Ways of the Cross

Yucca Plant image

Sometime in the winter of 1995/96 my friend and mentor Milania Austin Henley introduced me to the artwork of Michael Schrauzer who, like Milania, was associated with St. Andrew’s Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery at Valyermo. She did so through the “Journal of the Arts and Religion” called Image. Schrauzer’s work is formal, often housed in rich cabinets, yet inviting, contemplative. The Annunciation consists not of cabinetry but of interlocking frames: a gilt T—the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet—foreshadows the Cross; its setting sun smolders in the base of the letter’s upright, bisecting a white rose. It is almost cruel in its “truth, perfection, completion.”1 It’s the obverse of Oscar Wilde, who describes his wonder at the, well, banality of this consequential moment.

Ave Maria Gratia Plena

Was this His coming! I had hoped to see
A scene of wondrous glory, as was told
Of some great God who in a rain of gold
Broke open bars and fell on Danae:
Or a dread vision as when Semele
Sickening for love and unappeased desire
Prayed to see God’s clear body, and the fire
Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly:
With such glad dreams I sought this holy place,
And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand
Before this supreme mystery of Love:
Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face,
An angel with a lily in his hand,
And over both the white wings of a Dove.

— Oscar Wilde, Vatican Gallery, Rome, 1877

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Jim Morphesis: Conversations in Isolation

Blue Altarpiece by Jim Morphesis

The sun will never disappear
But the world may not have many years

— John Lennon, “Isolation”

In the summer of 2020 I contacted visual artist Jim Morphesis to ask his permission to reprint his private reply to Rudy Perez in response to Part 2 of my Portrait of Rudy Perez series. Jim had reminded Rudy of how the two had met on July 24, 1981, when Rudy appeared on Rona Barrett’s television show.

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