This is my first post on here. Thank you, Theodore, for allowing me to contribute. Here is a painting of mine from 2002:
Crucifixion. It's an 18" x 24" oil on illustration board.
In May of 2004, a copy was presented to His Holiness, Blessed Pope John Paul II.
beautiful! What an honor to have it given to the Pope! What were the circumstances?
ReplyDeleteSophie
The inspiration for the painting came while I was praying in our parish church one night, and someone had left the lights above the crucifix on while the rest of the church was dark. It looked awesome, so I ran out to my car and grabbed my camera. Soon thereafter, I had a concept sketch completed, and I began the painting. It took about 70 hours of work, start to finish. It was the spring of 2002, and I also happened to be preparing to attend World Youth Day (WYD) in Toronto. Initially I tried to have the copy given to Blessed Pope John Paul II during WYD as a thank you because the Holy Father was in poor health, but still resolved to attend (it ended up being the last WYD he ever attended). Due to a miss-communication the print never made it to the pope, and was returned to me. A year later a friend suggested that I should ask my pastor if he could pass the print up to the bishop, who could pass it along to the pope somehow. When I met with my pastor, he told me that a seminarian for our diocese, who was studying in Rome, happened to be home for the summer and was staying at our parish. The seminarian gladly agreed to bring the painting back to Rome with him, and when my bishop (the late Bishop Patrick Cooney) next visited Rome for his ad limina visit with the Holy Father (May 2004), Bishop Cooney brought with him the seminarian and the print. At first Pope John Paul II thought they were asking to get the picture blessed, so he blessed it and handed it back to them, at which point they informed him that it was a gift, to which he responded: "Oh, it's beautiful. Thank you!" Pope John Paul II also sent a thank you letter to me through his secretary. Less than a year later, he died. As far as I know, the print remains in the Vatican collection, so if you ever visit Rome, keep an eye out for where they might have put it. The seminarian eventually became a priest: Rev. Fr. Donald Libby. He was my spiritual director for a while, and he was the priest who officiated at our wedding.
ReplyDeleteThank you, by the way, for the compliment.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the story--it's wonderful!
ReplyDeleteWonderful painting and story! Welcome!
ReplyDeleteLovely story and painting. :)
ReplyDeleteIt's a great painting. Do you paint often? Do you have examples of your work online?
ReplyDeleteMy portfolio is on my blog: http://procaritateveritatis.blogspot.com/p/art-portfolio.html
ReplyDeleteThank you for the compliment, Gail. I don't paint often these days. Teaching takes most of my time right now. Occasionally I still have opportunities to draw, paint, take photographs, and/or make computer-based artwork.
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