Meet: Indiana-based Artist Elly Tullis

“Luminescent (after Ingres)”, 36”x48”, Acrylic on Wood Panel

ELLY TULLIS is an Indiana-based visual artist whose exhibition Theotokos: Contemporary Visions of Mary by Elly Tullis is currently running at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art through March 8, 2020.

CAC treasurer Laura Pittenger caught the exhibit while visiting family over the holidays. We reached out to Elly for a deeper look into her Catholic conversion story, which she was happy to share.  Pray for Elly as she moves through RCIA to be baptized in the Catholic Church in Easter 2021! 

From Elly: 

When I became pregnant with our second child, I was determined to regain control of my life, so I began meditating nearly every night. I was envisioning the life I wanted: a happy home, a thriving painting career and a good night’s sleep for everyone. I pictured myself in my studio, working feverishly, paintings POURING out of me.  I pictured my calm, rested self with my happy little family, gracefully juggling it all. I even pictured myself walking across a room and shaking hands with the President of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. 

When my daughter was about 6 weeks old, I started a painting of the Virgin Mary. I’m not really sure what prompted me to do so, but I saved an image of a portrait of Mary by Sassoferrato on my phone in the middle of the night. I was praying a lot of Hail Mary’s during those endless sleepless nights. Praying the Hail Mary in moments of crisis or despair was about all that I’d retained from attending Catholic school for fourteen years as a non-Catholic. I remember begging, “Please just let me sleep! Oh, Mary, please help me to sleep!”

On New Year’s Day of 2019, in a moment of complete frustration, still exhausted but surviving, I handed our beautiful 6-week-old daughter to my husband, saying “Here, hold her, I need to paint!” I started that first painting of Mary without a clue as to why I was doing it, but it was bringing me a huge release and sense of peace.

“Weep (after Murillo)”, 20”x24”, Acrylic on Wood Panel

“Madonna and Child”, 36”x36”, Acrylic on Wood Panel

I started to become fascinated in the person of Mary. We all know her image as a ceramic or plastic statue draped in blue, but who was she? “She was a real person, right?” I kept asking myself. I wanted to know everything I could and I was on a mission to find out what she really looked like since history hadn’t recorded her unique features or her true essence as a human being. 

Inspired by the apparition stories of Fatima and Lourdes, I began praying the rosary on May 13th. The first few times I dropped to my knees to pray felt awful. My knees ached, I felt nauseous and like a huge leaden weight was running through my core and right into the floor. I kept at it, hoping to experience my own apparition and glimpse Mary’s unique face. 

“O Holy Mother (after Rogier van der Weyden)”, 30”x40”, Acrylic on Wood Panel

About twenty paintings in, I began to wonder what all of this had to do with me. I had told myself that maybe God was just using me to help others, but He really didn’t want anything to do with me. I started to feel lost and broke down occasionally while working on these paintings. 

Then, someone sent me a “Word On Fire” podcast about Mary. She said she thought it might deepen my understanding of who Mary was, so I listened… I enjoyed hearing what they had to say about Mary, so I started listening to more and more episodes, eventually making it through all of them. I was beginning to question if God was trying to reach me and I thought “this is too big, there’s no way I could make such a huge change in my life,” more nausea. 

When I first read that Mary’s main role is to bring people closer to Jesus, I nearly slammed the book shut, thinking, “Oh No, you’re not going to get ME!” 

I was afraid of Jesus. I felt overwhelmed by the thought of Him and wondered if I could just stop at Mary. After attending Catholic school, I knew that wasn’t really an option. I think my opposition to Jesus was more of an opposition to becoming a “Jesus freak.” I thought, “No, that’s not ME, I don’t quote bible verses, live a life of restrictions and have a far-off look in my eyes gazing at Heaven’s gate. I keep my feet planted firmly on this earth, in reality. I’m not wasting this life living for the next.”

I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but when I let Jesus in, I felt an immense burning love radiating from so deep within me. It’s not just my heart, but it feels like my entire chest cavity has opened up and expanded, like a bottomless vessel, and I can feel that feeling right now and anytime I think about it. I don’t have to define it every time I experience it, but I know that it is Jesus’ love for me and mine for Him, for this life and everyone in this world. The closest feeling I can relate this love to, is gratitude. When I was meditating all the time, I was instructed to feel or imagine feeling a deep sense of gratitude — heart-expanding gratitude. I was practicing being grateful in advance of basically having everything I ever wanted. That’s the closest thing I can relate this to, this swelling, boundless love I feel pouring through me (in and out of my body), immense gratitude for all of life.

Throughout this project I’ve been under a spiritual attack. There were many days of feeling like a failure or like I wasn’t cut out for the scope of this project. Even more than that, I had an overwhelming sense that something in the universe was trying to break me. 

I finished all 31 paintings and the museum picked them up a few weeks ago. This experience has been a wild ride and I know it’s only the beginning. The Blessed Mother broke through this world and into my life and gently turned me towards her Son. For that I am truly grateful! My soul is LONGING for the Sacraments and I’m trying to figure out how I can get closer to Jesus in the meantime (without dying of course). I’m in the midst of conversion and still a little unclear about how I got here. I guess you could say I have everything I always wanted … but now I want something more. 

I think somewhere along the way, God hijacked my meditation or perhaps I wasn’t just meditating, I was praying. I’m not sure what I was doing then, but I can tell you – I’m praying now!

“Reign (after Giacomo di Mino)”, 30”x40”, Acrylic on Wood Panel