I’ve got. In second grade, I won a Young Author’s contest (The Day It Rained Piano Keys, by Simmy Prever. No copies extant) and dePaola presented the awards, and each winner got a kiss on the cheek. I’d been reading his books steadily my whole life, and almost forty years later, I finally got up my nerve to ask him for an interview, because he lived in NH. I wanted to know what his favorite book was, and what his relationship was with the Church, and how hard it was to paint the face of Jesus. And if he knew someone like Bambalona. So I put in my request and I waited with bated breath for his response, and then two weeks later, he died.

That’s my story. I don’t think I actually killed him, but if you want to talk to someone, my advice is to do it now, not later. SIGH.

Introducing Clara Fisher, published illustrator!

I’m kvelling! The book Clara illustrated just came in the mail.

Ceremonies Explained for Servers: A Manual for Altar Servers, Acolytes, Sacristans, and Masters of Ceremonies by Bishop Peter Elliott, published by Ignatius. Clara is 19, so I’m pretty psyched.

Here’s a short review of the book by Thom Ryng.

Here are a few of the illustrations she did (there are 17 total):

Doesn’t she have such a fresh, clean style? It looks completely modern, but dignified. I like how all the people look reverent, but the one boy swinging a lit thurible has a tiny little smile, because fire.

You can follow her on Instagram @clarascuro.

Here’s the book description:

Ceremonies Explained for Servers may well be called the “mother of all servers’ manuals”. This is the most detailed guide available for servers and those who train and supervise them at the altar.

In accessible language, Ceremonies covers the roles of servers in a wide range of Catholic liturgical celebrations. These are described in full, such as: the Mass in both the Ordinary and Extraordinary forms, the seven sacraments, the ceremonies of Holy Week, the Liturgy of the Hours, funeral rites, the liturgies that are celebrated by a bishop and major blessings.

Ceremonies also provides accurate explanations for each of these rites, with Catholic teaching on the liturgy and sacraments and a history of the ministry of servers. The skills, techniques and discipline involved in serving are explained, such as: how a procession should move, how to assist with incense, team-work and responding in emergencies and unforeseen situations.

A spirituality of this ministry runs through the manual, with an underlying theme of service and vocation. In an encouraging personal way, Ceremonies sets out high spiritual ideals that can inspire and guide those who enhance Catholic worship through their ministry.

2019 Catholic fine art and handmade gift guide!

Off we go! Lots of lovely stuff this year, some Catholic, not all. I could only feature a few items from each store, but many of these artists make a wide variety of goods, so do follow the links and shop around. If you’re ordering for Christmas, be sure to check shipping dates, especially if you’re requesting custom work.

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SARAH BREISCH of RABBIT DOG FINE ARTS

Delighted to see my friend Sarah offering her lovely, lively designs on these hand-painted cards.

“Located in Claremont, New Hampshire, Sarah spends her days with her husband, 8 children, two dogs, one cat, and working in her community. In the moments between, she creates ink and watercolor images inspired by her love of nature and literature. A lifelong artist, Sarah began selling her work in earnest a year ago. Currently, she offers individually hand-painted greeting cards. “

Sarah’s picks:

and my favorite:

The shop: RabbitDog Fine Arts
The blog

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RACHEL SCHMITZ of SOUTHFARTHING STUDIO

Digital portraits of families and pets, as well as a handful of Tolkien themed goods. “Custom artwork, created by a hobbit at heart.”

An example of a wedding portrait made from a photo:

and a rather cheeky Lord of the Rings-themed vinyl sticker:

Watch the store for painted ornaments, coming soon!

The shop: Southfarthing Studio

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ELIESE CALLAHAN of VIANNEY BEADS

“I make sacrifice beads in a variety of styles, featuring different saints. I have several ready-to-ship options in my Etsy store, and I am delighted to take custom orders. As a form of reparations/penance especially given the recent sexual abuse crisis, I always give a portion of my sales to charity. Recent charities have included a pregnancy center and food bank. This month and in December I am giving to a couple families, for their basic needs and also to help provide Christmas presents for their kids.”

