Saturday, August 29, 1998

Artists celebrate religion through mural painting

By JUDY TARJANYI

Toledo Blade

TOLEDO, Ohio -- When Leslie Adams was an art student, she loved to steal away to the Toledo Museum of Art's Cloister to "hide."

There, within the medieval courtyard, a calm settled in, giving her respite from the demands of her discipline.

When she was asked to apply her paints and brushes to a curved wall and soffit in the new Technology Resource Center at St. John's Jesuit High School, Adams remembered the Cloister and set about capturing its essence.

In a shiny new building where every other element seems to be racing toward the future, Adams and fellow artist Will McCullough have created a two-dimensional reflective pause.

It is, most would agree, a mural, although Adams dislikes using the word because of its popular misapplication. "Everything is being called a mural. If you paint it on a wall, they call it a mural."

A mural to Adams is fine art on a large scale. "That's what I think about when I think about murals, not signage or decorative backdrops for restaurants."

Adams has done her share of such "murals," such as one at a Harley Davidson store and another at a personal training center. The St. John's mural, she says, is one she doesn't expect to be painted over for a new marketing strategy or a different decorating scheme.

The subject she and McCullough sought to depict is a formidable one for a single wall and two artists: the 500-year history of the Society of Jesus, better known as the Jesuits, the men's religious community that founded St. John's.

Before they could apply a single dab of paint to the wall, Adams and McCullough hit the books, researching the history of the order and its founder, Ignatius of Loyola, and the places in the world where the community has missions and schools. They determined that Jesuits had worked on each of the seven continents, including Antarctica, and then proposed organizing the mural accordingly into seven sections.

Starting in January, Adams and McCullough prepared the surface of the wall, located in a corridor alcove, by sponge-painting it in gold for texture.

As they painted, they were surrounded by piles of reference books. "We would sponge and sit down and look at books, and sponge some more," Adams recalls.

Next, they added columns and arches, and sky and land. Finally, in February, the first figures appeared. Aside from specifying that they wanted the mural to depict such key people as Ignatius, St. Francis Xavier, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta; the Jesuit seal, and a project in Guatemala City where St. John's students and faculty have built houses for people living in the city's garbage dump, Adams and McCullough were free to compose as they saw fit.

Of course, working as they did in a busy hallway traversed almost constantly by students and teachers, the artists had plenty of unsolicited advice from critics who were undeterred by the curtain that shielded the work-in-progress.

"When we started, the building was still being built and we had construction workers here. So we would start at 3 o'clock when they left. Then we had to deal with the students and the students never leave!" Adams laughs. "We'd be here till 3 or 4 in the morning, but that's typical for us."

Students poked their heads behind the screen out of curiosity, some hoping they would become immortalized in the project. "Once one got in, everybody got in," Adams says. "We put kids in that really showed an interest in it."

Among the student "stars" of the painting are Zachary Vassar, valedictorian of the 1998 graduating class, who was a model for North American martyr Jean de Brebeuf, and Troy Finney, who posed for the painting of St. John Berchmans, the Jesuit for whom St. John's is named.

Several of the children whom St. John's students and faculty met in Guatemala are in the scene depicting the mission project. They were painted from photographs taken by the Rev. Don Vettese, president of the school.

The two artists also inserted themselves into the mural. "Will posed for Christ, but we changed him -- McCullough -- a lot," Adams says, pointing to a scene in the Asia panel in which Jesus is holding a lamp for Mother Teresa and St. Francis Xavier attending to a sick person, who also is modeled after McCullough, an Antioch College graduate.

Adams's addiction to diet cola is found in a can in the Guatemalan garbage dump and her features are reflected in a Mary figure seated at a fountain in the center panel, which depicts Il Gesu, the mother church of the Jesuit order in Rome. The Roman scene, which also shows Ignatius carrying a lantern, symbolically giving light to the world, was part of the artists' original concept for the mural. After that, Adams says, "The mural took on a life of its own."

Originally, the St. John's board had envisioned using the alcove wall for a huge map that would locate all the Jesuit sites around the world. After board member Margy Trumbull contacted Adams about the project, it was decided to do a more historical depiction.

The collaboration of Adams, a classical realist artist, and McCullough, a landscape painter, resulted in a work that does far more than cover a blank wall. Through depth and the fine detail made possible by the use of oil painting, the pair have made the alcove into a sanctuary in which the passer-by is gently, but powerfully, drawn into each scene. Although there is much to see, the composition is such that the eye doesn't dart or flit, but rather focuses, responding to an invitation to reflect.

"If you really look at it, it's like the medieval stained-glass windows that were there when people couldn't read. They learned about Jesus' life through visual means," Trumbull said.

Father Vettese said one of the ideas behind the mural was to engage the students in understanding Ignatian spirituality. "Part of the reason we wanted to do this was to make sure our heritage and tradition were not lost in the technological era."

Adams, who was trained at the University of Toledo and New York Academy of Art, says, "We tried to pack as much in as we could without making it look crowded. I hope the students will study the painting and get what we're trying to say."

Although the mural, which is titled "Ad Maiorem De Gloriam," the standard of the Jesuits to do all things "for the greater glory of God," appears complete, Adams says it still is not quite done. Just last week, she made substantial changes to the Antarctica panel. And there are details to attend to, such as the removal of a thermostat the artists painted over to blend into a mountain. (They did the same with four electrical outlets that have to stay because of codes.) Also still to be done is the application of a varnish to the mural once it dries.

In the meantime, Adams has left paints and brushes at the site for other changes. "Six months from now I'll probably come back and still see things that need to be done."

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)