Design Challenge Three: Saint in a Bottle

In The Alchemy of Objects workshop, our design challenge for this past week was related to texture and sparkle. As you are most likely aware, I love sparkle!

I knew that I wanted to incorporate my pocket Saint Mary into this week's challenge. I had long been contemplating using small, vintage glass bottles to display pocket saints in my jewelry designs. I had come across pictures of hinged bottles used in jewelry, which are a similar concept. However, the bottles as I have fashioned them do not open.

I cut the glass bottle, positioning Mary and some text inside. I then solder the bottle back together again.

This design needs a little tweaking, but my hope is to perfect it and then offer a series of them in my Graceful Leigh shop.

A Non-Catholic Praying the Rosary

Wikimedia Commons Public Domain Image

Recently, I met a good friend and fellow-Episcopalian for coffee. After, as we headed back to our respective cars, a Rosary fell out of her purse while she searched for her keys. She grabbed it and looked at me, "I like to bring a Rosary to church on Sundays."

I smiled and confessed, "So do I."

Actually, the practice of reciting the Roman Catholic Rosary is practiced by a fair number of Anglicans. There is also an Anglican Rosary, but it does not have the long history of the Catholic Rosary, and is not a Marian devotion.

So, my friend and I are not alone in our attraction to using the Rosary in prayer. I regularly recite the Rosary and love that it allows me to meditate on various events in the lives of both Jesus and Mary.

Dirck de Bray Still-Life with Symbols of the Virgin Mary 
Public Domain Image