The Shop:Vianney Beads

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REBECCA GÓRZYŃSKA of DELPHINA ROSE ART

“I sell religious fine art prints and printable Catholic coloring pages to spark interest in the saints and an appreciation for classical art. Currently I’m illustrating a Marian Consecration for Children, coming out next summer, which is why 95% of my pictures are of Our Lady, haha. My new prints are being released November 28.”

Our Lady of Perpetual Help print:

Marian Coloring Book PDF:

One of my favorites: Mystical Rose print:

The shop: Delphina Rose Art

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NICHOLE LANTHIER

Art for Prayer. Prints of charcoal, pastel, and oil paint original works.

Our Lady in Prayer:

Mary Undoer of Knots:

The shop: Nichole Lanthier

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GINNY AND SAJE CATHOLIC DESIGNS

“We create original designs inspired by our Catholic faith that are laser cut in wood and leather for unique pieces of jewelry.”

Our Lady Star of the Sea dog tag with prayer:

St. Patrick Rose Window earrings:

The shop: Ginny and Saje

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MARIE HEIMANN of FAWNLY

“fine art prints, mugs, blankets, pillows, and other home and paper goods with original hand painted and hand lettered art”

Hand painted Christmas ornament:

“It’s okay to feel your feelings” mug

The shop: www.fawnly.com

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WILLIAM FERRY

“Capturing everyday miracles”

Gorgeous landscapes and scenery still catch my eye but it’s the spiritual more than the temporal that has my focus. They also overlap, as you’ll see in the portfolio.

“First Frost” print:

“Psalm 24:10:

“Our Lady of the Petroglyphs”

Some work available at

https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/william-ferry?tab=artwork

Most current work:

https://williamferry.com

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THERESA BARGER of APPLE AND AZALEA

I love these Morse Code necklaces by my friend Theresa. They look like elegant necklaces but hold a secret meaning spelled out in beads. Customizable.

“Theresa makes all kinds of beaded jewelry. Her shop started years ago with wrap around rosary bracelets, but her biggest seller now is her beaded Morse Code necklaces. You can even request customized phrases or colors – just make sure to reach out before Dec. 10 for custom orders. Standard orders need to be placed by Dec. 15.”

“Defend us in battle”

“First Things First”

The shop: www.appleandazalea.etsy.com

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CARA JOHNSON of STITCHCRAFT YARNS

“I work in many different fiber arts– pattern design, knitting, crochet, sewing, embroidery, dyeing, and more. In my shop you’ll find one-of-a-kind embroideries, hand dyed yarn, saintly and geeky crochet dolls (and their patterns), felted art pieces, and whatever else I happen to be making!”

Our Lady of Guadalupe DOLL or PATTERN

Persephone from Hadestown:

And then there’s this:

Also pouches, patterns, and hand-dyed yarn, plus a teeny tiny Fred Rogers.

The shop: Stitchcraft Yarns

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ELZABETH SIEGER of SIEGER DESIGN CO.

“a variety of products with my digital illustrations: portraits, apparel, and prints for the home. My most recent creation is a series of plush prayer dolls featuring Catholic saints and/or prominent figures on the front, with a prayer on the back.” Illustrations will be rendered as cloth dolls, on the site soon:

A sample of a finished doll:

Many military designs available.The shop: Sieger Design Co.

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TURBO TUTOR Teaching Resources

Lesson plans, learning games and teacher aids. Joanne has a few Christmas items listed now, good for activities for Christmas vacation.

Christmas Trivia Cards: A secular Christmas trivia game for grade 7 and up, drawing on history, literature, modern statistics, geography, and various holiday traditions in December.

Christmas Bingo, grades 6 and up: Out -of-the-ordinary call questions based on the Biblical Christmas story

The shop: Turbo Tutor at Teachers Pay Teachers

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ELISA LOW of DOOR NUMBER NINE

It’s always way too hard to pick just a few of Elisa’s creations to feature. Here are a few new items:

Illuminated manuscript medieval animal ornaments:

Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart resin pendant or necklace:

Jousting Snails infinity scarf with hidden pocket!

And so much more.

The shop: Door Number 9

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MELISSA WILLETT

Impressionist art, encaustic, watercolor, and more. Many small pieces available for sale.

“All around me, I see the world blossoming. Flowers are blooming, fruit is ripening, children are growing, and colors are exploding. In my art, I love to explore the lusciousness of the natural world. Through painting the moving and growing world, it can be captured and exaggerated to show the pleasure of viewing our stunning surroundings.”

