Arts and crafts: Statues without clothes...

I love everything Spanish Colonial.  Especially statues which need to be clothed.

There is a cool site which sells bultos - religious figures to be dressed.  If you are crafty - you could make your own Madonna dressed in elegant 17th century royal splendor.  The site is called Santos Cage Doll - you can get crowns, ex-votos, replacement hands and angel wings too.

T'is the season to make things.

Arts and crafts: If I were a rich man...

I would buy this statue of S. Diego de Alcala.

Isn't he handsome?  Polychromed wood, 25" tall.  Excellent condition, masterfully carved.  The little lay brother saint is shown with his garment lifted where he was carrying food for the poor, which miraculously changed into roses as another friar, annoyed with Diego checked to see what he was carrying.  The flowers are gone from the image, but the cord of St. Francis remains attached to the figure.

I can't afford him, but I inquired about the price nonetheless - I'll update when i find out.  If I could afford him, I'd like to run away to hermitage with him, and live the rest of my life - the hermitage would have to be attached to a chapel with the Blessed Sacrament of course, and another statue of Our Lady would have to accompany us.  See!  Too many necessities, conditions required.  It's not meant to be.

S. Diego, or Didicus is indeed the patron of San Diego in California, as well as the patron of a little friend of mine far, far away, whom I pray for all the time.

The saint's feast day moves about depending on which calendar one is using.  The OFM's have theirs, the Ordinary Form has it another day, and of course the old calendar has it another day.  I kept his feast yesterday, and late last night, when I couldn't sleep, S. Diego visited me with this image online.

Diego is one of those Franciscan lay brother saints who became very, very holy by living in fidelity to his state in life - ordinary life.

Source

 
So sad - I just found out the retail is $15,000.00.

Christmas crafts: Retablos

I've often told Kat - who happens to be an excellent artist - that she should make retablos from her drawings - but she ignores me.  Anyway - this video explains how to make a retablo ornament -  contact information is included.  (This lady is very smart BTW - she has made a craft business for herself - stamps and kits and so on.  Check it out. http://delgadoarts.bigcartel.com/products  And no, I do not know her.)

Christmas is only a month away!

November 25 - start decorating!
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Another reason I'm into Christmas so early and love it that Christmas stuff is up in the public square (ads, merchandise, etc.) is that I always make stuff for Christmas.  This year I continue my work on card designs - picking up where I left off last year, and I'm also doing Bethlehem backgrounds for the nativity at my parish.  Not huge ones - just 30" x 40" views out the stable windows.  It's fun - not great art - but pazzi and fanciful - I'm working without preliminary drawings - or strict composition.  Just doing it.
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Making things for Christmas - to sell, to gift, to donate - it makes the season come alive - it allows the prep time to be as much fun as the season itself - which lasts from December 25 all the way to Candlemass - February 2!

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The photo's here are early examples of some work I did for an exclusive interior design company - way back in 1989!  They are copies of Fra Angelico angels - flat boards I cut out, painted and gilded, and then mounted on a wood base I painted faux ivory and lapis, adding gold ball feet.  I think the firgures were about 40" tall.  At the time they retailed at $450 each.
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