2013 Indigenous Christian Art Calendars

I hope everyone had a peace-filled and joyous Christmas season.  May God continue to incarnate through our individual and corporate lives during 2013!

With January 1st fast approaching, I was conducting my annual wall calendar search.  Among others, I decided to look for calendars that contained artwork by indigenous Christian artists, as I had come across a couple in the past.  I found a total of three, and perhaps you might know of more.  If so, please share in a comment to this post.

Unfortunately, only two of the following three calendars are available outside of Europe (UPDATE: See note at the end of this post), but I thought I'd mention all three anyway.

The first is "The Guardian of Paradise," the 2013 Papua New Guinea wall calendar by Missio Aachen, a Catholic Mission organization.  Through Google ChromeTranslation, the website states that "the focus of the calendar is divine creation and preservation... The pictures in the calendar [reflect the] daily life of the islanders and simultaneously follow the biblical creation story in Genesis."  The calendar does not contain boxes for each day of the month, but rather shows one art image with a column or line of dates in small print on the side or at the bottom, as seen on page 3 here.

Nativity by Australian Aboriginal artist Duwun Lee

This Christmas image is by Australian Aboriginal artist Duwun Lee, and it appears in a set of 2012 Indigenous Catholic Christmas Cards for sale here by the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council (NATSICC).

Nativity by Jackson Beardy

An interesting indigenous nativity painting, though certainly not orthodox:

Nativity by Jackson Beardy, 1975

Icon Exhibit, "Imaging the Invisible: Angels, Demons, Prayer & Wisdom"

Joy to All Who Suffer, c. 1750

For those of you in the Boston area (or will be by February 2, 2013), here's an exhibition of Russian Orthodox icons that you might want to check out, at the The Museum of Russian Icons.  The show's description states:

The great masters of iconography developed the use of symbolism to depict otherworldly beings and imprecise subjects such as angels, demons, prayer, and wisdom. Over time, these developed into beautiful and sometimes mysterious images.

Native American Heritage Month: Jesus as Sun Dancer

Sundancer Christ by Fr. John Giuliani

In honor of Native American Heritage Month, I am reposting parts of an Easter-themed article by Rich Avery titled "Good Friday – Jesus the Greatest Sun Dancer."  The article (and the accompanying video by Pastor Larry Salway) offer an interesting contextualized view of Jesus and the Sun Dance, a ritual ceremony performed by Native American Plains Nations.  Avery writes:

Most Native North American people groups have a story of how their people were created, and this story has been passed down orally for hundreds or thousands of years. 

And many have a story of a Messiah-like figure who will sacrifice himself in order to deliver or bring greater enlightenment to their people. But few make the connection to Jesus Christ as both their Creator and Messiah. 

The Lakota, and other nations of the Plains, have a ritual called the Sun Dance, where men will punish or sacrifice themselves by piercing their body or tearing their flesh in order to hopefully bring about a closer connection to Creator – not only for themselves but for their entire community.

Father John Giuliani, Painter of Native American Icons

Lakota Victory Christ by Father John Giuliani

Father John Battista Giuliani (b. 1932), the son of Italian immigrants, grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut.   He was an artistic child whose parents and teachers encouraged him to pursue his artistic interests, which propelled him as an adult to obtain an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts at New York's Pratt Institute.  Yet, in 1960 he gave up his pursuit of art to become a Catholic priest, a position in which he still serves today.  

Diwali 2012

Today marks the beginning of the 5-day Northern Indian Hindu festival of Diwali, or the Festival of Lights (in South India it is called Deepavali).  Like Dashain in Nepal and Navratri in India, Diwali celebrates to victory of the Good over the Evil and Light over Darkness.  On the first day of Diwali, part of the festivities include drawing designs called rangolis on the ground in front of the entrance to one's home, as a form of welcome to the Goddess of Wealth and Prosperity, Lakshmi.  This brought to mind another painting of mine...