{"title":"Fleur du Cœur Collection","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn this special work, Mary's tear is not a tear of surrender. It is a call to return to our trust in God. Something happened that I never anticipated in this piece. Before I even released the completed artwork, I showed only Mary's face in a reel that I posted on social media. Not some carefully engineered viral campaign. I hardly ever get on Instagram. Most of my Instagram reels are just cross-posted automatically from Facebook. I wasn’t chasing an algorithm. I wasn’t trying to figure out the perfect hook. I wasn’t trying to get three million views in a few days. The reel is ten seconds long and doesn't show the the complete drawing. You don’t see her veil and, I never told anyone who she was. There wasn’t some explanation of Mary. The caption was basically, ‘No caption needed.’ And somehow she started traveling- India, Turkey, Iran, Brazil, Indonesia. Several million views. Almost everybody seeing her has never followed me before. Different languages. Different religions. Different cultures. Different ages. Some people recognized her immediately as Mary. Some knew her as Maryam. Some had absolutely no idea who she was. One person in India guessed that she was a film star. And then there was this comment from Turkey that I cannot get out of my head. Someone showed the reel to a woman sitting with her cigarette and her tea. She watched it again and again. The first thing she said was: ‘A star is falling from the girl’s eye.’ She didn’t know she was looking at Mary. She didn’t even understand that what she was seeing was a tear yet. She watched it eleven times. Star. Strange mark. Maybe a snake. Then finally: ‘The girl is crying.’ And I keep thinking about that. Before she recognized sorrow, she saw light. And none of these people had even seen the whole piece. They still haven’t seen the veil. And the veil matters. That part of the drawing is tied to Mary’s veil and to the relic tradition surrounding it. Millions of people responded before they ever saw that part of the story. Then a priest asked me something I wasn’t expecting. He asked if I had compared the face I drew to known Marian apparitions. So I did. I started looking. And nothing I found really looked like her. I want to be very careful with that as I am not saying this is an apparition. I am not saying this reel is a miracle. I don’t know what it is. I am saying I am curious. Really curious. I then tried the obvious technical explanation. I intentionally posted a trial reel. Twenty-four hours later it had about 101 views. Again, the number itself doesn’t matter. What matters is that simply using the trial-reel feature clearly does not explain what happened with this one. So yes, there is an algorithm. Of course there is. There are watch times, shares, saves, replays, recommendations — all of those things explain how content can spread. But what I keep wondering about is the other question: Why this? Why this face? Why this tear? Why these countries? Why now? Why was the song already waiting? Why did a body of work that began with fleur-de-lis almost twenty years ago eventually lead me into sacred art, then music, then motion, then augmented reality, and now somehow to a ten-second image of Mary moving around the world? I’ve spent the last few years writing about wanting God to use me. And lately I have wondered \"What if this is what that looks like?\" Not something dramatic. Maybe God uses a pencil. Maybe He uses a song. Maybe He uses technology. Maybe He even uses an algorithm. Maybe all of these things I thought were separate — the fleur-de-lis, Sacred Heart, the songs, the movement, the augmented reality, my faith journey — were actually teaching me how to make art that could travel farther than I ever could. I don’t know. But I do know this: I never set out to show Mary to millions of people. And somehow, millions of people have now stopped and looked at her. Some knew her. Some remembered her. Some met her without even knowing her name. And she is still traveling.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"fleur-du-coeur","title":"Fleur du Cœur","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom the artist:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwenty years ago, I created my first fleur-de-lis. I knew the fleur-de-lis as a symbol of Louisiana - of my culture, my home and the place that has shaped so much of my life and my art. When I began learning about its centuries-old association with the Virgin Mary, it deeply affected me. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThree years ago, some women from Church Point walked into my studio looking for a donation for their church. That seemingly ordinary encounter began a chain of events I never could have planned. A priest entered my story and asked me to create sacred art. The Good Shepherd followed, and a new journey began. One sacred work led to another. And somehow, twenty years after that first fleur-de-lis, I found myself returning to the Virgin Mary.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen we look at the world around us we see division, suffering, violence, fear, distrust and uncertainty. Trust in governments, institutions and earthly authorities can be shaken. Families and communities can become divided. We can begin to wonder what is true, whom we can trust and where we are headed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this special work, Mary's tear is not a tear of surrender. It is a call to return to our trust in God. And then something happened that I never anticipated. Before I even released the completed artwork, I showed only Mary's face. And I watched her travel across the globe. Before the world had even seen the complete piece, that glimpse of her had approached 1.5 million views. People from different countries, cultures and languages stopped for her. They shared her. They spoke about what they felt when they looked into her face. I began to realize that perhaps people weren't responding only to a drawing. Perhaps people are searching. Searching for hope. Searching for peace. Searching for something greater than the noise surrounding us.