The artist with the Padre Pio sculpture
One of the most popular, realistic and devout artists is
Timothy Schmalz, a 54 year old sculptor from Ontario, Canada. I’ve been
following his career for over 2 decades, and recently he came up with two
fascinating projects. The first one shows Padre Pio of Pietrelcina encircled with Jesus’ mother, Mary, sculpted in a
ribbon. “It's the ribbon for breast
cancer, and many people around the world have that ribbon as a symbol of all
cancer,” Schmalz said, adding that people frequently pray to Padre Pio when
they have a family member suffering from cancer. But the ribbon doubles as something else: a fish —
an ancient symbol of Christianity — facing upward toward the sky. Inside the outline of the ribbon
(or fish), Mary is depicted looking down on Padre Pio in a way that Schmalz
likens to a pietà. Padre Pio’s
gloved hands reach out, inviting passersby to touch them.
His second
project, once
finished, will be a life-size set of the 14 Stations of the Cross — scenes
depicting Christ’s journey from being condemned to death to his burial — placed
right next to Disney World. The faithful will be able to encounter the
12-foot-tall, 11-feet-wide sculptures at the Basilica of Our Lady, Queen of the
Universe, in Orlando, Florida. His new Stations of the Cross, he hopes, will serve as a tool
for evangelization and conversion for the roughly 50 million people who visit
Disney each year. “I
hope to rival Universal Studios, Walt Disney and every other feature in Orlando
by creating what has never been done before, and that is one of the biggest,
most complex Stations of the Cross,” Schmalz said.
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