Sofia

Many years ago I listened to a Benedictine monk teach about Sophia, the feminine personification of Wisdom found in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  This teaching was years before I started working in copper.  But the desire to depict her was planted in me back then.  After I finished Christ as the Green Man, I knew she was soon coming.  To my deep joy, my daughter asked me to do a special piece for her as her gift for finishing her PhD.  I told her about wanting to do Sophia.  She said as a military psychologist, she would be in deep need of wisdom. Before I started to work up a drawing, George Floyd was killed by a police officer kneeling on his neck. This incident made me decide to depict Sophia as a black woman.  I found images of a beautiful Nigerian that I tried to copy.  I wanted it to be “Icon” like, so put a halo of stylized flames and laid gold leaf inside the halo.  A talented father in-law who works with wood made an exquisite frame of 2 different African woods, which I think makes it pop!