Mary, Full of Life
An image of a very pregnant Mary, the mother of Jesus, looks down on Old Town
from a billboard on West Burnside Street and Northwest Third Avenue. In the
weeks before Christmas, she is a reminder of the approaching celebration of
her son's birth.
She's also a testament to a Milwaukie woman's deeply held beliefs.
"I'm not political," says Valerie Aschbacher,
who commissioned the sculpture that was photographed for the billboard. "Mary's not political. She's an image of the gospel of life."
Many people would not agree. They see life -- when it begins and how it ends
-- as a political issue. Abortion and physician-assisted suicide continue to
be campaign issues for many voters.
So it's not surprising that Aschbacher's billboard has sparked a dispute in
a time divided by life issues.
It is such a sad thing that a pregnant Mary on a billboard cand be condensed to being a "political issue." That all the Christmas commercialization has made people immune to the so-called reason for the season. That it was a very pregnant Mary who made the trek to Bethlehem with her husband Joseph. Yet now Mary who had a sword pierce her heart will spark a dispute. Not surprising though since Mary points to Jesus and it is Jesus who is seen as a contradiction and a scandal that will divide those who won't follow the truth.
"Mary gave birth in the lowliest of places," she says. "Where else would she want to come but to the lowliest place in the state of Oregon."
Growing up in Portland certainly Burnside is not the nicest of areas, though much improved since the early 70s.
The rest of the article is interesting and nicely no quotes from local abortion provides to provide "balance." Though the comments on the article are pretty snarky. As a piece of art it is not much to my taste, but at least the message is true.
Images of an obviously pregnant Mary are rare, said Jane Kristof, professor emeritus of art history at Portland State University.
"Generally, it was considered undignified," she said. "The same is true of Mary nursing." Artists instead rendered Mary gesturing toward her stomach to suggest that she
was pregnant, Kristof said.
Mary Full of Life "looks like she's pregnant
with the world," said Sheila O'Connell-Roussell, a Marian scholar on staff at Marylhurst University.
She agreed that historical images of Mary are much more subtle about her pregnancy.
[article]
Mostly true, though images of a breast-feeding Virgin Mary were not rare in Medieval and Renaissance art.
Known as 
I think the billboard is beautiful. Interesting story.
The website is tasteful too. Bravo to this woman! (Um, I meant the woman behind the billboard, but the one in the billboard too!)
It would be a bit of a slap in the face to get that much truth about something you manage to lie to yourself about-- ie, the humanity of unborn humans.
Side note: my mom says pregnancy *is* undignified. You ache, tend to waddle, and often get ill easily. (Since she then smiles, hugs us and informs us that she doesn't regret a second of it, it must be worth it. ;^p)
Hi, there. I like this site very much, and thanks for it.
Thanks especially for the billboard and the sculpture; it's beautiful.
I've been making my own Christmas cards since 1964, and since 1977 have done Mary pregnant or nursing. Most people like them; some people dislike them.
Um, no. There are plenty of pregnant Mary pictures. (Geez, think about all those pictures of the Visitation where Mary looks like she's already six months along, not three days!)
The major difference is that a lot of the stereotypical pregnancy signs in paintings are not recognized as such by the modern viewer. Our Lady of Guadalupe, for example, is pretty darned pregnant and wearing Aztec maternity clothes, but this did not spring to my non-Aztec eye.
Of course, the major thing is that there isn't much Biblical story going on between Visitation and Nativity, so there's not necessarily a need to show Mary pregnant in narrative pictures.
I think we need to rethink our standards of female "dignity". Mary, Blessed among women, was visibly pregnant. Therefore, there is no lack of dignity and grace in pregnancy, despite what the world tells us.
Mary surely nursed Jesus--if She hadn't, His survival as an infant would have equaled the miracle of His birth to the Virgin Mother. Hence, there is no lack of dignity in nursing one's child at the breast, though, of course, modesty is expected.
