Posts by Sarah
Waiting for the Light
…ritual without meaning is dead and meaningless. But ritual coupled with meaning is liturgy. Lighting candles during the darkest time of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere) can infuse this time with meaning and significance.
Read More3 Things I’m Thinking About This November
This November has me thinking about a lot of things that on the surface don’t seem to have much in common. What does my birthday, All Saints Day, the Election, and Charles Dickens have in common?
Read MoreThey Are All Long Shots
“They are all long shots.” Those words reverberated in my bones. All of it, all these risks we take, they are all long shots. If you keep pulling back that bow, one of these times you are going to hit the target. The thing about trying and missing is that you are going to get better.
Read MoreA Year of Claire McCardell
“Frederick is a place where history is made, and today we are doing it again by honoring a woman who changed the way women dress,” she [Hempel Irani] said.
Read MoreInstalling Marble Sculptures, Part III
They picked up the marble sculpture and plaster carver’s model from the US Customs inspection office in New York, trucked it down to Potomac, placed the stone and finished the job by dinner time. These big events tend to build in your mind and then they happen. Just like that, they happen on an ordinary day. A Thursday, for example.
Read MoreA Little About Materials: Plastilina
The clay that I use in the studio is not the same as the water-based clay that most people encounter in a ceramics studio. You’ve likely heard the terms ball clay, porcelain, or terracotta. The clay that I use is an oil-based clay and cannot be placed in a kiln. It’s made from dehydrated ball clay, oil and wax. When it gets hot, it melts. The benefit of this clay, called Plastilina or Plasticine, is that it never hardens completely, nor does it dry out.
Read MoreInstalling Marble Sculptures, Part II
Sure, I designed the sculpture and sculpted it, but without the help of several models, the mold-maker and enlarger, Malcolm the stone-carver and his crew, and Andrew and the crew at Canal Street Studios, and not to mention the generous donor who has been gracious enough to give such a lasting gift to the church- none of this would have happened.
Read MoreInstalling Marble Sculptures
How many people does it take to move a two-ton sculpture of the Blessed Virgin out of the studio, onto a truck, drive sixty-five miles down the road and into a niche in a church? We had quite a crew out there!
Read MoreThe Story of Hempel Studios, Part IV
For the people who visit Our Lady of Mercy, the sculptures point us to the Divine. The Stations of the Cross illustrate the Passion. They don’t merely retell an historical event but attempt to uncover some of the deeper spiritual truths. The Virgin Mary is celebrated as the mother of God but also as a woman whose act of faith changed the world. Her husband, St. Joseph, stands as a reminder to fathers and husbands of the important role that God has for them.
Read MoreThe Story of Hempel Studios, Part III
In my image, St. Joseph sits in his workshop with his carpenter’s angle in one hand dropping into his lap. A hammer and nails on the floor remind us of Christ’s passion. Joseph has just heard word from the angel in his dream about Jesus, and he stares into his hand, “Me, a father? The Son of God?!”
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