Sisters of the Convent

This posting is dedicated to Mary Kane. She lived across the street from me when I was a little girl, and she was Roman Catholic. I am protestant. My father’s family came from old New England Puritan stock. My dreams of becoming a nun began about age seven, when I attended my friend’s first communion. Things really got serious when she taught me the sign of the cross, and the two of us erected a shrine in the basement of my house on Maxwell Avenue. Soon, I was reciting Hail Marys to the astonishment of my parents. All this should not have been so strange, since the other side of my family were French-Canadians and Irish!

How appropriate it was then, that I should find myself living in Belgium, a country with so many remnants of the beauty and theatre of the Catholic Church! Religious imagery and architecture are on show everywhere. In addition to the churches and shrines, many of the larger towns in Belgium had a beguinage, compounds where semi-religious women’s communities flourished in the 13th century. There was even a small roadside chapel or kapel across from our farmhouse. In Brussels, we discovered the “Musée du Coeur” devoted to the heart in religious iconography

On one of our many weekend antiquing excursions, we met a jolly Flemish man named Jan and his wife, Marcelle. They graciously invited us to their home which adjoined the medieval town walls of Mechelen. Inside was a miraculous collection of antique religiosa-statues, chapelets (crucifixes), and bénitiers (holy water fonts). The couple had even built their own chapel next to the wall in their garden.

Elsewhere in Belgium, we encountered other religious souvenirs. Near Antwerp cathedral is “Het Elfde Gebod” (Eleventh Commandment). This unique café offers its patrons sanctuary in an interior illuminated with church candles, and packed to the rafters with effigies of angels and saints.

The more we looked, the more new collecting passions were born within us. We trawled the antique markets and brocantes for delicate paper lace holy cards, ornate silk priests’ vestments and miniature travel reliquaries. The inspiration for my Sacre Bleu necklaces (from The Parrott Collection) with tiny blue enamel medallions, comes from this time. Frankincense and myrrh, purchased at a monastery shop near the Vatican, brought home the memory of the smoky-scented church interiors of Italy. The ancient pharmacy of Santa Maria Novella in Florence was a miss, but it is on my must-see list.


It is comforting to know that so many former religious buildings have been born again. In Australia, and other locales down-under they have the right spirit when it comes to reusing these structures. One example is the imposing Convent Gallery in Daylesford, Victoria, (once The Holy Cross Convent and Boarding School for Girls), whose shop was the source of my slender and graceful beeswax church candles. Near Melbourne is Abbotsford Convent. Eleven heritage listed buildings, once the cloister of the Sisters of the Order of the Good Shepherd, now shelter artists, writers, small organizations, a restaurant and a radio station. On New Zealand’s South Island at the Old Convent bed and breakfast in Kaikoura, we swam with the dolphins by day, and slept in a former classroom of the church school by night.


Long ago, I gave up my calling to become a nun. That doesn’t mean that I don’t weep watching Audrey Hepburn in The Nun’s Story, Deborah Kerr in Black Narcissus, or Donna Reed, the good sister in Green Dolphin Street as she takes her final vows.

These days my spiritual side is sated by a visitation to Diamonds and Rust, at 472 Lighthouse Avenue, Pacific Grove, California. Susie and Marilyn opened the shop two years ago in its current location, and it is ecclesiastical Nirvana! There, artifacts such as shell grottos, Virgin Mary statues, and ex-votos/milagros help me find my lost saints.

Dominus Vobiscum,
Marjorie

Shanghai Lil

“I’ve been lookin high,
And I’ve been lookin low,
Lookin for My Shanghai Lil.”

(From Shanghai Lil, 1933. Lyrics by Al Dubin;
Music by Harry Warren)

“Thar” she was, high in the rafters of the old ship chandlery in Mornington (Australia). She was sleek and trim, and had just the right patina for her age. She was a vintage VJ (Vaucluse Junior) sailboat, built in the 1940s on the bayside of the Peninsula. In an instant, I knew that had I had found the perfect Christmas present for my sailor husband.

We brought the boat home to Flinders, and decided that she was just too old and special to sail the waters of Westernport Bay. Instead, she became the answer to the decorating dilemma in our Ming Dynasty beach house. The main room (lounge room in Aussie parlance) had 12-foot ceilings, and needed something to decorate and fill that space. That something was the VJ. We proudly hoisted her to her new berth, hanging from the ceiling, above us in the living room.

She was christened “Shanghai Lil” after the Busby Berkeley song and dance routine in the 1933 film, Footlight Parade. Ruby Keeler played an entertainer in a Shanghai speakeasy who charms James Cagney. Our “Lil” certainly charmed us, and for five years she was the star feature of our Flinders interior. When it came time to say “adieu” to “Lil”, we found her another safe port of call – this time, as a focal point in a Melbourne restaurant.

Happy sails to you,
Marjorie

Coming to You from Beautiful Carmel-by-the-Sea!

The fog rolled in from the ocean, and like two weary pilgrims walking the Camino Real, we arrived in Carmel. Both of us had our ideas as to what life would be like in this part of the world. Mine were formed by the sixties film “The Sandpiper”, which starred Elizabeth Taylor as an artist living the “life boheme”. Michael, on the other hand, pictured himself as Dave Garver in “Play Misty for Me”, driving up the coastal highway in his vintage jag roadster, with Erroll Garner on the sound track. It remains to be seen if any of these images will be true to life!

Some things do not change. I have resumed my early morning walks, which now take me past tiny fairy tale cottages set in lush green landscapes. Quite the opposite scenery of the sun-burnt land I have just left. There are dogs walking people everywhere, for Carmel is dog heaven. Even Doris Day’s Cypress Inn welcomes pooches, with their own list of amenities, rates and a newsletter.

How homesick for "Oz" I felt, when on my first beach ramble I came upon a surfing competition. On Easter Sunday we newcomers joined the crowds attending mass at the Carmel Mission. Not far from there is Clint’s Mission Ranch. Nestled at the edge of a salt marsh and inlet from Monterey Bay, its paddocks are home to a family of woolly sheep. To sit on the deck at about sunset and look over to Point Lobos is a spiritual experience. It is said “the man” himself comes by on occasion and plays the piano in the bar. Almost every-night of the week in Carmel, outdoor films play at the charming WPA Forrest Theater – Peter Sellers classics show next week. Around every corner and down every paseo are tempting choices for local food and wine. Intriguing shops and galleries abound.

For my part, I am look forward to exploring and refining my métier. So much has changed since we left the States 10 years ago. My travels have exposed me to the style idioms of Switzerland, Belgium/France, China and Australia, but it will be a challenge for me to catch-up with the trends here. It is my hope to bring something fresh to my field, and through this blog to introduce my readers to these influences and inspirations.