Available for commission.

The gallery: melissawillett.com

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NANCI KEATLEY of PICCOLO DI LUCE

“Shining a little light”

Customizable pocket Oratories, Rosary Cases, Prayer Blankets and other items.

A customizable linen and wool felt “portable altar” pocket oratory designed for toddlers:

Customizable family-sized pocket oratory:

The shop: Piccolo Di Luce

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KYRA MATSUI of IRONLACE DESIGN

My readers are by now familiar with Kyra’s stunning, shining jewelry. Here’s something new: tree ornaments made of crystal and steel:

Also available in steel chainmail:

Many new necklaces and earrings, and some gorgeous new rosaries and fidget rosaries:

The shop: Iron Lace Design

***

If you have handmade goods to sell, feel free to leave a link to your shop in the comments.

Support the artists and craftsmen, save the world!

The prime directive: Make something beautiful. An interview with Jim Janknegt

One of my favorite living artists is James Janknegt. In 2017, he kindly gave me an interview for Aleteia about his life and work. Janknegt, 66, who lives in Texas, is currently working on a commission for five paintings for a book on the meaning of baptism. You can find more of James Janknegt’s art and purchase his book on Lenten Meditations at bcartfarm.com.

Here’s our interview:

You converted to Catholicism in 2005. What led up to that?

James Janknegt: When I was a teenager back in the 70s, there was a nationwide charismatic movement. I was Presbyterian at the time. There was a transdenominational coffee house at University of Texas, with the typical youth band playing Jesus songs. There was a frat house we had taken over. We had 20 people sleeping on the floor; it was crazy. A super intense time.

What kind of art education did you have?

I went to public high school, and they didn’t teach much about art history. I would look at books at book stores, and that was my exposure to art. We had a rinky-dink art museum at University of Texas, not much to speak of. After I had this deepening of my faith as a teenager, and really wanted to follow Jesus 100 percent, I was really questioning whether it was legit to become an artist. I didn’t know any artist who were Christians, or Christians who were artists.

Thumbing through the bookstore, I found Salvador Dali. The book was cracked open at “Christ of St. John of the Cross.”

That still, small voice that’s not audible, but you know it’s authentically God speaking to you — it felt affirmed. Yes, go forward to be an artist and be a Christian. Those are not incompatible.

Crucifixion at Barton Creek Mall – James Janknegt

Your pieces move from dark and lonely to radiant after your remarriage and conversion to Catholicism — that shift that you define as going from “diagnostic to celebratory.” But even in the “celebratory” stage, there is drama, even agony, along with ecstasy in your pieces.

When I was involved in that youth group, they were very super-spiritual, filled with the Holy Spirit, thinking, “Now we can do everything!”

But we never looked internally to see if there are psychological problems alongside your spiritual life. My dad was bipolar and manic depressive, in and out of mental institutions and jail. I met a woman at that Jesus freak outfit, and we got married. I carried a lot of baggage into my first marriage, that I hadn’t dealt with at all. I went to grad school and my marriage fell apart.

Getting divorced ripped the lid off. All this stuff I had repressed was all bubbling up and coming to the fore. Questioning not my faith, but my ability to be faithful. Can I hear Him and be obedient to Him and do His will? It was a very dark time.

When we look at your paintings chronologically, it very obviously mirrors different stages in your life. Is it strange to have your whole life on display?

You take that on when you become an artist. It’s very self-revelatory. It’s part of the deal, if you’re gonna be an artist, to be as honest as you can. I think that’s the downfall of a lot of bad religious art: It’s not technically bad, but it’s just not honest. We live in a fallen world. Bad things happen.

That’s part of life, and that has to be in your painting. You can’t paint sanitized, Sunday school art.

But you do seem to create art that has very specific meanings in mind. Do you worry about limiting what the viewer can get out of a piece?

There’s a painting I did of Easter morning zinnias. They look like firecrackers; Jonah’s on the vase; in the corner, there’s an airplane.

I just needed something in the corner to make your eye move into that corner! People were trying to figure out what it meant, but sometimes an airplane is just an airplane.

To me, the role of art is to make something beautiful. Very simple, that’s the prime directive: Make something beautiful.

