Bronze inspires sculptor

Lazarus stands on a table at the Daughters of Charity motherhouse in Albany, his joyful face lifted to the sky and his arms outstretched as he throws off his burlap bindings.

His creator, Sister Loretta Hoag, DC, touches his bronze surface. He started out as an idea, she said -- a resurrection figure -- and slowly came to light as she worked.

"Christ turns to the people and says, 'Unbind him,'" she explained. "Lazarus was commanded to take up life, but we are commanded to make him free."

Working in bronze

"Lazarus" is one of numerous bronze sculptures crafted by the nun, a veteran art educator and an award-winning exhibiting artist.

Twenty years ago, Sister Loretta was teaching in Utica when she brought a wax sculpture to an art professor at Syracuse University. He said that the sculpture should be cast in bronze -- and that began her journey into the 10,000-year-old art of bronze sculpture.

"Bronze wasn't something that I planned," said Sister Loretta, who also paints. "I came into it cold turkey."

Bible inspirations

Many of her pieces find their motivation in the pages of Scripture and what she believes to be a "need for new images" of faith in Catholic art to reflect a changing Church.

Much of Sister Loretta's work reflects an attempt to accomplish that goal:

* "Reconciliation" was inspired by a communal penance service at St. Pius X Church in Loudonville, where a number of priests sat at different points in the church and met face-to-face with repentant parishioners. "I was struck by the attitudes of the priests and the penitents," she explained, "that whole idea of standing on common ground, our need to see how differences and attitudes of standing together bring us together."

* "Abandonment" was left purposefully raw, with bronze bursting out of the edges of the mold and gaping, jagged seams.

* "The Visit," a bright, peaceful and graceful Madonna, was polished to a shine that took nearly 40 hours to achieve.

Faces of life

Another sculpture takes the form of an unborn child whose body is made of faces.

Parents "talk about their child as a he or she," the artist noted. "It's all the people of the past and the desire for the future that are held in the child."

It takes about a year for her to complete one sculpture. "They don't come out perfect," she explained. "You chisel. Sometimes, you lose your knuckles."

Sharing her talent

In August, Sister Loretta will begin a six-week residency at a Maine facility for art educators who are also artists looking for ways to offer their skills to their communities.

She already does that at Troy's Roarke Center, where she teaches art classes for people with chronic mental health issues.

"We do watercolors, photography, weaving, clay work, everything," she said. "And why not? [The Center] provides food, clothing, shelter, health care -- why not touch the spirit? Why not give the spirit a chance to grow? Through art, they have developed interactive skills, and their ability to see the world in a new and different way."

Essential ingredient

Art, she says, is not a frill but essential for humans -- and fundamental for priests, nuns and others involved with the religious life.

"If our life of prayer is only invested in work, it could easily become sterile," she said. "If our life of prayer is expressed in various creative means -- writing, journaling, gardening -- that feeds the work. The pieces I've done have challenged me to go farther and define areas I might not have explored or understood."

(3/25/04) [[In-content Ad]]