Santos Carver

I know many of you have visited our little shop of patron saints. I wonder how many of you have stayed a little longer and perused the rest of etsy. It's an interesting place of handmade and homemade, vintage things and supplies for people who make handmade and homemade items. It is also a community of craftsmen and artists.

I had mentioned here on the blog that St. Francis of Assisi fell over in the garden and broke. Last year he fell over and his head cracked off. We glued it back on. This year when he fell, his bowl with a little bird on it broke. He's holding his bowl, looking down at it, and now that it's broken he appears to be looking sadly at his broken bowl. It's really pathetic, especially when you realize his head is barely on.

One of the kind artists at etsy, "Santos Carver" contacted me and offered to make us a new statue for our garden. Having seen this man's work, I said no. Wait...that came out wrong....

St. Francis of Assisi is a cheesy hollow plaster thing that's painted all grey. I picked it up at a craft store at the end of the summer when items that sell for $20 are going for fifty cents.

This man at etsy is an artist. He carves wood. Apparently, while he's carving some miracles occur and the wood comes alive.

He insisted that we have one of his works. It came on Friday, a box in a box in a box for safe keeping. It's alive!

Pictures will not do it justice! He has somehow managed to keep the main body of the statue rather rough while bringing out the wood grains as though they were paint. The hues are beautiful and soothing. You must click on the pictures here to get a good look!

But the hands and face! Mary's face seems to glow. Exquisite and smooth, the expression is inspired.

Words won't do her justice, either.

We were also impressed that the little wooden cross came separately wrapped and fastens with a little wooden rod. No metal, all wood. There is a little glass window there behind Mary's head, so she appears to have a halo of light. Ingenious!

We have been moving Mary all around in the garden to find the perfect spot. She'll stay there until fall when the garden dies back and then move again for winter as the look of the garden changes.


Obviously, we can't thank Santos enough for his beautiful and inspiring work. You can contact him through his shop and have a chat about how great he is at what he does, or leave a note here and I'll be happy to pass it along. But do visit! He does custom work!

Mary is certainly the most beautiful thing in our garden now, which includes the flowers.



We do have a little plaster statue of St. Rita that has been painted. I think whoever made that thing just took a St. Theresa statue or some other nun statue and painted a red dot on her head to show that this is supposed to be St. Rita, who had the stigmata. (Not the whole stigmata, not all five wounds of Christ. She just had the crown of thorns, and not the whole crown, just the one thorn that made a hole in her head.) We also have a garden gnome, a little grey one from Ireland. We pretend he is St. Fiacre.

By the way, if you head over to etsy and sign up there, be sure and tell them heavenhelpus sent you. I get points for that...like S&H green stamps. I think they just started doing that today.