A pathway - scene 8

Scene 8 at first seems like one of my scattergun approach to inclusions of interesting bible stories, but the reading about St John the Baptist opens the gospel of Mark (Mark 1:1-8) and is one of the readings read in the run up to Christmas. The actual story is about preparing for the adult Jesus, but I guess it is read at this time of year because we are preparing for the arrival of the infant Jesus.

My depiction in a hair shirt in the desert is a classic depiction.

The reading itself  harks back to and specifically references an earlier prophecy in Isaiah (Isaiah 40:3). The key words for this scene is "make straight the way of the Lord".
As a result I decided the scene would extend beyond itself, with the path becoming straight and extending away from it.
To make reference to the (?)intertextuality - reference that also makes reference to another text, and to the idea of prophecy, I decided to make use of some beautiful fabric with writing on it. I tried to make sure I chose writing that was not super legible but was clearly writing. I also put some of it upside down.

Another element to the design I added as a later feature when putting on the numbers, and you can see here, but also in scene 1, is a marker of the fact that this scene is a key point in the journey - a Sunday, the second Sunday of Advent. The number 8 is surrounded by the shape of a flame. 

Added to this I chose to colour code the numbers by weeks. So this first week was a light blue circle round the other numbers. If you go back to the posts about 2-7 you can see this.

The journey begins - Interactive elements - scene 7 & 14

Early in the planning I've mentioned I wanted to have as many places where the reveal would be parts of the actual nativity story. There aren't enough individual scenes to depict and at one stage I decided that perhaps I could have Joseph and pregnant Mary stopping several times along the way. I can't remember how many stops there were originally but in the end I only did two. This also gave a sort of structure to the design with a winding road going across the whole thing.

So scene 7 is a backdrop of the start of the journey to Bethlehem from Nazareth. I made use of some map fabric I had been given to add to the emphasis on journey and added some simple houses.
For the second rest stop I wanted it to link to the scene that would be next to it, where there would be a feature of a palm tree. It was meant to feel like a small oasis of green on a dusty road. In the photo below, the lady in red is from the scene 13 which we will come to later

The interactive element came from the figure of pregnant Mary on a donkey with Joseph.
This image also reflected back to a Hispanic (possibly just Mexican) advent tradition I really like: to have a statue of the pregnant Mary and Joseph is called "La Posada" - meaning the inn (ie the journey to the inn) in the house in the run up to Christmas.
Alongside that (google tells me) there is tradition of re-enactment when two people dress as Joseph and Mary visiting various houses over 9 nights(1 for each month of pregnancy), singing songs until they are allowed in. This represents the way Mary and Joseph were forbidden room at the inn.

As I needed them to face two different ways they needed to be double sided.
Each side is not quite the same.
On one side, we see Mary's leg and foot and Joseph with a stick. And Mary holds the donkey's ear.

On the other side, we see Joseph carrying a bag and Mary sitting side saddle, with just her bottom visible. Her hand on her stomach. Inside the figures is two layers of cardboard to make them stronger and hold their shape better.

But for both, I wanted Mary's hair to be covered. I felt this would be both practical and likely on a journey encountering others.
I then had to decide if I would cover the scene in a leaf, technically Joseph and Mary should be placed on the scene and then moved to the next spot. But I thought for consistency and ease, they should be in place at the start and then move, and so I made a leaf to cover them

There weren't a lot of interactive elements in the whole project but I built on this later with the nativity scene. More on that later.

4, 5, 6 pick up... a suitcase?

I had originally imagined I would find lots of parts of the story to fill every single stage, but this was very rapidly obvious I wouldn't be able to do. I also realised I would lose patience if I did larger scenes for every stage. I decided interspersed among larger scenes I would have littler ones that were simpler or just easier in some way.

The first 7 scenes were all about the start of the journey. 1-3 about finding out about the pregnancy, but then 4-6 about preparing for or anticipating the journey to Bethlehem (Luke 1-5)


Thus 4 is the Census that kickstarts the journey.
Then you have 5 and 6 and I thought about what you take on a journey, specially from a child's perspective - which is a suitcase and keys.
Obviously neither would necessarily be a real thing for Mary and Joseph at the time but they would be comprehensible to a child.
Keys also have added symbolism for Christians with the image of the keys to the Kingdom of God (Matthew 16:18-19) being offered to Peter and a symbol of the Pope in the Catholic church.

Alongside deciding to have some smaller scenes to sew I decided since they were different in shape and scale I would have a different style of leaf. Also although I had a fair amount of the leafy green material I used for the larger scenes I didn't want to run out, and I did have a variety of other leafy decorated material scraps. Some of these leaf or faintly plant-y or green scraps were too small for the larger scenes and satisfying to use up as well.