It doesn’t have to be figurative or narrative or decorative. But my feeling is: The history of our salvation, starting with Genesis to Revelation, is indeed the greatest story ever told. What’s better? As an artist, why wouldn’t I want to tell that?

How does the secular world respond to your works? They are full of parables and Bible stories, but also unfamiliar imagery.

A painting is different from a sentence or a paragraph. Paintings deal with visual symbols. I’m trying to take something that was conceptualized 2,000 years ago in a different culture, keeping the content, in a different context.

It’s almost like translating a language, but with visual symbols.

I have a definite idea of what I’m trying to get across. But you [the viewer] bring with yourself a completely different set of assumptions and experiences, and I have no control over that. I don’t want to.

When I look at a painting, it’s a conversation. I’m talking into the painting, and the painting is talking to you.

Part of the problem today is that we do not have the same visual symbolic language. In the Renaissance or the Middle Ages, the culture was homogeneous, and symbols were used for hundreds and hundreds of years. If I put a pelican pecking its breast, no one [today] knows what that means. We’ve lost the language. So it’s challenging.

Are you inventing your own modern symbolic language? I see birds, dogs…

You kind of have to. It’s a balancing act. In art school, they say, “Just express yourself! You’re painting for yourself; it doesn’t matter what everyone else gets out of it.” I’m not doing that. I’m trying to communicate with people.

Tell me about the state of religious art right now.

People complain about how there’s no good religious art. But there’s a lot of good art out there; you just have to search for it. I feel like I’m hidden away, in this weird place between two cultures, but they are out there.

Saint John the Evangelist/James Janknegt

In our time, people who collect art aren’t religious, and people who are religious don’t collect art. And for an artist, in the Venn diagram, you’re in the place where it says “no money.”

If you could just find an artist you really like and ask them if you could buy a piece for your home shrine.

If every Catholic could buy a piece of art from a living artist, think how that would impact your life, and the life of the artist. You could give them a living.

Your farm is called “Brilliant Corners Art Farm.” Is that name a reference to Thelonious Monk?

It is! But it also has a hidden spiritual meaning. Honesty is the light. If you’ve got brilliant corners, then the whole room is lit up.

I Will Make All Things New/James Janknegt

You can find more of James Janknegt’s art and purchase his Lenten Meditations book of 40 paintings based on the parables of Jesus Lenten Meditations at bcartfarm.com.

My interview with James Janknegt of Bright Corners Art Farm

In case you missed it, here’s my interview at Aleteia with Catholic artist Jim Janknegt. Fascinating guy, incredibly powerful work. I wish I could have made the interview five times as long.

Catholic Artist of the Month: Neilson Carlin

Here is the third installment in a series: Catholic Artist of the Month. Rather than constantly kvetching about mediocre, sentimental art by Christians, I’ll be featuring artists who are doing it right.

This month, I’m delighted to present Neilson Carlin, whose Holy Family image, commissioned for the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia in 2015, was recently unveiled by Archbishop Chaput.

Carlin’s work has been widely exhibited. He specializes in commissioned sacred work, and has been training art students for many years at Studio Rilievo in Kennett Square, PA.

Although he was raised Lutheran, Carlin says that when he was young that he wanted to be a priest. But it wasn’t until he was preparing for his marriage that he really considered joining the Church. Here is the conversation we had earlier this week. My questions are in bold.
*****

Tell us about your conversion to Catholicism.

My parents became involved with Evangelical Christianity, and I believed a lot of stereotypes about Catholics: Mary worship, idol worship, that the Mass was nothing more than vain repetition, that it was a dry, dead, man-created religion.

After college, I started going to Mass with my wife[-to-be], because I wanted to hang out with her. The parish was authentic, with on-fire Christians. There was a profound spirituality. The year before we got married, I went into RCIA, not to become a Catholic, but because we were going to raise the children Catholic. I wanted to at least get from the horse’s mouth what I was vowing to do.

Was there any one issue that especially bothered you about the Church?

The authority issue was the last hurdle. The parish priest was an accountant, and the deacon was a lawyer. The two of them had the right background for my personality. They would systematically, in a cool, rational fashion, answer anything about history, and send me looking to read more, never sending me off without something. They took me to the end of reason where faith begins.

