The Lily and the Carpenter

by Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs | Jul 22, 2019 | Blog

“I will be as the dew, Israel shall spring as the lily, and his root shall shoot forth as that of Libanus.”Osee 14:6 In his principal Mass, St. Joseph is compared to three plants: the palm, the cedar of Lebanon, and the lily. The Introit begins, “Justus ut palma...

Darkness & Blood: A New Pietà

by Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs | Jun 17, 2019 | Blog

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood: before the great and dreadful day of the Lord doth come.—Joel 2:31 The Prophecy of Joel After the descent of the Holy Ghost on Pentecost Sunday, when St. Peter preaches the Gospel for the first time, he...

A Crown of Gold for the House of Gold

by Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs | May 11, 2019 | Blog

Crown of the Andes, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York In the last decade of the 1590s, in gratitude to the Immaculate Conception for having spared them from an outbreak of smallpox, the people of Popayán in the Spanish Viceroyalty of New Granada offered her...

Pietà with Saints John and Mary Magdalen

by Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs | Apr 16, 2019 | Blog

Christus factus est pro nobis obediens usque ad mortemChrist became obedient for us unto death—From the Gradual for Maundy Thursday, based on Philippians 2:8 On Monday of Passion Week Gwyneth began working on a commission for a Pietà with Saints John and Mary...

Darkness & Light: On the Importance of Drawing

by Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs | Apr 16, 2019 | Blog

He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, and not into light. —Lamentations 3:2, chanted in the Office of Tenebrae for Good Friday Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper, in an essay first published in 1952, writes that “man’s ability to see is in decline” because of...