On the 12th Day of Christmas, or Twelfth Night, I wanted to share something special with you. This is a project I’ve been working on, periodically for the last few months and just finished in time for this last (official) day of Christmas (I’ll be continuing posting on this site til next Christmas Eve): a piece of mixed media art I’ve entitled “Star Nativity.” You can download 1280 pixel wide photo of the work for wallpaper here: Free “Star Nativity” Wallpaper.

Below I’m posting Twelve detail photos with some commentary on various aspects of the work. The first two are photos of the whole work:

The star below is a modular origami star, folded out of some scrapbooking paper I found a while back. The angels were cut out of a photo of old music manuscript. Between the angles and the star you can see in the background some foam-block prints of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus that I created. The central illustration was made with a variety of pens. I’ll talk more about the mountains and the book below.

Detail of the baby in the manger:

Detail of the foam block prints, with Mary holding the baby Jesus while Joseph watches over them:

The mountains are made of a piece of homemade paper that was dropped on the ground before drying:

The little book I made, that is attached to the mountains, contains this anonymous poem:

A god and yet a man?
A maid and yet a mother?
Wit wonders what wit can
Conceive this or the other.

A god and can he die?
A dead man, can he live?
What wit can well reply?
What reason reason give?

God, truth itself, doth teach it.
Man’s wit sinks too far under
By reason’s power to reach it.
Believe and leave to wonder.

In this detail you can see some gold and blue paint peaking through the wash of gesso, a part of the border.

I most sincerely wish you the best in this new year and hope you will stay with me to the end. Merry Christmas!