November 18, 2004
All saints – and one blessed – honored at Puyallup parish
By Terry McGuire
PUYALLUP—The parish is named All Saints.
Nov. 1st is All Saints Day.
What better way to celebrate your parish’s feast day than by decorating the church with saints?
That was the logic behind the 18 life-size paintings of saints – most of them done by local artists -- that now brighten the interior of All Saints Church. They’ve become so popular there’s talk of keeping them up past the month of November.
“People have fallen so in love with them that we’re having ongoing discussions about whether they should become a permanent part of the (worship) space, or at least be up for a large part of the year,” said Father Richard “Woody” McCallister, pastor. A meeting was to be held this week.
The project was the brainchild of parishioner and religious artist George Josten, who felt that last year’s All Saints Day celebration at the church was “normal (and) very uninteresting.”
He took his idea for the paintings to the pastor and then to the parish’s Spiritual Life & Worship Commission. With their blessings, a call for artists was placed in the parish bulletin. Josten also contacted artists he knew.
Eighteen artists, both novice and professional, volunteered their skills, Josten said. So the list of 14 saints was increased by four. For the most part, the artists chose and researched their saints on their own – with Josten coordinating things so they wouldn’t end up with four St. Francises.
For uniformity, all the paintings were done on a gold-colored background on six-foot masonite panels – with hinges in the middle to allow for folding for storage. Two paintings greet parishioners in the foyer. The other 16 hang high on the sanctuary walls and at an angle so people can easily see them.
They were installed without fanfare for the weekend Masses preceding All Saints Day, which fell on a Monday.
“The buzz in the ether was amazing,” said Karen McNees, pastoral assistant for liturgy and music. “People were pointing at them all through Mass.”
Father McCallister calls the paintings “beautiful” and “inspirational,” and he notes that in some cases they bring out the talents of parishioners whose “unique gifts were never called forth before.”
Quite a few of the participants were not professional artists, Josten said. He personally assisted two of them – his teenage grandchildren, Sarah and Matthew. Others were artists who had done flowers or landscapes but nothing as intimidating as a life-size person. “They had a marvelous time,” Josten said.
Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, painted by parishioner Enid Duncan, is the gallery’s only non-saint.
Duncan said she knew the project’s focus was on saints, but she wanted to do Mother Teresa anyway.
“To me she is the most inspiring figure in my life,” she said. “There’s no other person that I can see Catholicism (represented) as active and alive as it was with her.”
At Father McCallister’s request, Duncan, who specializes in religious art, also is painting another depiction of the famed nun for the new Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta Parish in Woodinville. Duncan’s painting of Jesus and the children hangs in All Saints School.
She considers her artistic talents a God-given gift that brings her closer to him. She also notes that the Catholic Church has long used art to “express the deep faith that we have and tell the story about who we are.”
Not all the artists are Catholic.
St. Clare was painted by artist and art teacher Cindy Bowers, a member of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Puyallup. “I wasn’t sure about all the saints and who they were,” Bowers said, “and he (Josten) said, ‘Well, there’s St. Clare, you can research her.”
When she did, she discovered St. Clare is the patron of eye disorders, so she depicted her with eyes closed. She placed a palm in her hand after learning the saint ran away from home on Palm Sunday to study in the church under St. Francis of Assisi.
“In the end, when I saw all the (artists’) work compiled together, I thought, ‘What a nice representation that was of different people’s interpretation of the saints,’” Bowers said. “I thought that was just great.”
Josten does, too. And he hopes to add more saints next year, hopefully from the Hispanic and Asian communities, which are not yet represented.
He also hopes to see the paintings come down at the end of the month so they don’t become so familiar that people won’t notice them.
McNees, the pastoral assistant, said the fact that the project was an all-volunteer effort reflects the makeup of the All Saints community, where outreach to the poor rather than the state of interior decorations has always been the focus.
“We didn’t go and commission some expensive artist,” she said. “This is us.”
The saints and their artists, some of whom didn’t want their names used, are: St. George, George Josten; Mother Teresa, Enid Duncan; St. Paul, anonymous; St. Lucy, Mary Dubinsky; St. Patrick, I.D. Provost; St. Francis of Assisi, Carmen Eskra; St. Martha, Martha Eskra; St. Peter, Matthew Josten; St. Cecilia, anonymous; St. Clare, Cindy Bowers; St. Catherine of Alexandria, Teri Miller; St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Leonor Schorr; St. Luke, anonymous; St. Matthew, Nancy West; St. Barbara, Christa Ishida; St. Joan of Arc, Sarah Josten; St. Elizabeth, Grace Nirschl; and St. Veronica, Steve Heeb.