Thursday, June 04, 2009

Sister Wendy

You know about Sister Wendy, right? She's the nun you've
seen standing in front of famous works of art on PBS,
speaking brilliantly and eloquently (if with a charming
tendency toward derhotacization) about the
history of painting
.

I love this woman. Honestly, she's one of my heroes. Her
insightful descriptions of famous works always teach me
something about the paintings, and I'm often moved to tears
by her profound intuition and razor-sharp analyses. Really,
this lady is special. One of my favorite things about Sister
Wendy's study and explanation of the paintings is this: one
might expect a nun to shy away from the bawdier subjects,
but she doesn't. She'll describe how Venus and Apollo just
got done doin' it in a Renaissance-era pastoral scene,
she does not care. But, unsurprisingly, she does bring a
strong understanding of spirituality to her interpretations,
and we viewers often find Sister Wendy pointing at paintings
containing Biblical subject matter (there are so very many
of them!). What's unexpected, though, is how powerful her
stories, including her Biblical interpretations, can be even
for people like me who haven't been to church since being
liberated from Catholic school in 1985.

I did a three-page comic about Sister Wendy last year, and
recently revised it for publication in Not My Small
Diary
. But I don't think there's any harm in granting
a sneak peek to the six people who read my blog. About
freaking time you got a perk or two, right? Well, we'll see
if you call it a perk after you've read it. Click to enlarge,
else there's no damn way you'll be able to read the lettering.
Good night and good luck!



2 comments:

  1. I LOVE this. I'm feeling very self-conscious about my thing about Spalding Gray. Arg!

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  2. I'm sure it's adorable! Did you meet Mr. Gray, or did you cheat like I did? :) I had to write about someone else's 15 minutes of fame, because I haven't had mine yet.

    ReplyDelete