Two weeks before Easter 2000, my heart had to finally break. I had to get down on my knees and get over it, get beyond the issues I had with the Church. My head was in the Church ten years before I ever joined. I didn’t realize that the things I wanted to do as an artist had a place in the Church.

You had established a career as an artist by this point already?

Yes, I’ve been a professional artist since 1992. After doing nine years of commercial illustration, I recognized I had big gaps in my skill set. I was confident I had the ability to draw, with pen and ink — I had wanted to be comic book illustrator. I had oil paintings in my head, but didn’t have the technical ability, so I opted for watercolor.

I met with a teacher in the West Side of Manhattan, Michael Aviano. I took a class, and within thirty minutes I knew this was what I was looking for. Now I teach classes based on what I learned from him.

It’s the Atelier movement, an old-school intensive curriculum that takes you through all the basics. You come into someone’s studio and work directly under them, rather than getting that four-year degree. I spent five years with Aviano, learning painting and composition. The training made me confident I could move into other areas.

Like what?

Like portrait commissions, the gallery market, larger scale oil paintings. Also, in the mid-90′s, there was a shift in the illustration market. The entire commercial field took a hard turn toward the computer. But I like the smell of turpentine.

By the end of the millennium, I had transitioned out of illustration and into gallery work and teaching. When I got some time, I would do sacred work that meant something to me. Portraits of Christ, paintings of the Eucharist.

A lot of your gallery pieces are not overtly religious, but they look pretty incarnational to me. Some of your still lifes, especially, are really sensual.

I thought, “Hide the kids; that is one sexy melon!”

Thank you!

Then there is “Sacrifice,” with juicy meat and some very cruciform bones. To my Catholic eyes, it’s obviously a Catholic painting. What was going on there?

I’ve had great relationship with secular galleries, but I felt like I had to be in the closet with paintings.

They didn’t think there was a market for religious art. They wanted floral paintings, still lifes, and landscapes.

I was making a living, which was better than some, but I didn’t want to end up being 65 years old and still doing this type of work. As much as I loved illustration, there were other things I wanted to do. And part of me still wanted to be a comic book artist, with full-scale, multi-figure, narrative paintings.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about the Holy Family icon for the World Meeting of Families.

The faces of the adults are full of apprehension and worry, but Jesus looks very determined, and His foot is off the stone, as if He can’t wait to get going.

I was trying to convey the centrality of Christ in the family. I don’t care for maudlin, smiling representations of the Holy Family. Joseph and Mary were real people with real concerns. They were concerned about Him, but He was the rock. They had to look to their son for the promise of what He would do. All the elements of the painting bring you back to Him. He’s the center of the piece.

How did you choose the models?

Mary and Jesus’ faces were the one thing I felt some stress over, getting it just right. Some people are saying that they look too Jewish, and some people say they look too Northern European.

I guess that means you did something right!

Technically, I knew I could carry it off. The Bishop was happy with the design, the architecture of the cathedral was incorporated. But I had some sleepless nights because I wanted to make sure they were presented in a way that was respectful. A student of mine does icon writing. She said to pray about it, and allow it to come forth.

Is there a lot of pressure when you’re doing a religious painting? You don’t want to convey something spiritually misleading.

That’s where I rely on the priest I’m working with. I haven’t been raised in the Catholic tradition. Who can follow 2,000 years of history? Once I presented a sketch of Christ the King. I had looked at all these paintings, but it didn’t click with me that the hand of blessing was always the right hand. The liturgical design coordinator had to correct me.

When you’re doing a commission for a church, you must be thinking, “People are going to be looking straight at this for a whole hour, week after week.”

Oh, yes. The current piece I’m working on has twenty saints in twelve individual panels, in preexisting marble niches, six on the left of the tabernacle, six on the right. It’s going to show the Communion of Saints. I’m trying to create a porch where they’re existing.

It’s a difficult design challenge. I want it so that, when someone comes up for Communion, the perspective is gauged for that. The perspective will make sense once the Host is in your mouth, so that all the saints are joining in the feast of the Lamb with you.

For the Holy Family portrait, I wanted people to feel like, when you’re in the cathedral, they’re sitting there with you. There is a high degree of realism in the fabric and especially in the hands where they touch each other.

