Tag: Angela Yarber

Painting “Unknown” Holy Women: Commissions, Gifts, and the Unsung Stories of “Ordinary” Women by Angela Yarber

angelaEach month on Feminism and Religion, I feature a Holy Women Icon with a folk feminist twist. The painting is accompanied by an essay describing the holy woman’s life and the ways she stood for justice and peace, the ways in which she embodied feminism. Thus far, we have explored the stories of holy women that are well-known, perhaps not by the wider public, but by feminists seeking to uncover the forgotten truths of holy women throughout history. They are goddesses, saints, artists, dancers, scholars, clergy, and pillars of the faith: Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, Frida Kahlo, Salome, Guadalupe and Mary, Fatima, Sojourner Truth, Saraswati, Jarena Lee, Isadora Duncan, Miriam, Lilith, Georgia O’Keeffe, Guanyin, Dorothy Day, Sappho, Jephthah’s daughter, Anna Julia Cooper, the Holy Woman Icon archetype, Maya Angelou, Martha Graham, Pauli Murray, La Negrita, Tiamat/tehom, and Mother Teresa, just to name a few.

We tell their stories in our classrooms. Other artists paint them. Many have biographies or autobiographies recounting their lives. Their stories embolden us to stay strong, and continue working for justice and equality. But what of the women whose songs really are unsung, whose stories never grace the pages of our textbooks? What about the “unknown” women who have, indeed, emboldened us, paved the way for us to be who we are, but who most people have never heard of? Many such women are also holy, thus deserving of canonization as Holy Woman Icons.

ElizabethI would like to dedicate this post to all the holy women who fill our lives, yet whose stories we never hear. Because it is not only these seemingly famous women—these heroines of feminism—who are holy and whose stories matter.   Continue reading “Painting “Unknown” Holy Women: Commissions, Gifts, and the Unsung Stories of “Ordinary” Women by Angela Yarber”

Painting Mother Teresa by Angela Yarber

angelaOf all my Holy Women Icons, Mother Teresa joins Blessed Mary in being one of the most familiar, and often the one least cited for the cause of feminism. Joining Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, Frida Kahlo, Salome, Guadalupe and Mary, Fatima, Sojourner Truth, Saraswati, Jarena Lee, Isadora Duncan, Miriam, Lilith, Georgia O’Keeffe, Guanyin, Dorothy Day, Sappho, Jephthah’s daughter, Anna Julia Cooper, the Holy Woman Icon archetype, Maya Angelou, Martha Graham, Pauli Murray, La Negrita, Tiamat/tehom, and all my other Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist is this holy Catholic nun.

When I first began the Holy Women Icons project, she was an obvious woman who came to mind, but I resisted painting her for several years. Perhaps it’s because her story is so familiar. Maybe it’s because this pillar of humility and service embodies so many virtues that have been used to oppress women for centuries. I cannot quite articulate my resistance, but it was real. Continue reading “Painting Mother Teresa by Angela Yarber”

Painting Tiamat/Tehom by Angela Yarber

angelaToday I am honored to give a lecture on “Queering Iconography: Holy Women Icons from Sappho to Pauli Murray” at the North Star LGBT Center in Winston-Salem, NC. So, I want to continue the theme of featuring some of my queer Holy Women Icons. Joining Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, Frida Kahlo, Salome, Guadalupe and Mary, Fatima, Sojourner Truth, Saraswati, Jarena Lee, Isadora Duncan, Miriam, Lilith, Georgia O’Keeffe, Guanyin, Dorothy Day, Sappho, Jephthah’s daughter, Anna Julia Cooper, the Holy Woman Icon archetype, Maya Angelou, Martha Graham, Pauli Murray, La Negrita, and all my other Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist is the often overlooked and misunderstood primordial goddess of creation: tehom.

In Genesis 1 we read, “In beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” It is the creation narrative held dear, formative, and meaningful for countless Jews and Christians. Interestingly, this word, deep, in Hebrew is tehom. Tehom translates as “deep or depths,” but it’s also a cognate for Tiamat, a Babylonian Goddess of creation. Out of the face of the deep, the world begins. Out of tehom, God creates. Out of Tiamat, the earth comes into being. This dancing Babylonian goddess syncretistically intermingles with the creation myth so pivotal to the faith of Christians and Jews in a way that could be terrifying, or beautiful, or—like the chaotic body of Tiamat that brings the world into being—both. Continue reading “Painting Tiamat/Tehom by Angela Yarber”

