Go Make Disciples
Audio releases from the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City to further the mandate to "Go Make Disciples."
Go Make Disciples
Leigha Liuzza Interview | Red Dirt Catholics LIVE — 2025 Discipleship Conference
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, Jayce and James sat down with Leigha Liuzza of Zelie Creative Co. to explore how beauty, prayer, and family vocation meet in the decision to leave the classroom and build a home studio. We unpack Visio Divina, why art trains the soul to see God, and simple ways to help kids notice the sacred.
• naming Zelie Creative Co after Saint Zélie Martin
• teaching art in a school with the Eucharist present
• painting saints as quiet evangelization
• discerning a leap from teaching to full-time art and motherhood
• peace as a sign in vocational shifts
• the Church’s need for beauty that invites awe
• how Visio Divina works and why it fits a visual age
• guided meditation on the healing of the boy and the mustard seed
• training imagination through objective beauty
• practical ideas for helping kids attend to beauty
• simple family prayer habits and visual aids
• painting as intercession and iterative discernment
Learn more about Leigha and her artwork at https://zeliecreativeco.com/
************
Learn more about the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City online at archokc.org, and follow us on social media by searching "Archdiocese of Oklahoma City."
Hey, thanks for listening to Red Dirt Catholics. If you were not at the 2025 Discipleship Conference, you're in for another treat. We've got another one of our guests or attendees on the lineup here. Hope you enjoyed the listen and it's as fruitful for you as it was for us.
SPEAKER_02:And here we are, and we're still giggling. We're still giggling about. Did you just cuss?
SPEAKER_03:Me?
SPEAKER_02:That was a joke. That's a great line.
SPEAKER_00:That's what it sounds like.
SPEAKER_02:It sounds like someone's beeping.
SPEAKER_00:It sounds like we just bleeped out an expletive.
SPEAKER_02:And the funny thing is, like, that's not even in the recording.
SPEAKER_00:Like no one's going to be able to do it. The audience can't hear the beep. Can you recreate the beep for the audience?
unknown:It's in the recording. I just cut it out at the time.
SPEAKER_02:Oh don't cut it out this time. Yeah, that'll be perfect. Yeah. And get we have so we have we have we have I didn't.
SPEAKER_01:I didn't say anything.
SPEAKER_02:We have another speaker. It's fine. Carlo Brussard customer who was up here with us. We had a minor password. Yeah. And uh so we have Leah Layuza here. Um, and you were here talking about at the conference Visio Divina, but there's a whole lot more to you and your family as well. So give us give us a little glimpse into the Layuza family of like how how your ministry came to be.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so I and my husband and I run a company that is called Zelly Creative Co. And we named it after Saint Zelly Martin. Um, so I want to share just a tiny, tiny snippet of her story because she's awesome. Um and she's the mother of Saint Therese of Lesoux. But a lot of people, and then a lot of people know that, but they don't also know that she was also a lace maker, and so she was a Catholic business owner.
SPEAKER_02:More lace, more grace. Yeah. That's what they say.
SPEAKER_03:Never heard that, but that's awesome. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Wait, did they really say that or are you talking about it? Yeah, the seminary say that about seminarians say that like the super chatty ones like say that about like about their whatever you call whatever you call those. The expression of piety. Yeah. Yeah. More lace, more grace.
SPEAKER_03:That's awesome. So back to Zelly. It's okay. So we named our company after St. Zelly. Yeah. Um, because she was a lacemaker, so she was a small business owner and a creative. But first and foremost, she was, you know, a devout wife and mother raising tiny saints. Um, so that's what well, I have a sticker that says that raising tiny saints. So it's just um she's been our patroness. And um I I am a former art teacher. So I taught c art in a Catholic high school um for most of my teaching career.
SPEAKER_02:I taught one Mount or Bishop.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, Mount St. Mary. Mm-hmm. Go Rockets. Yeah. I'm also proud of the conviction.
