Mustard Seed (40" x 40", acrylic on canvas) - Based on a verse from the Bible, this painting is one of Mary's last works, painted in the late 1970s as she began to move away from death, bones and demons.  The theme is the parable of the mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32):

    The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed into his field:
    Which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

Mary saw this parable in mandala form: the seed as the kingdom of heaven in the center, radiating out as it grows into mustard plants through a ring of storm clouds and birds, and bursting into bloom in the Light that surrounds all.

"I've had this feeling of wanting to deal with paintings about what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.  I made a selection of quotations from the Bible - things that Jesus said about the Kingdom of Heaven, and boy they're far out!  They're way far out!"