Painting La Negrita by Angela Yarber

angelaOne week ago thousands of Costa Ricans made a pilgrimage to visit their patron saint on August 2. Some penitents walked the 22 kilometers on their knees from the capital of San José to the Nuestra Señora de los Angeles Basilica in Cartago where the small statue of La Negrita is now on display. Joining Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, Frida Kahlo, Salome, Guadalupe and Mary, Fatima, Sojourner Truth, Saraswati, Jarena Lee, Isadora Duncan, Miriam, Lilith, Georgia O’Keeffe, Guanyin, Dorothy Day, Sappho, Jephthah’s daughter, Anna Julia Cooper, the Holy Woman Icon archetype, Maya Angelou, Martha Graham, Pauli Murray, and all my other Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist is this seemingly small saint who has done big and mighty things: La Negrita.

Also known as La Virgen de los Angeles, the Black Virgin is a very small representation of the Virgin Mary. She was originally discovered by an indigenous woman on August 2, 1635. When the poor indigenous woman tried to take the stone statuette, it miraculously reappeared. The people responded by building a shrine around her. Continue reading “Painting La Negrita by Angela Yarber”

Queering Iconography, Painting Pauli Murray by Angela Yarber

angelaEven as my book, Holy Women Icons, is printed, bound, and available for purchase, filled with the stories of nearly fifty holy women, my project of painting these beloved saints continues. Joining all my other Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist is the brave, bold, and revolutionary Pauli Murray.

This month is a celebration of Murray’s life and witness is several meaningful ways. The first of July was her feast day, as she was deemed an Episcopal saint in 2012. LGBTQ author and activist, Kittredge Cherry, detailed Murray’s feast day, celebrating her as a “Human rights champion and queer saint…renowned civil rights pioneer, feminist, author, lawyer and the first black woman ordained as an Episcopal priest.” And the celebration of Pauli Murray’s radical witness continues as the icon bearing her image joins seventeen of my other Holy Women Icons at the North Star LGBTQ Center Gallery in Winston-Salem, NC for an exhibition entitled, “Queering Iconography: Holy Women Icons from Sappho to Pauli Murray.” Continue reading “Queering Iconography, Painting Pauli Murray by Angela Yarber”

Painting Martha Graham by Angela Yarber

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Joining Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, Frida Kahlo, Salome, Guadalupe and Mary, Fatima, Sojourner Truth, Saraswati, Jarena Lee, Isadora Duncan, Miriam, Lilith, Georgia O’Keeffe, Guanyin, Dorothy Day, Sappho, Jephthah’s daughter, Anna Julia Cooper, the Holy Woman Icon archetype, Maya Angelou, and all my other Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist  is the dancing revolutionary Martha Graham. So, as the contemporary and modern dancers on So You Think You Can Dance continue to amaze us this summer, let us remember from whence they came.

Martha Graham’s contribution to the world of dance cannot be overestimated. She is regaled as the Picasso of the dance world, revolutionizing it by introducing an entirely new quality of movement known as modern dance. Not only did Graham revolutionize the dance world, like Isadora Duncan before her, she also made great contributions to feminist spirituality. One of her most famous statements may well have been “wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.” Like most dancers who are so in tune with their bodies, Graham new the holiness therein, the ways in which the body can express the ineffable when words alone simply cannot. “The body never lies,” she famously reminds us.

Martha Graham Continue reading “Painting Martha Graham by Angela Yarber”

Writing Holy Women Icons by Angela Yarber

angelaFor two years I have had the great privilege of writing a monthly article about one of my Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist for Feminism and Religion. Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, Frida Kahlo, Salome, Guadalupe and Mary, Fatima, Sojourner Truth, Saraswati, Jarena Lee, Isadora Duncan, Miriam, Lilith, Georgia O’Keeffe, Guanyin, Dorothy Day, Sappho, Jephthah’s daughter, Anna Julia Cooper, the Holy Woman Icon archetype, Maya Angelou, and many others that will follow in the months and years ahead have guided, empowered, and inspired me as an artist, activist, feminist, scholar, and preacher.

I knew from that outset that writing about them would deepen my relationship with each of these amazing women. I also knew that their power and efficacy monumentally increases when they join together. This colorful cloud of witnesses has filled myriad galleries, reminding viewers of the powerful women who have paved the way for us today. Many have left the group, finding a resting place in the homes, offices, and galleries of friends, colleagues, and strangers who have purchased or commissioned an icon along the way. And those that remain erupt the hallways of my home with a cavalcade of color, daily reminders of who I am called to be and become.

