For Dappled Things

Today I share an image of Sister Adele Rowland, OP, one of our sisters. She was famous for her work in photography, particularly Photo Montage. This particular image was created in 1978, long before the advent of Photoshop; she did her creative work in the darkroom, with film, and with slides. I am including an article about her from The Petaluma Post. This particular image is entitled For Dappled Things; Sister surely had Gerard Manly Hopkins poem in mind when she created it.

For Dappled Things, by Sister Adele Rowland, OP

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple
upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow,
and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle
and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled
(who kows how?”
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers – forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise [God].

– Gerard Manley Hopkins