Posts

Blue Madonna, Mary Mother of God

Image
How must Mary have felt when she encountered the Angel Gabriel and was asked to allow the Holy Spirit to overshadow her and thus conceive the Christ Child? Saint Augustine in his Sermons says about Mary: “When the angel had spoken, she, filled with faith and conceiving Christ first in her mind before she did so in her womb, replied: ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word’.” (Sermon 215) In another sermon on the Nativity, he makes the same contrast between Mary’s conceiving the Eternal Word in her mind through faith and conceiving him in her womb. It works better in Latin: Angelus nuntiat, Virgo audit, credit et concepit: Fides in mente, Christus in Ventre. (The Angel announces : the Virgin hears, believes and conceives: faith in her mind, Christ in her womb) Saint Augustine also makes the obvious link with us when he says: The mother carried him in her womb, but we do so in our heart – or mind, through faith, as she first did. Therefo

The Dream of Gerontius

Image
The Dream of Gerontius film [full video] The Dream of Gerontius film [chapter videos] The Dream of Gerontius was written by Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman in 1865. It is a dramatic poem which portrays the death of an old man and what happens to his soul as he enters into eternity and the state of Purgatory. Newman discovered much about the teaching of Purgatory from the Fathers of the Catholic Church when he was writing his "Essay on development of Doctrine". The musician and composer Edward Elgar began work on the "Dream of Gerontius" in 1900.  The painting of the Dream of Gerontius was commissioned by the Pitt-Payne family from Alesbury in 2003, and is painted on wood with acrylic and gold leaf. The visual presentation of the painting is broken up into 8 parts which is just as much part of the symbolic language of the painting as the rich colour, the gold leaf for the Heavenly realm the unborn child in baptismal shawl surrounde

LentFest 2013 - Lightshow

Image
For 'Lentfest 2013' I produced a light show of a concert at the St Mary’s, Calton for there Journey to the Hebridean Heart Concert. In aid of the repair program of Our Lady of Sorrows Church, Garrynamoine, South Uist; a church dedicated to the memory of the fallen at Passchendaele by the army chaplain, Canon John MacNeil, who was himself wounded at Passchendaele. St Mary's Griminish Church from Michael Felix Gilfedder on Vimeo . Hector the Hero from Michael Felix Gilfedder on Vimeo . St Bride's Sacred Heart from Michael Felix Gilfedder on Vimeo . St Bride's Blue Madonna from Michael Felix Gilfedder on Vimeo . Praise of Mary from Michael Felix Gilfedder on Vimeo . The Promise from Michael Felix Gilfedder on Vimeo . Blue Madonna II from Michael Felix Gilfedder on Vimeo . The Shepherd from Michael Felix Gilfedder on Vimeo . Priesthood from Michael Felix Gilfedder on Vimeo . Star of the Sea from Michael Felix Gilfed

LentFest 2012

Image
This year I was honoured to join 28 other artists to each produce a piece of work for one of the Stations of the Cross and Resurrection for the AGAP and the University of Glasgows Exhibition's for the 2012 LentFest.  The list of participating artists and their subjects is as follows: Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) 1. Jesus is condemned to death – Terry Ann Newman 2. Jesus is given his cross – David Adam 3. Jesus falls the first time – David Gibson 4. Jesus meets His Mother – Tommy Canning 5. Simon of Cyrene carries the cross – Richard de Marco 6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus – James Callaghan 7. Jesus falls the second time – Tom Cahill 8. Jesus meets the daughters of Jerusalem – John Byars 9. Jesus falls the third time – Susie Batey 10. Jesus is stripped of His garments – Christine Mailley 11. Jesus is nailed to the cross – Peter Howson 12. Jesus dies on the cross – Aleksander Zysko 13. Jesus’ body is removed from the cross (Deposition or Lam

Exhibition "Celtic For Kids" 1998

Image
A video of the 1998 Joint Exhibition "Celtic For Kids". The work of my pupils throughout the Southern Isles from Eriskay to Benbecula. The work by these primary pupils was based on Carmina Gadelica. A treasure of Scottish oral poetry.