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Small Maine Town Buzzing Over Virgin Mary Likeness
[Source: Portland Press Herald (Maine), January 22, 2006]

Nestled in a valley on the Androscoggin River, Mexico bills itself as the Gateway to the Western Mountains. Now the town of 3,000 can make another claim to fame: Home of the latest Virgin Mary sighting.

Ever since an image that some believe is a likeness of the mother of Jesus was found on Veronica Dennis' dining room wall after a fire at her home last week, residents have been abuzz.

Some wonder whether their sleepy little town will be turned upside down by an influx of pilgrims seeking miracles. Others hope the image is an omen of good things to come. Others are wondering what all the fuss is about.

Word of the sighting soon got out when the local newspaper published a story and photograph of the image that was beamed around the world by international wire services. Sue Bernard, spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, was quoted as saying the image was "amazing to look at." By Thursday, Dennis had become a local celebrity and townspeople had begun to refer to her home as "the house."

Overlooking Rumford and the steam-chugging Rumford Paper Co., Mexico appears largely unchanged from the Depression-era photographs taken on Main Street that line the hallway of the municipal building. The Catholic church around the corner, St. Theresa's, shares one priest with four other parishes in neighboring towns.

Here, opinions appear to be divided about the significance of the image. Some said they already have been changed by its appearance. Dennis' ex-husband, John, said he was not particularly religious before the fire. "I am now," he said.

Renee Diconzo of Mexico, a clerk at the One Stop on Route 17, said there is some sort of miracle going on but she is not just sure what. "I think what is pretty amazing is that it has been on the front page of the paper three days in a row," said Diconzo.

Fire department truck driver Marc Mayo, who was not at the fire, said the likeness has a perfectly rational explanation.

"It is just an image from foam and smoke," Mayo said.

Others said they do not know what to think.

"Hopefully it will bring them good things," said Leisa Young, eating lunch at Dick's Pizza.

Dennis, a home health aide in her early 40s, said if nothing else, she hopes the image is a sign that a run of bad luck that struck on Jan. 13, a Friday, has finally ended.

On that day, she said, she was let go from her job. The next day her daughter's boyfriend broke his leg delivering newspapers. On Sunday, as she and her daughter cleared ice off the driveway in anticipation of his return from the hospital, a fire broke out inside when a space heater ignited a bed.

Within minutes the house filled with smoke, flames crept up the walls and the heat started to melt the green siding.

When the fire had been put out by the largely volunteer Mexico Fire Department and the smoke had cleared, Dennis was allowed back in to collect a few personal items. The house was a wreck, filled with broken glass and burned furniture.

Dennis and her family started pulling down singed family photographs and other pictures from the walls to take away. What they found behind a framed print of a palm tree made everyone gasp: Etched into the wall was an image resembling the Virgin Mary.

"I've never seen anything like it," said Fire Chief Gary Wentzell.

Wentzell said the image was much clearer than the famous grilled cheese sandwich that some say is emblazoned with the image of the Virgin Mary. That sandwich fetched $28,000 on eBay.com.

He said it was even more eerie when one of the firefighters picked a statue of the Virgin Mary off the floor and held it next to the image. "And it was the same size as the painting," said Wentzell, Mexico's fire chief since the early 1990s.

For Dennis, the image has been a mixed blessing. She said she is amazed and stunned by it, which she fervently believes is a miracle. But she said she is terrified that pilgrims will descend on her house.

"I can't have people running out and in," said Dennis, a divorced mother of two daughters.

All week her neighbors kept a close eye on the place. Police stepped up patrols by the house, after a neighbor reported someone pulling down the plywood nailed over the windows. It turned out to be the insurance adjuster. But a steady stream of curiosity seekers driving by convinced Dennis to take action.

That is why she and her friends returned to the pitch black house Thursday night, rigged up a generator and cut the panel with the image free from the wall, with permission from the insurance adjuster.