SPEAKER_02:She said that she said that with like a oh yeah, yeah. It's okay.
SPEAKER_03:I have tons of friends that teach and have attended another school, but I just am loud and proud. Like I bleed blue. So, you know. Um, it's fine. I taught I graduated from the mount, and then I got the really wonderful opportunity to go back there and teach. Um, and so I talked a little bit this morning about actually getting to be present in a building that was so holy. The people there were holy. I was encouraged by and led by other teachers and leaders in the school, but also there is a presence of Jesus in the building. Like some of us are blessed to work in a space that Jesus is in the Eucharist, like at our place of work. And um, there were parts of my journey where I took that for granted, but also other parts that just I I realized how cool that was and how blessed I was to be able to just walk down. You know, and genuflect past the past the chapel on my way to lunch or whatever. Um, so while I was there, I was teaching art, and I am the type of teacher that likes to liked to make things alongside my students. Um I always joke that being a teacher is like one of the loneliest careers, but you're always with people. Wow. Like constantly, because your coworkers are so isolated in their own rooms. Um but anyway, so to use my time and to use it productively, I would make artwork alongside my students and try to connect with them and kind of let them see a little bit of my skill level to kind of give myself some clout with them.
SPEAKER_00:Clout. Um Did it also have like a studio-like effect where like you're making with them and being present in the you know what the kids call clout now? You know what it is? Aura. Oh, aura going, maxing your aura. There you go.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00:I like clout better.
SPEAKER_03:I like clout better. That's okay. I just want I just my point is I wanted them to know that I was like legit I would I'm an artist. I'm legit, but I was also trying to do this. I am choosing to be here teaching you how to track.
SPEAKER_00:It was like technical authority, you know. We talk about moral authority, it was almost like a technical authority. Like, look, I can do it.
SPEAKER_02:Well, they got to walk.
SPEAKER_00:I've got the trade, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. From like School of Rock, when it's like those who can't teach teach gym, or those who can't do teach, and those who can't teach teach gym. You know?
SPEAKER_03:My grand I actually talked about that today. My grandpa told me when I started teaching. He's like, Oh, you're gonna go be a teacher, those who can't do teach. And I was like, Challenge accepted. But I could I didn't at you know, at the time I wasn't ready to like, oh, I'm gonna go be an artist full time, you know. That's not it, just wasn't realistic for me when I was first college.
SPEAKER_02:That's not what they raised us to do as millennial.
SPEAKER_03:Right, right. So, um, anyway, so I when I was teaching in the Catholic school and I was doing after a certain amount of time, my influence of my faith became more ingrained in just who I was as a human um and definitely who I was as a teacher. For part of my time there, I was a the campus minister as well. Um so I was meshing the two worlds of mine and and talking and thinking about the importance of doing the both of those things together. Um, and then at the same time when I would make art, I'm like, okay, what do I have that's different from the next guy, you know, girl. But um it's like what do I what do I have to bring to the world of art? Like I don't I don't know what's my perspective that's different, and um but that's when I started painting saints. So I talked about them this morning too. The first four saints that I painted were Saint Peregrine and Saint Therese, which I used to ask um my son's godparents to be the godparents, that those are their confirmation saints, and then the next two I painted were Saint Cecilia and Mother Teresa, who were my daughter's godparents confirmation saints. Um, and so though those four people have the four originals of those, and then I decided um to just start making prints and stickers of them. Um the very first conference I ever like worked at, we were starting to kind of get in the groove of things, was the COVID year when Seek was happening at the Omni and it was like a local isolated event. It was the first event I ever did. Um but I was just I don't know, I was feeling like when I would make paint saints in the classroom, it was uh that a subtle way of evangelizing in and of itself. Um and at the at the time though three of the four of those were faceless saints, which is was kind of a thing in art at the time too. Like a lot of people were making faceless saints, and then I would get questions all the time why do they not have faces? And I was like, Well, I just didn't paint faces. I don't know, it was a choice. So I had to really think through like what yeah, it was a style choice. I had to really think through, you know, why I was doing that, and I've since come away from painting faceless saints because um faces are saints are humans, so um, made in the image of God. So that I was just now I paint faces on them, but it was just a different time. But now um during that time teaching and I was I married while I was um while I was a teacher at the mount, I got married, I started having kids, and I had two kids, um, and my mom was watching them full time, and it just like wasn't it like it just didn't make sense anymore when I was pregnant with my third to keep teaching. I mean, I was like either gonna have to put all of them in daycare and my whole salary would have just gone to daycare. And then I really what I really wanted to be doing was creating anyway, and I was kind of getting to the point where I had more saints in my arsenal and I had more artwork coming flowing. And so I just um my husband was my huge cheerleader and was like, we can do this, we can try it, let's, you know, like let's take that step. And we took a huge leap of faith and now that's what I do full time, and I get to stay home with my kids.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, so yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I was just been crazy.