But I didn’t want people to look at the figures and find them so real, you could meet them at the gas station. I’m always trying to separate the model from the painting.

I know you’ve done a lot of portraits of saints, though, that are supposed to be recognizable. But I’ve seen saint pictures that are just slavishly accurate copies of photos, and they aren’t art, exactly. How do you handle this?

I arrange the figures in original compositions, get them costumed, and then use a photograph [of the saint] and put that head on the model’s body, and reconfigure the lighting in my head. I get a good, solid line drawing, and then put the photo away and work from the line drawing. I don’t try to make it look like a photo.

If the photo is in front of me, I’m going to try to get every last thing in it, but that would anchor the piece too much in matter. If I put the photo away, that allows me to find some balance between the ideal in my head and representing what’s in the photo.

I think the current interest in photorealism, cultivating the ability to copy everything within your visual field, has its root in a revival of 19th-century materialist philosophy. But I’m cultivating an incarnational aesthetic. I used to think that being able to copy what was right in front of my visual field was the peak. But you get there, and you think, “What now?” A whole lot of people can be trained to do that. I’m looking for more.

What are you looking for?

The Baroque period resonates with me the most: that Caravaggiesque dirt under the fingernails. He painted those figures from someone, but you don’t feel like it’s a model. It’s real, tangible, and exists in space, but it’s not slavishly copied from what’s in front of him.

For instance, most of the art depicting Gianna Molla and Miguel Pro are straight up copies of photos. Instead, I tried to create a narrative, show them engaged, show some of their attributes.

Do people sometimes get things out of your paintings that surprise you?

All the time. People find things that I didn’t intend. Like any work of art, a painting isn’t journalism. It’s poetry.

Who are you favorite artists now?

Right now? Guercino, Guido Reni, and Tiepolo. Michelangelo, of course. Raphael, of course. They get back to my roots as a comic book illustrator. The first time I went to the Met in New York, I saw a Guercino, “Sampson Taken by the Philistines,” with that muscular back. It was loaded with figures, so much action, and oodles of figures and colors.

The first thing I thought was, “It looks like a comic book panel.”

How about artists working right now? Who do you like?

For secular artists, a young guy named Adam Miller, a superior draftsman who does a lot of multifigure work. His compositions are extraordinary.

Steve Huston does beautiful figure work.

Donato Giancola does top tier illustration. He’s a painter and designer extraordinaire.

For sacred art: Anthony Visco is a sculptor from Philadelphia. He’s the whole nine yards in one bundle, a real renaissance man: architect, teacher, sculptor.

For painters, Raul Berzosa is my new superhero. He completed a ceiling I couldn’t believe. He’s such a young guy at such a high level. It’s mind boggling.
Cody Swanson is another contemporary secular artist, another powerhouse.

Any advice for artists who would like to work for the Church?

Make sure what’s in your portfolio is what they will want to see! I had only a few pieces of sacred work in my portfolio, but it was enough to catch the eye of Cardinal Burke. That’s what allowed me to take it to the next level.

*****

A gallery of Carlin’s work, information about commissions, and more can be found at his website, NeilsonCarlin.com.

This is the third in a series of interviews with Catholic artists. Previous installments:
Matthew S. Good
Timothy Jones

*****

Are you a Catholic artist, or do you know one who would be available for interview? Send me a tip at simchafisher[at]gmail[dot]com. I am especially looking for sculptors, photographers, architects, and painters who are doing non-representational work.

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SARAH BREISCH of RABBIT DOG FINE ARTS

RACHEL SCHMITZ of SOUTHFARTHING STUDIO

ELIESE CALLAHAN of VIANNEY BEADS

REBECCA GÓRZYŃSKA of DELPHINA ROSE ART

NICHOLE LANTHIER

GINNY AND SAJE CATHOLIC DESIGNS

MARIE HEIMANN of FAWNLY

WILLIAM FERRY

THERESA BARGER of APPLE AND AZALEA

CARA JOHNSON of STITCHCRAFT YARNS

ELZABETH SIEGER of SIEGER DESIGN CO.

TURBO TUTOR Teaching Resources

ELISA LOW of DOOR NUMBER NINE

MELISSA WILLETT

NANCI KEATLEY of PICCOLO DI LUCE

KYRA MATSUI of IRONLACE DESIGN

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