Between researching their stories, painting them, hanging them in galleries, and selling them, I knew that one day I would bind their stories together in a book. So, it is with tremendous joy that this dream has become a reality. Parson’s Porch Publishing, a non-profit publishing house whose mission is to “turn books to bread” by giving their profits to feed the poor, has lifted up the stories and images of nearly fifty of my beloved Holy Women Icons in a book. So, along with originals, commissions, and prints, Holy Women Icons are now available as a book and as individual greeting cards. It is my sincere hope that by binding the stories of these holy women together, they may provide inspiration and empowerment for all readers, binding all our diverse stories together in a collective cry for beautiful, unabashed, prophetic justice for all. Continue reading “Writing Holy Women Icons by Angela Yarber”

Painting and Ordaining the Holy Woman Icon by Angela Yarber

angelaThis month on the Spring Equinox I celebrate ten years of ordination. And for the first time in over fourteen years I am not employed as a minister at a local church. While I miss preaching and occasionally long for liturgy, I have never been more happy, and I find company and solace in the myriad holy women that fill my life. They have become my beloved community. They hold me accountable to my calling. They celebrate the birth of my child, dry my tears, laugh with me heartily, and remind me to dance for justice even when it’s difficult.

Most of them are real flesh and blood women—my wife, friends, family, colleagues, even the Feminism and Religion virtual community. Many are also the  Holy Woman Icons with a folk feminist twist that I feature each month: Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, Frida Kahlo, Salome, Guadalupe and Mary, Fatima, Sojourner Truth, Saraswati, Jarena Lee, Isadora Duncan, Miriam, Lilith, Georgia O’Keeffe, Guanyin, Dorothy Day, Sappho, Jephthah’s daughter, Anna Julia Cooper.

So, as winter turns to spring and I enter the next decade of ordained life now outside the church’s walls, I find myself clinging to Walt Whitman’s admonition: “From this hour forward I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines.” As I think about this great cloud of witnesses surrounding me—my beloved Holy Women—I recall the ways in which we are all called to be prophets for justice.

Many have claimed that artists are our contemporary prophets, those who rage against the status quo, and call us to actions of justice that create beauty in the lives of all humanity, even all creation. So I turn to a great artist whose music has set free countless women and queer folk in search of new symbols, new language, new stories that are deep and wide enough to contain our subverted and searching spiritualities. The great womanist prophet, Tracy Chapman, sings these words in her song, New Beginnings: Continue reading “Painting and Ordaining the Holy Woman Icon by Angela Yarber”

Painting Anna Julia Cooper by Angela Yarber

angelaAs we celebrate Black History Month I’d like to honor a remarkable black woman who joins the Holy Woman Icons with a folk feminist twist that I feature each month. Anna Julia Cooper stands alongside Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, Frida Kahlo, Salome, Guadalupe and Mary, Fatima, Sojourner Truth, Saraswati, Jarena Lee, Isadora Duncan, Miriam, Lilith, Georgia O’Keeffe, Guanyin, Dorothy Day, Sappho, and Jephthah’s daughter.

Cooper was born a slave in Raleigh, NC in 1858.  Her mother was a slave and her biological father was her mother’s white master.  After living and working as a slave until the age of five, Cooper began her formal education at a school for slaves.  She would grow up to become one of the most educated and intellectual black women of her century.  In fact, she was the fourth African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in the United States, writing her dissertation on “Attitudes toward Slavery in Revolutionary France.” Continue reading “Painting Anna Julia Cooper by Angela Yarber”

Who Is Jephthah’s Daughter? The Sacrifice of Women and Girls by Carol P. Christ

Last week I reflected on Angela Yarber’s insightful essay and painting on Jephthah’s daughter. For those who did not read the earlier posts, the story of Jephthah’s daughter is found in the Hebrew Bible.  Jephthah’s daughter was sacrificed by her father after he swore in the heat of battle that if his side won, he would sacrifice the first person he would see on returning home.  Angela called us to reflect on who Jephthah’s daughter is in our time.

In my earlicarol p. christ 2002 colorer midrash on the story, I invoked Daniel Cohen’s powerful retelling of the story of Iphigenia.  Cohen concludes that Artemis told Agamemnon that his ships would sail only if he sacrificed his daughter not because she wanted him to do it—but because she hoped this challenge would induce him to realize that the costs of war outweigh any possible gain.

I suggested that these words be spoken whenever the story of Jephthah’s daughter is told: Continue reading “Who Is Jephthah’s Daughter? The Sacrifice of Women and Girls by Carol P. Christ”