Views from the Choir Loft

Cynthia Ostrowski • Article Archive

Cynthia Ostrowski holds a bachelor's degree in Geographic Information Science and a minor in Computer Science from Texas A&M University Corpus Christi (2005). She is currently a stay-at-home mother of two children. A former GIS analyst, Cynthia's interests include photography, french horn, and singing polyphony.—Read full biography (with photographs).

Cynthia Ostrowski · October 15, 2014

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #59

Today’s installment gives an alternate version to Purification image we’ve already released.

Cynthia Ostrowski · September 30, 2014

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #58

Today’s installment comes from the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.

Cynthia Ostrowski · September 24, 2014

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #57

Here is a “catalogue” which clearly lists the woodcuts made available so far.

Cynthia Ostrowski · September 8, 2014

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #56

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

Cynthia Ostrowski · July 14, 2014

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #30

All the vestments used in the Campion Missal were more than 200 years old.

Cynthia Ostrowski · July 1, 2014

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #55

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

Cynthia Ostrowski · June 24, 2014

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #54

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

Cynthia Ostrowski · June 3, 2014

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #53

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

Cynthia Ostrowski · April 8, 2014

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #52

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

Cynthia Ostrowski · March 18, 2014

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #51

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

Cynthia Ostrowski · February 4, 2014

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #50

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

Cynthia Ostrowski · January 21, 2014

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #49

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

Cynthia Ostrowski · January 14, 2014

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #48

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

Cynthia Ostrowski · January 7, 2014

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #47

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

Cynthia Ostrowski · December 17, 2013

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #46

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

Cynthia Ostrowski · December 11, 2013

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #45

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

Cynthia Ostrowski · December 3, 2013

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #44

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

Cynthia Ostrowski · November 26, 2013

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #43

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

Cynthia Ostrowski · November 19, 2013

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #42

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

Cynthia Ostrowski · November 12, 2013

Catholic Line Art, Black and White • Installment #41

I will be releasing hundreds of these B/W religious line art drawings for free and instant download. These beautiful Catholic “woodcuts” were done with magnificent skill. “Download Free Traditional Catholic Clipart”

PDF Download • Vespers for the Dead

Mr. Albert Bloomfield kindly sent me “Vespers for the Dead”—which does not fulfill a priest’s obligation to pray the Divine Office, yet is often prayed when a loved one dies. Here is formatting A, and here it is again with formatting B.

—Jeff Ostrowski

20 October 2020 • “What we can’t share”

Almighty God has given to us the example of the Jesuit Martyrs of North America, whose feast day we celebrated yesterday. Of course, along with those eight martyrs we honor their associates, e.g Father François Bressani. I can’t share with you the torments Father Bressani underwent at the hands of Iroquois: it is too brutal. It would tear your heart out. But I will share what Bressani’s Superior said, after receiving a letter from him: “The letter is soiled and ill-written; because the writer has only one finger left on his right hand, and cannot prevent the blood from his wounds—which are still open—from staining the paper. His ink is gunpowder mixed with water, and his table is the earth.” If you have the stomach for it, read what Father Bressani (d. 1672) underwent for Jesus Christ. Let his example help us never fall into sins of impurity, avarice, ingratitude, or envy.

—Jeff Ostrowski

13 October 2020 • Chopin talks Bach

My “pianist pedigree” goes from my teacher through Wiktor Łabuński through Felix Blumenfeld, who studied with Anton Rubinstein. I always considered myself part of the “Bach-Mozart-Chopin school” as opposed to the “Handel-Beethoven-Liszt school.” (Needless to say, there’s great overlap between these schools.) Before giving a concert, Frédéric Chopin would always shut himself up in a room and play through Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. The year Chopin died, he spent considerable time with the painter, Eugène Delacroix (d. 1863), who recounts hearing Chopin launch into a monologue on the transcendence of J.S. Bach, insisting that “the fugue is like pure logic in music,” and that “to know fugue deeply is to be acquainted with the element of all reason and all consistency in music.”

—Jeff Ostrowski