Evensong is excited to host an exhibit of sacred icons entitled “Mary and the Poor in Spirit,” painted by Ana Maria Ravines de Schur on Saturday, December 5, 2009 form 10:00am-2:00pm in St. Mary of Magdala Chapel.  When asked about her work, Ana Maria writes:

“When I work on my icons, I pray for the restoration of the Church, including the presence and activity of our women. I look at the image of the woman I paint, and I decide to give her the semblance of a woman who is serene, who has kept her dignity, even in the face of suffering.  Some of my icons even have a smile.  I often wonder why laughter has been eliminated of the face of Holy Mary in the history of our culture.  I focus on the eyes, on the facial expression, on the posture, then I use the draperies as a sign of modesty.  I don't worry too much about sexual affiliations or practices in the depiction of the human figure when I work on the icons. I look at her glance and reconstruct her from the ashes of a culture that seeks to dehumanize her by reducing her to painlessness on the one hand and to total hedonism on the other hand. I produce images seeking to find the ideal woman, she who forgave those who harmed her, but whose intrinsic beauty only became more transcendental, because she was ultimately blessed by God with the gift of grace. That is the beauty I seek to reflect in the icons, not the crying soul that has admitted her misery and feels unworthy of respect.

 Although people in the developed nations seem to speak a lot about the disenchantment with the times, the poor in the Latin American cultures have managed to keep their faith in the healing power of "Love One Another".  When the crisis started for us in the South, that's when we learned to share what we had with those who had nothing. Then we learned also to receive what we needed, when we did not have enough. Possibly, the advantage of poverty is that it brings people closer to one another.  I learned to be patient with my paintings, with my knittings, with all the things I do, because I observed the patience of older women who had been working with their
hands since generations, just to bring food to the table of their large families. 

 
I paint only what I can carry with me.  I would like to work on larger images, but being a wanderer through the cultures has impeded me to work on larger figures, and I often have no space to work or to carry larger works from city to city.  I exhibited many of these works in Washington D.C. at the Embassy of Venezuela in 2007, at the Museo de Arte Popular Salvador Valero in Venezuela in 2008, in a small Catholic community in Brussels Belgium in 2009, in Salt Lake City, Utah, in San Antonio Texas, in Missoula, Montana,  in Berlin Germany, in Lima, Peru.   I have tried to keep the collection as a whole, selling hand-made copies of these images which then I produced in different formats and variations.  The costs for transporting art internationally have been very hard to manage. I don't own any property and I have no home; at the moment. I am on my way to work for a Master's degree in Cultural Theology in Germany, hoping to foment better relations with the cultures of the Americas. I would like to stay in touch with all who are interested in my work, for future presentations to be arranged as time and possibilities allow.”