Behind the Scenes
Ave Maria Gratia Plena
Today, on October the 2nd and All Souls Day, I finished sketching the words: “Hail Full of Grace” (beneath Mary) and “The Lord is with Thee” at the bottom of each one of the two paintings. I began with this task because lettering is challenging and involves a lot of measuring, so I needed to get it right (and to get it out of the way!) I’ve shared a reel and photos of this process on my @adelepierce instagram page and in my stories. These letters will be gold and they will be beautiful. As a huge fan of lettering, poster art and the decorative arts, I’m excited to see script within the art itself. I hope the words will make the viewer think.
I’ve been preparing and researching for these two paintings of the Blessed Virgin and of the Angel Gabriel, far more than I’ve ever done for my past work. For years I’ve painted urban landscapes and before that, portraits. I love architecture and light and the ways that light behaves on glass, metal and concrete and how sunlight and shadows create patterns on streets and buildings. I’ve always carefully planned the scope of every new work, ensuring that it’s properly cropped and that there’s movement for the eye to follow and a clear focal point to begin and to end on. You want the eye to move around a painting, taking it all in.
For these images of Mary and the Angel, I’m doing all of this but ALSO looking deeper than just at composition: I’m looking to history, to the Bible, to other representations of religious art including statuary, and to decorative art and symbols that for centuries have enhanced and explained the story of the Annunciation. It’s been so interesting and my hope is that there will be a great deal of information in these two works of art for people to contemplate and to pray with.
When I paint, I always want to convey beauty filtered through light. I essentially try to bring so much beauty into a painting that it shows God’s role as creator in that scene, no matter what the scene is. I can’t wait to work on the ways that the light will glow in these paintings. I have a vision of it all in my mind as well as in sketches and I also have beautiful photos of my two models to work from, taken by Nick Zambon. Nick and I and the models met twice, right in the church with each one of them posing in the spots where their respective images will eventually hang. I asked Nick to ensure that the lighting would be soft but bright, and that it had to emanate from above the altar where the crucifix will hang, where the Tabernacle will stand on it’s new altar and where the Eucharist is held up during the Consecration. Nick’s photos are gorgeous and they glow.
Just as an artist needs to plan and prepare before painting, we needed to plan the design properly before Brother Builds could begin to attach our supports and decorative wood finishes to the walls. Besides having numerous meetings for measuring and discussion, there was an important meeting with engineers from Lampkin, who took note of the interior structure of the walls and provided us with detailed plans of how they must be prepared so that the wood slat design (the backdrop for the art), will safely stay up on the walls. It turns out that the wall to the right of the altar when you’re facing it, is hollow, so Brother Builds had to create a supporting structure within it, connect it to 2 x 4’s on the exterior of the wall and then attach MDF to those 2 x 4’s. The decorative wood slats will be attached to the MDF you now see painted blue. MDF doesn’t warp will provide the support needed for the weight of the wood. For aesthetic reasons the very same method needed to be used on the left side of the altar and it looks fantastic.
Today, both the left and right sides have already been painted blue, and next, Paul and Josh are going to begin on the centre section. Really, the entire Sanctuary is like a giant Triptych - a work of art in three parts and often hinged together, in which each one tells a part of a story. That’s what we’re doing too.
Adele