Marie Noel Bruch

Sister Marie Noel Bruch

About the artist: 
I am in my 73rd year as an SCL. I’ve been blessed to work in six ministries: teaching, child care, hermitess, home health aide, hospice chaplain, adoption social worker, lover of mushrooms, and builder of bird houses. I have always been involved in some kind of creative adventure.

About the artwork: Birdhouse
When I retired from working in adoptions at age 72, I needed a new craft project. I enjoyed the magazine, Birds and Blooms. Each month it featured birdhouses people had made. I looked at them and said, “I could do that.” So I started 10 years of building birdhouses which I sold to be able to help the poor in Helena. This is my favorite and the only one I have left.

About the artwork: Just Be with the Spring – Textile
This stitchery was designed and embroidered by me. I was inspired by the theme of the spring which has been lived almost full circle in my life. My parents bought property with a mineral spring just before I was born. That spring was the center of our lives, i.e., sold at a nickel a gallon by horse and wagon in the 1930s. It watered our large garden and provided water for the animals we raised for food. I always loved the spring of the year as my favorite season. Then, when I was given permission for my sabbatical “to find God in the wilderness,” the sign that was given to where I would go was the cabin outside Butte. It looked promising, but a contractor who examined the property told the Community Director to not make any improvements on the cabin because it was situated on a spring and the fireplace was sinking. I knew that was where I should go. It turned out to be the perfect place. Toward the end of the year, while I was meditating on Jesus at the well and the life-giving water, I did a memory trip to the springs of my childhood. Jesus came to me there and in my heart gave me the message, “Just be with the Spring.” The meaning of that burst into many themes and has become my mantra.