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat is what Fleur du Cœur has become for me. The fleur-de-lis and Mary come together in one image - Louisiana, home, twenty years of art, and a journey of faith converging in a single work. And the tear is essential. On every signed print, I will personally create a permanent tear containing a piece of blessed salt, making the tear a physical part of the artwork and each signed piece individually finished by my hand. Salt has ancient meaning within Christianity. Christ called His followers \"the salt of the earth.\" It speaks of preservation, purification and the responsibility to carry faith into the world. A tear for humanity. A grain of salt for faith. Because I do not believe we are powerless. We have the power to help turn this tide through prayer and fasting. Through repentance. Through mercy. Through loving one another. Through choosing faith instead of fear and placing our trust back where it ultimately belongs. Mary does not ask us to stop at her. She points us to her Son, Jesus Christ.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Candice Alexander Art","offers":[{"title":"5x7 Signed Print \/ Brown Wood Framed","offer_id":52264988705063,"sku":null,"price":55.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"5x7 Signed Print \/ Champagne Frame","offer_id":52264988737831,"sku":null,"price":85.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"5x7 Signed Print \/ Not Framed","offer_id":52264988770599,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"8x10 Signed Print \/ Brown Wood Framed","offer_id":52264988803367,"sku":null,"price":99.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"8x10 Signed Print \/ Champagne Frame","offer_id":52264988836135,"sku":null,"price":150.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"8x10 Signed Print \/ Not Framed","offer_id":52264988868903,"sku":null,"price":49.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"11x14 Signed Print \/ Brown Wood Framed","offer_id":52264988901671,"sku":null,"price":150.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"11x14 Signed Print \/ Champagne Frame","offer_id":52264988934439,"sku":null,"price":175.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"11x14 Signed Print \/ Not Framed","offer_id":52264988967207,"sku":null,"price":75.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"14x18 Signed Print \/ Brown Wood Framed","offer_id":52264988999975,"sku":null,"price":199.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"14x18 Signed Print \/ Champagne Frame","offer_id":52264989032743,"sku":null,"price":225.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"14x18 Signed Print \/ Not Framed","offer_id":52264989065511,"sku":null,"price":99.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"16x20 Signed Print \/ Brown Wood Framed","offer_id":52264989098279,"sku":null,"price":240.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"16x20 Signed Print \/ Champagne Frame","offer_id":52264989131047,"sku":null,"price":275.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"16x20 Signed Print \/ Not Framed","offer_id":52264989163815,"sku":null,"price":139.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"18x24 Signed Print \/ Brown Wood Framed","offer_id":52264989196583,"sku":null,"price":305.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"18x24 Signed Print \/ Champagne Frame","offer_id":52264989229351,"sku":null,"price":350.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"18x24 Signed Print \/ Not Framed","offer_id":52264989262119,"sku":null,"price":189.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"24x36 Signed Print \/ Brown Wood Framed","offer_id":52264989294887,"sku":null,"price":550.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"24x36 Signed Print \/ Champagne Frame","offer_id":52264989327655,"sku":null,"price":600.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"24x36 Signed Print \/ Not Framed","offer_id":52264989360423,"sku":null,"price":330.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"16x20 Signed Canvas \/ Brown Wood Framed","offer_id":52264989393191,"sku":null,"price":425.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"16x20 Signed Canvas \/ Not Framed","offer_id":52264989425959,"sku":null,"price":250.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"18x24 Signed Canvas \/ Brown Wood Framed","offer_id":52264989458727,"sku":null,"price":550.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"18x24 Signed Canvas \/ Not Framed","offer_id":52264989491495,"sku":null,"price":325.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"24x36 Signed Canvas \/ Brown Wood Framed","offer_id":52264989524263,"sku":null,"price":900.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"24x36 Signed Canvas \/ Not Framed","offer_id":52264989557031,"sku":null,"price":600.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"36x48 Signed Canvas \/ Brown Wood Framed","offer_id":52264989589799,"sku":null,"price":1600.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"36x48 Signed Canvas \/ Not Framed","offer_id":52264989622567,"sku":null,"price":1200.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Original 16 x 20 (late 1880s handmade wood frame) Private Collection \/ Brown Wood Framed","offer_id":52264989655335,"sku":null,"price":3500.