St. Hildegard in Progress

Still working on an icon of St. Hildegard of Bingen, an amazing German lady of the 13th century--musical composer, spiritual writer, founder of a monastery, adviser to the powerful in her day--and I could go on.  She has been called an artist as well, and perhaps justifiably so, although the pictures attributed to her were probably not done by her own hand, but by painters under her direction--depicting mainly the various visions she received during her life.  If you'd like to see some of her work, or read her writings, it is readily available on the internet since she has undergone a great surge in popularity over the past few decades.  I guess she's become a sort of feminist hero and New Age spiritual guru.

Here's a snapshot of the icon in progress showing the inner part that will frame the figure of the saint.  I made the earth and sky background all wavy--not sure exactly why.  I plan on writing the text of one of Hildegard's hymns along the wavy lines of the sky, using the script of her place and time--or a reasonable facsimile thereof, since I am not a practiced calligrapher.  My first idea was to put this in as in the musical manuscript, the old-fashioned "sheet music" as it were, but have decided to keep it simple and just use the words.  Perhaps the lilting lines alone give some sense of music.

I have a bit of a backlog going--an icon of St. Brigid of Ireland and a couple other items yet to be scanned and offered as prints.  Financial constraints--so by all means feel free to hit that donate button on this page!

St. Brigid of Ireland

This is a snapshot of my recently completed icon of St Brigid of Ireland (d.524), one of those strong woman leaders of the Church of the ancient British Isles, a woman of noble family who founded a great abbey at Kildare.  Next to St. Patrick, I guess St. Brigid is the most popular Irish saint--she's right up there anyhow.

The border is my somewhat free interpretation of patterns found in traditional Celtic art, and featuring images associated with Brigid and her homeland: anemone flowers (associated with the saint); hops foliage (because according to reports, Brigid was fond of beer); reed crosses at the corners; and of course some shamrocks.

The figure stands against a simple landscape of rolling hills.  She holds a model of a church building, emblematic of her founding of an abbey.  In her right hand she holds a crozier, emblematic of her leadership in the church.  While the crozier today is exclusively associated with bishops, you do see it in some icons, old and new, held by a woman who was a prominent abbess in her time.

As for the sword under Brigid's foot--there's an interesting story there that I'll leave it to you to look up.

St. Brigid liked beer so much, she wrote a poem about it, which you can read here: http://www.minogue.com/brigid/prayer.php

I'm going to make this icon available as a print in the next week or so.