SPEAKER_00:I can relate to this idea of like the friction points of life, right? So, like, okay, season change, all the things are happening vocationally. And I'm just wondering, like, I read a quote that made me think of these same type types of times in my own life, but I think you're modeling for us like maybe discernment and action in that story, right? So, like I read it in a book, but it it said this idea of like that we should as people as humans should be trying to sync up with the pattern or the grain that God has put in the universe. And we just had Father Will on talking about going against grain of the culture. What's interesting is like what you're describing, and it's like feels deeply familiar to me as a father. It's like, okay, two kids in daycare, this, I have these passions, these desires, this is tough. Like I you didn't say it, but I can hear it and I can see it a little bit, like this was tough, and there's some tension, and I don't know. But then you like kind of resigned or surrendered and you went with the grain in some way, like you went with God's grain, right? If that makes any sense. Like, okay, I've got these kids, they're my first responsibility. In some sense, like you took a leap that was fear-producing, right? Like start a business, quit my job, and take it and take on this new parenting thing I'm trying to figure out, right? But like you like went with what God was giving you in a way, and like he bore a ton of fruit, you know? Whereas like you could have gone with the culture's grain and like figured out how to do a side gig on top of the job and you know what I mean? And did the daycare or like kept using grandma a little bit more. It's just quite beautiful. I mean, what was that like being there, like in that tension?
SPEAKER_03:I think like I don't I don't know. It just feels like there was so much uncertainty in like taking the leap. Um but also it felt really peaceful and like the right choice by the time it was the time. And so there wasn't, I don't know, there wasn't like a lightning bolt that was like, this is what you must do and this is what I'm telling you, and like a shoulder-shaking Holy Spirit moment. It was more of just like, let's work through these pieces and see if they fall together and if it feels peaceful and if it feels of the Lord, then let's try it. And like worst case scenario, I can go back and teach somewhere someday. Like that's I mean, that's something that I I a skill I still have. Maybe is the the Holy Spirit still asking me to use it. I got asked to speak here today, and I just don't. It's just like, oh my gosh, I haven't taught in a long time, but I just and I I'm in such good company with the speakers that have been here. It's so incredible. Um and in some ways I feel like unworthy or like not ready for this, but it's also like I know, like I I got called to be this. The Lord doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called. Amen. And um He, I don't know, like I just I'm like, okay, let's just do it. Let's take another leap and do something different.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. That's awesome. So you've had the art as I I would I would assume that there's when you're especially when you're creating religious art, that there's just like kind of moments that naturally pop up in prayer, like while while while it's happening. And it's probably a deeply personal and intimate thing, like as the artist, and like where some of this comes from as a fruit of prayer. But today you were kind of teaching prayer and teaching how to use beauty and goodness in prayer within Visio Divina. Like, how did how do those how did those two worlds collide?
