Leanne Shawler, Artist

 In 2018, I completed my first Mary Magdalene piece based on a theory I had stumbled across that Mary of Magdala was a nickname, like Peter the Rock. She was Mary the Tower, not Mary from Magdala. However, academics are not agreed on this. Not that it mattered because I took the idea and ran with it. (This is how stories happen.) Here is a video going through each of the women in her tower. (2:44 one) Each of the women in the first Mary Magdalene tower are: Prisca (an early apostle with Peter), Hildegarde of Bingen (medieval abbess, painter, writer, doctor, guide to leaders), Elizabeth I (guided England into the middle way between Catholicism and Protestantism), Anne Hutchinson (dared to teach about Christian faith, was booted out of the settlement and survived), Florence Li Tim Oi (first woman to be ordained a priest in 1944). And then 2020 happened. And I took a look at this painting that sits in my altar space and thought, in light of the injustices against people of color that ...

I knew for about a week that I needed to paint. To paint out my feelings onto the canvas. This color palette is not my usual color choices, it’s full of oranges and reds which are usually accent colors. The process and my thought process at the time is hard to describe but here are a few things I do remember, while painting out anxiety and anger. I painted my palms in red paint and pressed them again and again on the canvas.  For two weeks (not straight, mainly on weekends and half an hour here or there in the afternoons) I scribbled random marks and dripped alcohol ink, ink and fluid acrylics.  The delicious golden color started bringing a bit more calm. About midway, I saw the profile of a face in the marks and brought that to the forefront. She speaks waterfalls of truth. An initial splash of muted violet became mountains on the horizon and much later the ocean appeared at its feet.  I flung sprays of white paint at it (while listening to “White Women’s Toxic Te...

This art is flawed, imperfect, and doesn’t come near to what I had in my head, and it was my head from a month ago. If it exposes white bias, well, I will accept all noticing with humility, but acknowledging you’re under no obligation to do so. I know I have more work to do. I am learning more to do better. It was the second week of protests when I started this piece and I finished it around June 11. And then I sat on it because we were amplifying melanated voices and it wasn’t my time. I delayed longer because it felt like centering my white voice and this isn’t about me except in how I take action. Also, it’s personal processing. I’d been taking slow steps to learn more about racism (consistently studying it since late November) and then George Floyd and I really woke up along with many many others. I’m an artist, so an art challenge on mermaids and whales spurred me to process what I’ve been absorbing.  Two mermaids, one black, one white. I tried many ways as to how they s...

[posted on Facebook and Instagram on May 29, 2020 and I wanted to post it here as well.] I finished this painting and wrote the following before the latest witnessing of the deadly evils of racism in this country. There was no mercy, there was no justice, and I thought, how could I post this? So with that heaviness in my heart, I share the following, with the hope that when we remove the chains of racism from white hearts and BIPOC bodies, all of us will experience the relief and release of Divine mercy. May it be. I did not expect mercy to look this way. But as I grew closer to finishing the painting, I realized that mercy was more than I knew. But let me start at the beginning. When the pandemic started gaining ground in the United States, I continued to paint. The first painting I completed was a massive prayer to be saved from COVID-19. To be honest, it began really as a prayer for me and mine to be saved from the virus. But as I wrote my prayers across the canvas, it extend...

I wasn't quite sure if she was done after yesterday's painting session but I realized that there was one more layer of prayer to be added. So I quickly fired off a request for words to be added and did a last live session on Facebook -- and attempted it over on Instagram as well. Here's the video from the Facebook Live (I failed to save the Instagram Live one from a slightly different angle). And apologies for the muted sound, I was talking facing away from the iPhone so I didn't realize I needed to speak up a wee bit more. The words are: hope, safe, calm, mercy, presence, healing, joy, peace, thankful, breath, grace, community, beloved, remember, adapt, rooted, together And here she is all finished, pending final drying time and then covering in varnish. Close up details of the marks made by the rosemary "paintbrush":

I attended Flora Bowley's "Brave Intuitive Botanicals" class on Wednesday and we did some writing. In my case, that a sprig of rosemary was writing to me.  The timer was up before the letter was finished, but even so, her words are words you need to hear also, so I've done a bit of editing and put it in poem form below. I want you to know you are resilient.    Even through drought I have survived, you will survive too.  You are enough. Stay grounded,  be rooted in love. Shelter the birds, those who need you.  Keep safe by staying put.  I am full of fragrance that you love.  Your sweet medicine is useful and nourishes others.  I want you to know that all will be well, even through cataclysm and loss.  All will be well.  And you are loved. Love, Rosemary And as a graphic, using the page where I did a blind contour drawing of the rosemary sprig.

Where I sing snippets of various Ave Maria tunes learned while I do the repetitive act that is meditative and prayerful (interspersed with chatting with my one viewer), but aside from the opening summary, you'll miss all that unless you can find it on my Facebook feed. I also forgot to readjust the camera when I went back to work on the other wing. Sorry about that! And here's where we are at now: