Found Art Friday 118

Dear Folk,
Thank you for noticing that we missed a week.  The artist was not at large, but stuck to a chair.  There was no time to look around at the fabulous elsewhere.  She was screened-in and it wasn't a porch.

For some, last week was Holy.  It made our news-story-approval-delight to see the new Pope man washing and blessing the feet of juvenile delinquents of various colors, genders and faiths, while wearing old sandals.  The bowl of Holy Water very plain, much resembling our dog's water bowl. (And we find the spirituality of dog comparable to sainthood.) Though we are not Catholic, we have always enjoyed the pictures and stories.

Here are highlights of Hagiography as gathered and digested by the Art Ranger:
One of our faves is Saint Bernadette, origin of the healing grotto at Lourdes in France. She saw an apparition 18 times at a particular place of a little lady who had roses about her feet. Nobody believed the girl at first, especially not her mother.  

"I went back because I felt myself interiorly impelled. My mother had forbidden me to go." The girl checked to make sure that the little lady did not have cloven hooves for feet. Gradually apparition lady began giving Bernadette some instructions for her new job "(The Lady) told me that I should go and drink at the fountain and wash myself. Seeing no fountain I went to drink at the Gave. She said it was not there; she pointed with her finger that I was to go in under the rock. I went, and I found a puddle of water which was more like mud, and the quantity was so small that I could hardly gather a little in the hollow of my hand. Nevertheless I obeyed, and started scratching the ground; after doing that I was able to take some. The water was so dirty that three times I threw it away. The fourth time I was able to drink it. She made me eat grass growing in the same place where I had drunk; once only; I do not know why. Then the Vision disappeared and I went home." The next day, the spring began to flow.  The Holy Water of Lourdes evidently heals people of many things. They sell jars of it in the gift shop.  For us, Lourdes meaning heaviness in French really adds to the healing prowess.

Another preferred gem of sainthood narrative is of course, Virgen de Guadalupe.  She looks great on anything. 

We can smell this handcrafted leather item and wish to be in Tijuana right now eating mango on a stick. 

This time it was peasant, Juan Diego, who saw the apparition, a girl of 16 surrounded in light and speaking to him in Nahuatl (thereby nicely giving voice to the indigenous mesoamerican peoples). She left roses and her image miraculously imprinted upon some cloth. And according to Octavio Paz, "The Mexican people, after more than two centuries of experiments, have faith only in the Virgin of Guadalupe and the National Lottery".^[49]

Here was a fairly recent iteration of Guadalupe in Encinitas, California.  And that was the saga of The Surfing Madonna: a perfect clash of public versus private art.  This blogger well tells the tale:  http://artistsandthieves.com

Speaking of art interventions,  a more subtle act has appeared in several bay area locations recently:

Tiny door story

Note inside: "I wish you well", other side "May you be happy and healthy and may you know true heart's ease"

Thank you to Paul Murphy and his neighbors in San Jose's Naglee Park for sharing those.
May you have a chance to enjoy each onset of blossoms and their shedding.  Send images to:
FAF@homelandinspiration.org