SPEAKER_03:Um, so I was I I talked a lot today about the need for beauty in our church, and I think the historical beauty, and there's this really rich um cultural beauty that we have in the church, and there's been ebbs and flows in history and art history and church history of when that's been really, really great, and when there have been really, you know, kind of tan moments, you know, some ugly churches out there. Most of them are beautiful. But um, so I was talking about the need for beauty in our church, and that's kind of why I started making um certain things, is I thought there was like a modern style of art that um was kind of missing a Catholic perspective. So that's kind of why I started making that. But today, so then I was talking about um also how visual our culture is and the the need and the desire and the you know, our we are so visually driven in our culture right now. Um we scroll and scroll, and there's TVs and there's TVs at the restaurant you go to, they're every single, you know, on every single surface that you see, and so we're visually, we're visually, you know, drawn people.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um so I was talking today in Visio Divina, the need to also slow down and to be able to soak in the beauty and like re-attach to the idea of awe and like being moved by artwork again instead of just like, oh, that's cool and flipping past it. Um and then I taught the process of how to do that prayer. So most people are probably more familiar with Lexio Divina and sacred reading of scripture. Um and so I talked about the similarities in the two processes of how that works, and then um taught the steps for Visio itself. Um, and then I led everyone in in a Visio for the actually the gospel that was read at Mass then right after. Um so that was That's neat.
SPEAKER_02:What was it? What was the painting?
SPEAKER_03:Uh I, you know, I can't even remember the title of it because it's really long, but it's like the title is like Jesus Heals the Boy That Couldn't Be Healed by the Disciples. Like that's what it was. Um it was a very descriptive forget about that one.
SPEAKER_02:The disciples try and fail, and then Jesus had daddy has to come in and fix it.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, and then he says, Your faith, all you need is faith the size of a mustard seed. So um, so yeah, that was the that was an image I used, and I and then I also um and led them through the prayer process of that, which was really wonderful.
SPEAKER_00:Do you use an image of the mustard seed or an image of the boy being healed, or so is it an image? We're gonna close our eyes and we're gonna try to re-see this painting.
SPEAKER_03:I yes, it it's an it's a vertically oriented painting, and so there the alignment of things is kind of like bottom to top. There's a lot of people kind of crowded around at the bottom, and the boy is in what I think is probably his father's arms, and he's he's writhing in pain. He looks almost demonic because of the way that his body is contorted in the arms of a few people. There's some commotion around him. Um, it looks like maybe the apostles are are there like trying something. Some of them look concerned, they all have different looks on their faces. And in sort of the background, a little bit higher on the image, there's a white figure with a couple of people around him, which is Christ, walking towards this scene. Um, and he has a piece about him, and the colors are like calmer and blues and whites, and the the people in the foreground are more in like reds and oranges and yellows and bright, kind of anyway. And then the background even goes further beyond that, and there's mountains. So he says, you know, in the scripture, you're if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, your faith can move mountains. Um, and so those mountains are also present in the background, too. So it's just it's that's kind of the gist of it. Um but um in Visio Divina, I told people to look at the very first thing that their eye was drawn to, and so it's cool to see and hear from them afterward. Oh, my eye was drawn here. Well, my eye was drawn over here first. And so the things that um our eye is drawn to first in the image is kind of what you focus on first, and then you take in the details of everything else going on.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah. That's awesome. We almost had an ignation meditation right here as she was describing that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, what's beautiful about the Visio Divina, like when done well, as you've done it here, is like that's exactly what I was thinking of Ignation because I start I started to activate the imaginary faculties where I'm like imagining these things, I'm putting myself there, I'm quite literally observing the colors or the scenery or the gaze and activating my feelings in that. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And then in the way that I did it today, I was leading the meditation, so I was saying, look at the colors, be aware of the facial expressions, look at the scenery and kind of like helping their eyes move around. Um, whereas in some of that stuff is done in Ignation, but it's all more mental, I think. Like there's not always an image involved.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. Well, this actually almost trains you how to do that. Right. Like if you're doing Visual Divina, it's like giving you the guide. Even the picture you were doing it with your voice, but even the picture itself and my attempt to take it in trains my imagination some, especially if the art's objectively beautiful.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Which it's not an opinion, it's usually like the thing is beautiful or not, right? Yeah, beauty or not. Speaking of, I have two comments, two thoughts about beauty. How are we on time? I forget where I think I think we're like two minutes. Okay. Okay, so one thought and just like a challenge to listeners. I'm curious what your thoughts are. So, like the children of our age right now are caught up in this world you're talking about with all the stimulation. They Joshua Bell, violinist, ran a test, like world renowned. They had him play in the subways of New York, and no one watched, except for the children. That's no one stopped because we've been trained out of it. Yeah, but people pay tens of thousands of dollars to see him in a concert home.
