Profile of Catholic Artist, Andrea Maglio-Macullar
Andrea Maglio-Macullar is a Catholic artist whose religious art has appeared in many venues, including publications by Loyola Press and Our Sunday Visitor. Her art is bright, colorful, and eye-catching. Many of her pieces have a stained-glass quality to them which makes them very appealing.
Maglio-Macullar has been drawing since she was a young child. It was something she always loved, but it wasn’t until high school that she began a formal study of the subject and received an award for Excellence in Art. She then went on to study at Northeastern University, Montserrat College of Art, and the DeCordova Museum School.
A cradle-Catholic, faith has always been an important part of this artist’s life. While she has painted many subjects, for the past eight years she has focused on religious art. Maglio-Macullar states, “. I found there was never so much joy at painting as to paint Jesus, Our Blessed Mother, The Saints or stories from the Bible. This made me think of something my dad, an Ordained Permanent Deacon told me. He said that there was never so much heightened consolation as when he was doing God’s work. I could understand this. I felt this way when I would paint Religious themes.”
A project that is especially close to her heart is a series she did on the mysteries of the rosary. She prays the rosary every day and was inspired to create images for all twenty mysteries over the course of several weeks. Our Sunday Visitor used these images in a booklet about the rosary for children.
She then began to think of other ways to use these images. She created a poster with them, and they were almost used in a game created by another individual. When that project fell through, she thought that she might use them for that purpose as well – as an educational tool to help children learn about the rosary. She and her sister collaborated on the project. “We created it as a board game, but then again found no one that would publish it for us. Then one day I was watching some of my nieces and nephews playing their little hand held video games and thought this would be a great way for children to learn about their faith. So I looked for some time to find someone to make it into an electronic game for a reasonable price. That is how it became a game for iPad, iPhone and iPod, and is now available on cd for people to play on their pc.”
The “Blessed Mother Rosary Game” is available on iTunes. To order the cd of the game or to view other examples of Maglio-Macullar’s beautiful art, please visit her website at www.andsart.weebly.com.
