This was the most difficult station to work on. It was one of the ones that were very smoky, covered in soot, however it also was the only one with a big chunk missing. There were 6 broken pieces to be glued and the section to be made.
I didn’t work on these stations in numerical order. They were very heavy to carry around and move so I just took the top crate off the piles where they were stored. I completed all of them by Aug. 23, 2023. On average they took 6 hours per plaque. The first step was to clean and what worked best for the soot was Mr. Clean magic eraser sponges. Then glue the broken pieces and fill in the cracks with plaster. Then i could touch up the paint. I worked on them on about 90 hours over the summer, not counting the time driving back and forth to church to deliver them.
The Stations of the Cross are from Sacred Heart Church, Red Deer, Alberta. There was a fire in the previous church in 1990. These were saved and stacked in the back alley, then crated and stored covered in soot and most had broken pieces for over 30 years. I have started working on restoring them.
Once I could start painting, it only took a couple more days, since it is full colors with no gold designs to be careful around. The Statue is in its rightful place back at the church alcove.
When we arrived in Yuma for the winter, the statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that I had fixed previously, was further damaged I found out. I was glad they had saved the pieces in a shed and I offered to repair it. Deacon Todd offered to bring the statue to my place. It weighs probably 150 lbs. so last time I worked on it at the church. I was glad to have it in my driveway so I could repair it close to a sink with running water to wash off the plaster off my fingers and the paint off my brushes. It took me a week waiting for glue and plaster to dry a lot of the time. Started by piecing together the 15 pieces like a jigsaw puzzle. Discovered there were 3 fingers missing on the left hand. Interestingly, now I have remade all the fingers on the left hand because I recognized my plaster thumb and pinky in the pieces to glue on again. We also wanted to reinforce the heavy arms with a metal rod. The guys helped me with their drill that drilled into cement and a saw that would cut a firm metal rod we found in the shed. The first arm we used two pieces of the rod, but found the angles weren’t very exact so there was quite a gap to fill with glue and plaster. The second arm we just used one rod and it fit closer together to glue. For gluing the pieces of hands I prefer crazy glue and only glued my fingers together once. For the large arm pieces I used gorilla glue. It was a long wait holding the arms up, through 3 rosaries on my ipad and I still wondered if they would sag apart so we laid the statue down and tied the arms up so there was less gravitational pull.
The Red Deer Advocate published my picture of the statue and did a write up about it.
So far, I was able to fix the fingers and toes and repaint Jesus’ sash. I was pressed for time as we are snowbirds and we were going to Yuma, AZ so in the spring, I hope to repaint Mary’s gown as well.
Sacred Heart Church in Red Deer asked me in Oct. 2021 to repair a Pieta statue that had been in storage for 30 years since there was a fire at the church in 1990. The near life size statue had been crated at the museum since then, except for a special exhibit when members of the church saw it and started a request to have it returned. Only in rare instances are church items and Indigenous articles repatriated from museums. In this instance, there were some issues that it was not technically signed over to the museum which made it easier. It was the only safe place to have it stored after the fire, so the church was able to have it returned. The statue had some broken areas, (a toe and 2 fingers) and some crumbling paint from age and water damage.
Mariette Williamson’s statue