The Making of the Mural for St. Joseph's Hospital
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This piece made for the chapel at St Joseph’s Hospital is titled “The Cycle of Life”. It was sculpted by Mark Tomlinson and Steve Zalusky and installed in St Paul, MN in September of 2008. The terracotta relief is 9’ long, 42” high, and up to 9” in depth.
The head of God in the upper right corner breathes the inspiration of life downward to the left. The Fleur de Lis under the breath represents the community of faith of the Order of St Joseph of Carondelet and the staff of the hospital. As the breath approaches the center of the panel many forms of life begin to take shape including trees and plants, birds, a snake, and a fish; all of which represent the many spirits that are present in life. The fetus in utero is cradled in women’s hands representing the beginning of life and the service of the many people who care for the patients in this hospital. As our eye moves to the left of the fetus we see the most basic essence of life in the form of neurology and cardiology. At the left edge of the panel we see a large Cedar of Lebanon representing the tree of life. At the base of the tree is a seated figure reflecting back on her life with a city in the background. She is holding a seed cone from the tree representing a new life to come. At her death the doves rise above the tree. These represent the resurrection of the soul as the hand of god reaches down to welcome her spirit. Her spirit then travels past a sunrise which reveals a new day and a modest sailboat which carries her back to God.
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Step 1: The Maquette
After concept drawings are approved, the client authorizes construction of a maquette, or model, which transforms the drawings into a 3 dimensional scale rendering in clay. In many cases, the maquette is modeled as it will appear with key surrounding architectural elements which will be contacting or adjacent to the work of art. Typically the maquette is small enough to be transported to the client’s or design professional’s office, yet large enough for the client to be able to see how the sculpture will look in full scale. Often the maquette is finished and mounted as part of the client’s collection after the commissioned art work is installed.
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Step 2: The Cartoon
When the maquette is completed to the client’s satisfaction, we photograph the maquette and Steve expands it digitally to full scale and prints it on paper. In this case, it was 4.55 times so a roughly 27” length object comes out on paper at 9’10”. This paper cartoon will provide all our coordinates as follows: first we place a thin sheet of plastic drop cloth over the 5’ x 10’ slab of clay resting on the easel. Then we pin the cartoon exactly on top of the plastic covered clay. Next we use a stylus to mark all the contour lines on the cartoon. By pressing onto the cartoon we make a welt in the clay which is prominent enough for us to see the embossed lines afterwards.
Finally we remove the cartoon along with the plastic and we are ready to carve and add clay until we have the finished piece rendered in scale to the maquette. This is virtually the same technique used by Michelangelo.
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