Icon Virgins
By Dr. Frances-Ann Norton
Image of the Virgin, in a fountain with Jesus on her lap
The water flows from the right
Our Lady Life Giving Fountain.
Image of the Virgin, she with her baby, who is the fruitful, the nourishing,
Our Lady of the Walled Garden.
And on her face she ponders, she sorrows, she sits in a reverie.
Image of the Virgin, she is Our Lady of the Burning Bush.
Her clothes are covered in branches of flame and fire. Red hot.
Arms outreaching, face inward smiling. The promise of the Old Testament.
Image of the Virgin, she is Our Lady the Never Fading Rose.
Her garment vined with plants and flowers, fruitfully pollinating and blooming in their prime.
Her garments overgrown with fragrant fruitfulness. Baby in her arms.
I am an interdisciplinary visual and creative writing artist working with ideas of spirituality in a secular context. These are vehicles for my abstract and narrative images and writing. I experience the world as someone with imagination and through tactility, relationship colour and form. I work with well-known stories to explore the rich and complex visual markers inherent in the traditions and rituals of the culture I inhabit. One of Celtic forebearers, Yorkshire Gothic, brought up in a household of Bohemian artists and musicians contextualised by the beauty, spirituality and generosity of Franciscanism. I ask myself, does our day-to-day existence represent a neat motif, a perfect device, a blemish free composition? Or is it the variations, the imperfections, the mishaps and diversions that make the story interesting? Creativity enables me to express, among other things, deep joys, fears and hidden imaginings.
I am an academic art educator, writer and speaker. I have given papers at international conferences in Belgium, Czech Republic and the UK and been published in academic journals and books on art education. My Poetry practice has developed over the past eight years, where I have given readings at Ilkley Literature Festival and Kendal Poetry Festival. I have been published in Unfamiliars Zine, Flux Review Magazine, Dwelltime Blog, Haus-A-Rest and Writers zine, the Sea in Me special edition magazine, Mythos II magazine from Norwich, A Franciscan international Newsletter The Bripper and in Magical Women magazine volume 1.
Website: Frances-Ann Norton: Poetry (francesodonnellpoetry.blogspot.com)
Twitter: Dr Frances-Ann Norton (@francesann800) / Twitter
Instagram: Frances Ann (@francesann2819) • Instagram photos and videos
