Painting Fatima

This is the icon I did of the Apparition of the Mother of God at Fatima for Fr. Frederick Miller who had been the Director of the Blue Army in New Jersey at the time (1991). I publish it now since I am working on a panel depicting the secret of Fatima, which as everyone knows, consists of three parts - not 3 separate secrets. I surprised myself having nearly forgotten this panel, to review the variety of experience by the seers I attempted to illustrate within the composition. My current work is much more surreal, although just as naive as this icon I painted so many years before.

I have no idea if the icon remains at the shrine in New Jersey. So much has happened there since Fr. Miller left. It was quite an odd place, rather cult-like I think. I knew a former nun from there who left because of irregularities within the community of the Handmaids of the Immaculate Heart of Mary - a group which has since been suppressed. The former religious told me how Fr. Miller had been disliked by the establishment at the Blue Army, and suspected of being a liberal.

Anyway - I completely forgot I had painted this and laughed because I also painted the Trinity in my new panel in a rather similar fashion. The similarity ends there - right now I will tell you that the icon shown is better than my current work. Interestingly some folks thought the girls in the image presented above appeared to be Muslim, because of their prayer position and the veils - I never made that connection - although the name Fatima itself is Muslim - Mohammed's daughter in fact.

Anyway - the above panel illustrates two parts of the secret, the vision of hell and the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The background vignettes portray two of the preparatory apparitions of the angel which took place before the actual apparition of Our Lady on May 13, 1917.