Who is it who tells us that maternity is undignified? The world and the media. (Except when Angelina is pregnant) Who finds breastfeeding shocking? The same people who shrug off pornography and advocate sex as recreation.
A concrete example of the threats to life by false "truths" about motherhood, pregnancy, and what is rightfully feminine is the story of a former co-worker of mine. She was newly married, lovely, and pregnant. For the first 2 months of her pregnancy (I lost touch with her after that) she verbalized stress over whether or not she should have an abortion. The reason? She was utterly convinced that if she were to gain weight, even temporarily, she would lose the love of her husband.
Sadly, we know that in our time, when the media educates us about what is desirable and attractive, this is a real issue for some, and not just the product of an over-active imagination. It is difficult for a wife to erase the memory of a husband's look of disgust when he first sees his wife's bulging belly. Such a response to the product of what a wife believed was mutual love speaks to her more than words. Without the supports of faith and the objective eye of reason, she understands not that her husband is immature and has a lot to learn about love, but that she is unlovable in her role as mother.
Far from being trivial, our submission to the world's false standards of beauty and dignity costs lives and the destruction of many marriages.
Maybe it's time for mature husbands and fathers to tell the world that pregnancy and maternity are beautiful. It will take a lot of convincing to undo the damage that has been done.
>>>It is difficult for a wife to erase the memory of a husband's look of disgust when he first sees his wife's bulging belly.
As far as "The same is true of Mary nursing," -- wow, this is one art history professor who needs to take a little walk thru the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Or go here. http://www.breastfeedingart.net/ There are manymanymany images of Mary nursing. Very un-discreetly, I might add. Many cultures see it as a beautiful nurturing image, not a sexual one.
I must be a weird man, a woman looks most beautiful when she is pregnant. There is a glow on her face, there is something in her eyes. We as a society must be dead if we think that pregnancy is an illness. It is not an illness at all.
Another clueless academic. Love it. I first saw this site late last week. I quite like the sculpture but what do I know, I'm an artist.
My wife is pregnant, due this coming Saturday. I challenge you to find a more dignified woman. The reaction to this billboard makes me want to seriously violate someone's culture of life.
Most men I know are almost as beaming as their wives when they find out she's pregnant, and are proud as peacocks when they walk around with the wife.
Any man who shows disgust at his wife's "baby bump" deserves a swift and painful kick to his "gravy rump."
Bravo, Andy, Smiley, and Random Friar! Now if we could put your perspective (and more like yours)on a billboard, or a few commercials, or the National Geographic :), maybe America would remember that there is nothing undignified about pregnancy and LOTS more children would be allowed to live in the womb and be born!!
hmmmm...maybe we should ask Brad Pitt to cooperate in a pregnancy is beautiful billboard. :)
What a treat to arrive here this morning and find this post. What is written there and the comments here are just touching my soul.
MOTHER of God, pray for us!
Knowing the kind of place Portland is from having lived in the Metropolitan Portland area since '92, I'm just happy a pro-life themed message can be erected in public without some self-described 'free' thinker paint-bombing it.
Thank you so much, Valerie, for the message of the priceless dignity of the human person. And thank you, Nancy, for covering this article.
Our world needs so desperately to understand that abortion and artificial birth control do not free women but only enslave them. Male persons are called to bow in awe of the sacredness of woman's fertility, to lay down their lives in marriage for the person they love, and so that if serious reasons would make the next pregnancy difficult, that the man and woman respect the dignity of life and abstain during the 7-10 days of fertility in the woman's cycle.
Otherwise, with unnatural birth control, which always disrespects fertility, the couple are reduced to sex addicts, unable to abstain, and this reduces the woman to a sex object.
Mary Full of Life bears the most beautiful image in all creation, woman with child.
If only this sacredness could be recovered, and men repented of their lust and objectification of women, then a healthier world would exist where abortion would not be a temptation.