Local Catholic painter brings religious art home

By Ambria Hammel | Dec. 22, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

SCOTTSDALE — Maria Zielinska spent years as a successful commercial artist. But something kept nagging her.

The world’s greatest art was created for God, not for business. Every time she’d put a brush to canvas, she found her creation wanting.

That changed two years ago. Zielinska, who came to Arizona in 1996, sold everything she had except her paints and two bags. She spent the next 18 months in holy places throughout her native Poland, returning to Scottsdale earlier this year.

Her journey was not only a conversion of sorts for Zielinska, a cradle Catholic, but a series of inspirations that led to more than a dozen portrait pieces depicting modern and traditional religious figures.

Those portraits are now available as original paintings, prints and note cards at The King’s House in Scottsdale and other Zieglers-owned Catholic shops nationwide.

“It’s important to have images of religious art in the home,” said Zielinska, who was born and baptized in the same place as Pope John Paul II. “In today’s art world, people don’t put much effort into creating new religious art that would appeal to young people.”

Her latest pieces may change that. Catholics have been admiring her depictions of the Madonna and Child, St. John Vianney, St. Faustina, St. Padre Pio, Blessed Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II, to name a few.

The diary of St. Faustina and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy inspired Zielinska’s religious artwork.

 “That was the first time I had such a strong spiritual experience. My life changed so much through this prayer,” Zielinska recalled. “It really is about making a connection with God.”

Others feel the same when they see her portraits.

“The art — you can feel it,” said Agnes Smolag, a parishioner at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Scottsdale and a native of Poland.

Several Polish Catholics counted themselves among the small but steady crowd inching its way through the narrow aisles of The King’s House Dec. 5 during an exhibit of Zielinska’s artwork.

“Each one has its own particular thing that draws you into it,” said Ginger Mikell, marketing analyst for Zieglers. “Her artwork comes from deep within the soul and that’s what happened when I looked at it. It touched my soul.”