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0074\/3741\/8581\/files\/IMG_1571_93fe40ef-58fc-479b-bc57-ed797bc4e499.jpg?v=1791415271"},{"product_id":"fleur-du-coeur-oyster","title":"Fleur du Cœur Oyster","description":"\u003cp data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eInspired by \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFleur du Cœur\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, this hand-painted oyster brings together the fleur-de-lis and the Virgin Mary—symbols of Louisiana, faith, and home. Mary’s tear is not one of surrender, but a call to return our trust to God amid a world of uncertainty. Rooted in the Christian symbolism of salt and Christ’s call to be “the salt of the earth,” the piece serves as a small but powerful reminder of hope, prayer, mercy, and faith—and that Mary always points us toward her Son, Jesus Christ.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"isSelectedEnd\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFeatures:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGenuine Louisiana oyster shell\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOriginal artwork by Candice Alexander\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHand-finished with gold leaf accents\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIncludes decorative hanging cord\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIndividually handcrafted—each ornament is truly one of a kind\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Candice Alexander Art","offers":[{"title":"One Oysters","offer_id":52265069412647,"sku":null,"price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Three Oysters","offer_id":52265069445415,"sku":null,"price":75.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0074\/3741\/8581\/files\/IMG_1600.jpg?v=1791417388"},{"product_id":"fleur-du-coeur-tiles","title":"Fleur du Cœur Tiles","description":"\u003cp data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eInspired by \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFleur du Cœur\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, this decorative tile brings together the fleur-de-lis and the Virgin Mary—symbols of Louisiana, faith, and home. Mary’s tear is not one of surrender, but a call to return our trust to God in times of uncertainty. A meaningful expression of hope, prayer, and faith, the piece reminds us that even amid division and fear, we are not powerless—and that Mary always points us toward her Son, Jesus Christ.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Candice Alexander Art","offers":[{"title":"One 4 x4 Tile","offer_id":52265084027175,"sku":null,"price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Four 4 x4 Tiles","offer_id":52265084059943,"sku":null,"price":50.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0074\/3741\/8581\/files\/IMG_1604.jpg?v=1791417910"},{"product_id":"fleur-du-coeur-1","title":"Fleur du Cœur Keychains","description":"\u003cp data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCarry a reminder of faith and hope wherever you go with the \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFleur du Cœur\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e keychain. Bringing together the fleur-de-lis and the Virgin Mary, this meaningful piece reflects Louisiana, home, and a call to place our trust in God. Mary’s tear serves as a reminder of compassion for humanity, while her presence ultimately points us toward her Son, Jesus Christ.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Candice Alexander Art","offers":[{"title":"One Keychain","offer_id":52265106145575,"sku":null,"price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Four Keychains","offer_id":52265106178343,"sku":null,"price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0074\/3741\/8581\/files\/IMG_1606.jpg?v=1791418250"},{"product_id":"fleur-du-coeur-t-shirts","title":"Fleur du Cœur T-shirts","description":"\u003cp data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWear the message of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFleur du Cœur\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e—a powerful union of the Virgin Mary and the fleur-de-lis that has touched hearts around the world. Rooted in Louisiana and inspired by faith, Mary’s tear is a call to prayer, hope, and renewed trust in God, reminding us that even in uncertain times, Mary always points us toward her Son, Jesus Christ.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Candice Alexander Art","offers":[{"title":"T-shirts Adult S (Unisex)","offer_id":52267789713703,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"T-shirts Adult M (Unisex)","offer_id":52267789746471,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"T-shirts Adult L (Unisex)","offer_id":52267789779239,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"T-shirts Adult XL (Unisex)","offer_id":52267789812007,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"T-shirts Adult 2X Unisex)","offer_id":52267789844775,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"T-shirts Adult 3X (Unisex)","offer_id":52267789877543,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Youth XS","offer_id":52267789910311,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Youth S","offer_id":52267789943079,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Youth M","offer_id":52267789975847,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Youth L","offer_id":52267790008615,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0074\/3741\/8581\/files\/C2F58FFD-89DE-42F3-A786-517CC4699558.png?v=1791472491"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0074\/3741\/8581\/collections\/IMG_1571_93fe40ef-58fc-479b-bc57-ed797bc4e499.jpg?v=1791419586","url":"https:\/\/candicealexander.com\/collections\/fleur-du-coeur-collection.oembed","provider":"Candice Alexander Art Studio","version":"1.0","type":"link"}