That is how it wound up somewhat worse for wear in the back seat of her friend Meggan White's Saab sedan Friday morning, protected by an umbrella and several blankets. The two tried to blow off some of the dust with a hair dryer. They said they haven't figured out what to do with it yet.

Only a handful of people have seen the image in person. It appears reddish gold by flashlight and a smoky greenish blue by daylight.

Dennis had said she does not intend to cash in on the image. But now she's apparently on the fence. The Sun Journal in Lewiston reported Saturday that she would consider selling the item. The article even included Dennis' phone number for prospective buyers.

"I wouldn't even know how to preserve the thing," Dennis told the newspaper. "If someone wants it, why not share it."

New Interpretation of Traditional Images
[Source: The Korea Herald, January 16, 2006]

With different styles but a common goal of finding cultural identity in art, two Korean female artists will show their interpretations of traditional images at their upcoming exhibitions.

Sunny Kim's "Perfectly Natural" and Kim Eun-jin's "The Wicked Icon" are separate exhibits but organized together by the Ilmin Museum of Art because the two offer realistic paintings through traditional images.

Sunny Kim, who spent most of her youth in the United States until graduate school, is famous for using traditional Korean images in her Western-style paintings.

Art critics here associate her name with Korean school uniforms which Sunny Kim used to express political or social repression.

Now, however, her paintings are peaceful landscapes, reminding visitors of Korea's past natural landscape. "The title 'Perfectly Natural' perfectly matches my intention. This time, I'm trying to throw away strong images that I used to put in my earlier paintings," she told The Korea Herald.

The first painting that greets visitors is "Floating World," where a pair of pine trees are surrounded by pale but peaceful looking hills. She used Korean embroidery patterns such as birds to reach a point of perfection.

Sunny Kim said she found it ironic that that a perfect image could also be fake.

"A perfect landscape that I created can be another creation of a fake. Isn't it funny?" said the Korean-American artist. On the upper floor at the gallery, Kim Eun-jin's oriental works stun viewers as provocative distortions of religious icons are vastly spread out on the gallery wall.

Twisting "holy" images of Catholic icons and taking a mischievous look at sexuality, Kim Eun-jin creates the wicked icons taken from various traditional concepts. Paintings like "The Virgin Mary has a headache" or "Jesus, adorning himself with jewels" directly question what holiness is. Asked if she is religious, Kim Eun-jin said she is Protestant.

"I don't mean to attack Catholics or anything. The reason I chose Catholic icons is because Catholics have developed abundant cultures in terms of art," she said.

One hand of the Virgin Mary in her painting is stained with blood which symbolizes man's sin and the other hand wears a holy-looking white glove. Between the two, the Virgin Mary is in so much in pain that her face is falling apart.

On the other wall, two pigs--a symbol of a male body and female body--look at each other, wearing crowns and jewels. "I think the weight of a body is the same as that of a soul. People tend to put more weight on the soul especially when it comes to religion. But I don't think so," said Kim Eun-jin. Another interesting catch is the twist of the sexuality depicted by the pigs.

The seemingly "pretty" one is actually male and the "ugly" other is female.

Viewers might question if the paintings are indeed based on oriental materials. Yes, they are; they are the outcome of constant oriental brushing and pigmenting on Korean paper. "It took so much time to produce colorful backgrounds on Korean paper, which is not a very ideal material for pigmenting," said the artist.

The director of the gallery, Kim Hee-ryung, said that the efforts to reproduce traditional motifs and painting techniques in modern terms are crucial to the development of visual culture. "We will continue to support those efforts," said the director.

Sunny Kim's "Perfectly Natural" and Kim Eun-jin's "The Wicked Icon" will be held at the Ilmin Museum of Art in central Seoul from Jan. 20 to Feb. 19. It will be open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and closed Monday. The gallery is near Exit 5 at Gwanghwamun Station on Subway Line No. 5. For more information, call (02) 2020-2055. (yoonmi@heraldm.com)

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