Paintings, mosaics, rosaries lift ‘minds & hearts to God’

Art Toalston

Listen to Charleen Hoover describe her “Keepsake Rosaries”

Interior designer Nancy Maher recounts how Art for Inspiration got its start at St. Matthew Catholic Church.

Art gallery supplants parish’s school cafeteria

By Art Toalston

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A place where people meet to worship God surely can accommodate an extraordinary display of humanity.

St. Matthew Catholic Church, for a second year, has hosted such a display through its “Art for Inspiration” art show.

“It raises our minds and hearts to God to see this beautiful work,” Sister Lauren Cole, director of religious education at St. Matthew, said of the works displayed by 40-plus artists, about a third of whom were members of the Franklin parish.

A gallery-like atmosphere with special lighting, live music and hors d’oeuvres disguised the cafeteria of St. Matthew School, the K-8 school opened by the 960-family church in 2004.

Plenty of landscapes, seascapes and renderings of people, animals, flowers and fruit of various sizes, hues and intensity were on display.

And there was a bit of whimsy, such as Tim Jeffries’ “Put Thru the Wringer” depicting an old-fashioned washer cranking out a faceless but nicely attired figure alongside a clothesline with several other folks hung out to dry.

But St. Matthew’s Art for Inspiration also was a safe haven for depictions of Jesus by Linda Wrenne Rhea and Geraldine Kuttab and the Virgin Mary by Ines Negri and Kari Lee Stevens. Lone angels in dreamy-looking flight were among Mike Moyers’ paintings, while “Harvest Cross” was among Daryl Stevens’ subtle variations of the cross. Various other heavenward creations with a paintbrush and, in some instances, a camera, were on display throughout the room, while Charleen Hoover’s “Keepsake Rosaries” were the only jewelry at the show.

Featured artist Mary Borgen’s glass mosaics reflected an array of color and were poignantly accented by her written descriptions.

For “Communion of Saints,” Borgen wrote: “Here, in this mosaic, the saints are connected in a communal circle, and there is strength in that connection. Surrounding the large, bright star, which represents the Heavenly Throne of God, each is fully facing God, in complete adoration, surrender, and supplication. The colorful and complex background represents our prayers that the saints are lovingly proffering to God. Each piece of the background, created using many different colors, shapes, and sizes of glass, is unique and important, just as our prayers are.”

For her mosaic titled “Hometown,” Borgen wrote that it “represents, for me, a time past that was simpler and easier. Here, my focus is on the predominance of home life. The homes are simple and cheerful, and they surround the church, the focal point of family life. The church is central and inviting, with its clean white lines and fresh, green lawn. The sun and moon at the top of the composition represent the passing of the days, with sunlight shining in the jagged yellow line overhead. City-life is seen at the bottom of the composition where it is a small but essential part of the picture. …”

“It’s really ideal for me to work within the church.” — artist Mary Borger

St. Matthew is a fulfilling venue for an art show, said Borgen, who also does oil and water color paintings and once ran an 18-employee business specializing in hand-painted jewelry boxes featured in Bloomingdale’s and the Smithsonian Institute catalogues, among others.

“It’s really ideal for me to work within the church,” she said. It is uniquely “where people would really get it,” she said of Communion of Saints, for example, “and it would mean something to them.”

“Before the show, some people were saying, ‘Oh, you could go to this gallery and that gallery’ [with her mosaics]. That’s exciting to me, but that doesn’t mean as much as being able to do Catholic-themed pieces,” she added.

Borgen was “a cradle Catholic” who had fallen away from the church, but when the first of her three children was born, she realized that “I have a baby, a soul” in need of spiritual nurture. At first, attending Catholic churches “didn’t mean anything” to her and her husband, Scott. “So we started going to Protestant churches and nondenominational churches. And they were wonderful. They taught us a love of the Bible and a lot of things.

“But I prayed so hard to know: ‘Catholic or Protestant? Which is right for us?’”

Borgen’s answer came when, “by the Holy Spirit,” she came into possession of a video featuring Protestant minister-turned-Catholic professor Scott Hahn and a video of his wife, Kimberly. The Hahns recounted the factors that transformed their disdain for Catholicism into a life-altering embrace of the faith. For Borgen, “[T]he whole world opened up. It was like, I love my Catholic faith and now I know why. Nobody could explain it to me before, until I heard his words. … And she had a longer time converting, but … hearing her story, it just helped me understand why being Catholic is important to me.”

Twice, motherhood has punctuated Borgen’s 20-year art career, as a stay-at-home mother for her two sons, now 12 and 10, for seven years and for her daughter, now 3, for two years. “I just couldn’t stand driving off to work [as a new mother]. I would cry; I couldn’t stand it.” Nurturing her two sons was “wonderful” and “rewarding,” she said, but “every bit as hard as working full-time with 18 employees.”

Before her third pregnancy, Borgen had started doing mosaics but then decided that the glass and glue were too dangerous for her unborn child. But, having stepped away from art for a second time, “I always felt something was missing. I didn’t feel like myself. I felt like I was just fading away.”

Returning to her art earlier this year, “I started feeling better and stronger and happier” even though “I didn’t have a spare moment” when giving priority to her children during the day and working on her mosaics into the night.

In doing artwork, “I constantly talk to God and the Holy Spirit. That’s where I find God,” Borgen said. “I can pray and I can see a result of prayer.”

In mosaics, she said she loves the strong lines and how the colors of the glass are so reflective. “The challenge is the actual doing of it, sitting down week after week to work on one piece.” She currently is finishing a 9-by-5-foot mosaic for the school at her parish, Nashville’s St. Ann Catholic Community, depicting Jesus holding hands in a circle with nine children representing the school’s K-8 grades. And she is beginning a 26-by-9-foot sunrise mosaic for the new fellowship hall at Nashville’s St. Henry Catholic Church.

Borgen’s Communion of Saints was purchased by St. Matthew’s Art & Environment Committee for display in the parish, using proceeds from the Oct. 6-7 show in which artists could display up to 10 of their creations. A watercolor by Pat Millius and a photograph by Cheryl Stewart also were purchased from the 30 percent commission charged for all sales during the event. Proceeds from last year’s show were used to purchase three pastoral landscapes by Beverly Ford Evans.

While the art show was quite an undertaking for the committee, its members also are responsible for decorating the church throughout the liturgical year, especially at Christmas and Easter.

Previously, the committee had raised funds by holding a yearly pancake breakfast.

Compared to pancakes, parishioner Nancy Maher noted “the potential for the artwork to have a spiritual nature.”

“It seems to work on a lot of different levels,” said Maher, an independent interior design consultant regarded as the art show’s key organizer. “Some people look at art as having kind of a healing quality about it,” she said. Others might find a measure of happiness. “Or you might be moved in other ways.”

St. Matthew’s Art for Inspiration, Maher said, “is just a very interesting collection of art in that way.”

{CP}