Mary's Song
I was honored to be asked to create a piece of art based off of scripture for this advent season. I attend Awaken Church in St Paul, which is this amazing community like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The church is absolutely filled with artists: painters, poets, singers, actors, sculptors, and more. And not just hobbyists, but real-deal, touring, exhibiting artists of all kinds. This community values art in a really beautiful way.
I was given this prompt to create a piece ofart from. It is known as “Mary’s Magnificat” and has been the source of inspiration for composers like Bach, so I am far from the first to use this as my muse.
Mary’s Magnificat – Luke 1:46-55
And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of the Almighty’s servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is God’s name.
God’s mercy is for those who fear God
from generation to generation.
God has shown strength with God’s arm;
God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
God has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
God has helped servant Israel,
in remembrance of God’s mercy,
according to the promise God made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.
I got thinking about Mary, and as a recently pregnant person, I got thinking about her beautiful pregnant belly. I also got noticing how we rarely see Mary pregnant in art. Interested in stained glass lately, I got looking up stained glass depictions of Mary and noticed that I couldn’t find any of her pregnant. Pregnancy is an amazing, wild experience, but I think showcasing pregnant women’s bodies has been considered inappropriate in the past. I am no art historian, but I recall other women that were taken out of the spotlight because of their pregnant belly bodies. (For example, Lucille Ball from “I love Lucy” was nearly cancelled because of her “condition”.
I don’t know the first thing about making stained glass windows, but I do know how to paint. I decided to create a watercolored stained glass window. First I drew with pencil, then thin pen. Then I watercolored, and finally went over the lines with a thick black pen to really enhance the stained glass effect.
There are a few things to notice in this painting.
Referring to the lineage of women in the Bible, I added and apple in the tree to the left, plus a subtle snake wrapped around the trunk. I wanted to mark those points in time, the “bookends” of Eve (the first woman) and me (the artist) with Mary between us.
Mary is quite pregnant here, so I gave her a full belly and breast. I also put her in blue, which is historically the color she wears in art (now that you know this, you’ll notice it).
There is a white dove in the sky, representing her baby Jesus coming.
This passage from the Bible talks about the next generations, so I added a group of women clustered to the right of Mary. I like to think of this group pictured in two ways. One, I am hope full that Mary had a group of mothers to support her in her pregnancy. I only survive pregnancy and motherhood because I have a group of women at my side. Two, I like to picture this as the next generations of women watching her, just as we all continue to think of Mary during this season.
I scanned in a copy of this piece before I watercolored it so that other people can color it too! What a fun way to share art together. I have added a free download of this PDF in my store, so please get a copy and send me a picture of your version. I recommend hanging it in a sunny window so you can have your own pregnant Mary stained glass! (don’t leave it there forever thought because the sun will bleach away all your hard work!)
If you’d like to hear the sermon by Jenna Daniels that day, click here.
If you’d like to download a free copy of the coloring sheet, click here.
You can purchase prints of my painting here
Thank you for your interest in my work. This was a very special piece to create.