Like my forbears in the tradition of Christian art, I am constantly learning new ways of expressing the timeless, the universal and the Sacred.
My admiration for early Christian art forms, Celtic illuminations and the spirit of the Renaissance in artists like Giotto, Raphael and Michaelangelo, is boundless, as is my love of God's natural creation that surrounds us.
It has been said that we live in the worst and in the best of times, and it is a fact that ugliness and evil abound; tho beauty and sanctity will always prevail.
It is hope and faith that is the driving force in my work, in the universe of the aesthetic, and I attempt in some form to express the inexpressible and to inspire the soul to loftier heights in a world that hungers for beauty in the Divine.
I was born, raised Catholic and educated in Los Angeles California as a third generation Los Angelino of Irish and Hispanic descent, tracing my roots back to Ireland, Spain and Mexico.
With pride I claim many artists, poets and writers in my ancient lineage, such as the renowned Spanish Renaissance poet, Garcilaso de la Vega and his cousin the Inca historian by the same name.
I received a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the Los Angeles County Otis Art Institute. For many years, I actively worked on commission creating monumental contemporary Sacred Art for churches throughout the country.
MISSION
STATEMENT
Sacred
Art,
the fine arts or the high arts? Why? Saint Thomas said it
best; ID QUOD VISUM PLACET, "the beautiful as that which, being seen,
pleases; beauty that gives delight". Beauty is the object of
the intellect through the senses. Saint Thomas's three
conditions of beauty: INTEGRITY, PROPORTION AND ABOVE ALL RADIANCE OR
CLARITY. Saint Augustine said, "Unity is the form
of all beauty", and it is the reflection of the natural and the
Divine. Beauty belongs to the transcendental and the
metaphysical. The concept of art moves from in the soul,
through the senses to physical form.
It is difficult to be a Christian artist or an artist that creates Christian art because we live in an age that denies Christ, and as said by Fra Angelico, "...and to paint the things of Christ one must live with Christ". Christianity does not make art easy because it demands of the artist to work for something beyond himself, a higher reason and a higher love that burns hotly in the Divine.
Works
of
Sacred Art are to instruct, inspire and to increase devotion that
provokes piety with union in God. As it was in the past, then so it
should be especially today during these times of
confusion,
apathy and the general decline of the Christian Faith and
morality. http://www.catholic-sacredart.com/
(e-mail Sacredart@cox.net)