SPEAKER_03:I remember seeing this.
SPEAKER_00:And so I'm just curious, like as a mom and as an artist, like what advice do you have to fellow parents and fellow, you know, humans here to like make sure we're appreciating the true, the good, and the beautiful around us?
SPEAKER_03:I think bringing it into your home is probably the most obvious way. Um I was even talking today, I don't have a ton of sacred art in my own home, which is funny because I make it for a living sometimes. Um, so I think like finding beautiful things that your kids might like. Um, you know, if their name is if they're named after a saint, maybe get an image of that patron saint, you know, to hang in their bedroom, stuff like that. Um, but also just inviting kids to stop and look at things in the church, because there's like beautiful stained glass windows in our church, and I find myself like standing near them sometimes when my kids walking around at the back of mass, running around being crazy, and I'll stop and try to, you know, get them hooked into the beauty that way. Some so I don't know. I don't know. That's the lifelong challenge that I'm living now, is because trying to teach my kids the faith is like I don't know, it's just a struggle and it's gonna be great. It is great. Every day is a different challenge.
SPEAKER_02:Well it's just a perseverance thing. Like that's what that's what Father was it Father Will who was saying who who was said at the end that anything that's worth doing is uh hard.
SPEAKER_00:Was that was that him or was that the uh nothing that's worth doing comes easy. Comes easy.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. That was the line of heard of it. That was from uh that was from Bob Stoops. Robert Stoops. Robert Stoops patron saying the vocal homens.
SPEAKER_00:It's interesting. I uh I want to share a quote that's just been ruminating in the back of my mind that I think is worth pondering, I suppose, of what you've shared. Um is from Pope Leo, like earlier this week, so like August 6th or something. Are you sure it was Pope Leo? If Anne cooked, did you verify that or was it correctly and emailed it to me the way she did, then we're then we're we're good. So we're relying on Anne. But it says the Eucharist is not celebrated only at the altar, but also in daily life, where it is a where it is possible to experience everything as an offering and giving of thanks. To prepare to celebrate this Thanksgiving does not mean doing more, but leaving room. It means removing what encumbers us, reducing our demands, and ceasing to hold unrealistic expectations. The reason why I like what the what first brought it up was the moment you're talking about okay, I've got the kids in daycare, you know, you're thinking about that switch, right? And so it's like you literally made your life an offering to Jesus, taking this risk of following like a desire he had for you, but also claiming your family, and you created more room, you know, and then like beauty, sometimes I think we're just not stopping to have the room, right? Yeah, to cre to see it. And so I don't know, even your answer to this last question, but both of them were like had this quote chattering in my background, but uh or chattering in the background, but I just thanks for your witness. Do you have any advice to other moms hanging out at home?
SPEAKER_03:Oh gosh. No, I well, yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:More more paintings, more paintings in your home.
SPEAKER_03:No, I I think like um in this like world of beauty, in this like context, I guess, is just be to like simplify things for your kids in a tangible way. Um like my kids never want to pray the rosary with me, quote unquote, but they like only hear the podcast that I might play of the rosary. Rosary, maybe. Um, but I remember as a child, like my mom printed the decades of the rosary images of the decades of the rosary to help us like focus on something while we were learning to pray the rosary. And I haven't even tried that with my own kids. This is the Holy Spirit's talking right now, not me.
SPEAKER_02:What if you painted them?
SPEAKER_03:What if I painted them? Yeah. I mean, serious that's what I'm saying. Yes, this is Kathy. She's way better at this stuff than me.
SPEAKER_02:Kathy wrote a book about it. Oh, that's fair. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:She did. It's called Guiding Your Catholic Preschooler, which I've actually never read. Maybe I shouldn't have missed that. I do have a signed copy of it. I also lived it, so that's my excuse for not. Um but one of her, well, one of her best advices, and they're actually, and I'll say it now, because uh, is even when you're teaching your your smallest child a how to do the sign of the cross, um, they're gonna mirror you. So I am teaching Colby, my youngest, to do the sign of the cross, but I'm using my left hand and doing it backwards so that he learns to do it with his right hand.
SPEAKER_02:You know what? That's a great idea. Peter does it the wrong way all the time. Because they're watching you, they're memory. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So it's like such a simple thing, but like it's not something I've I actively thought about until I've actually been really frustrated with him.
SPEAKER_02:I'm like, dude, other way.
SPEAKER_03:And it's not even like uh to me, part of it is even just using the correct hand. Like at one point you need to do it with your right hand.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So anyway, well just like simplify, yeah, check it out.
SPEAKER_02:It's simplified.
SPEAKER_03:If you don't get anything else from this podcast, it's to read my mom's book.
SPEAKER_02:Read your mom's book and go to ZellyCreativeco.com.com. Is that the best place? We can see you on Instagram too, probably.
SPEAKER_03:The best place. Yeah, you can find me on Instagram and you'll get some of the backstory of some of the why of things. Um, which is cool. My newest painting is actually of Pope Leo, so nice.
SPEAKER_01:That's cool. Check it out. Heck yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So very cool.
SPEAKER_02:Does it have stars and stripes on it? Is it just like America? Oh, heck yeah. Pope. I want that one. I want a sticker.
SPEAKER_03:I've I'm making I'm it's happening. It's like it's been in my head. Like he's holding a Chicago dog and there's a flag in the background, you know, and it's like But the no first and foremost.
SPEAKER_00:Well you have a bite have been taken out of the hot dog already?
SPEAKER_03:Um, sure. And maybe it's on his cheek still. I don't know. But just kidding.
SPEAKER_00:Well no, after you start creating it.
SPEAKER_03:There you go. I haven't actually drawn it yet, but I've been talking about it since he was elected. But the no, the painting I made is actually a very serious, like watercolor, beautiful painting. I used it because of the week he was elected. I was just very drawn to him and and what was happening, and it was really cool. It was the first thing, like one of the first faith things that my kids got to witness. Yeah. They it was so fun to watch them watch for the smoke. It was it was cool. Um, sorry, we're supposed to be wrapping up. But I I was like, I want to like I really want to pray for him, and and painting is my prayer. So that's why that's where that came from.
SPEAKER_00:I was it's cool, like listening, like hearing, getting a little insight into the creativity. I'm not an artist, but a train in landscape architecture. It's iterative, right? Like you're kind of trying your hand at it, and that that curve wasn't quite right, or put that piece of paper aside, start again.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so it's like not unlike prayer and discernment in the spiritual life. Like, you know, we're just got a shared motor. Yeah, yeah, it really does. Shared motor.
SPEAKER_03:And it helps me to focus when I'm doing something with my hands.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, brings it in. Well, Lee, it's been a pleasure having you. We're so lucky to have you here in Oklahoma, here at our conference, uh, and everybody go and buy some of her stuff so she can support her children.
SPEAKER_03:All right, and so I can keep staying home.
SPEAKER_02:All right, so you can keep staying home and loving her children well. Yeah, thank you guys.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02:Appreciate you. Thanks, Lee.