Sculpting Souls: Apprenticeship, Sacred Art, and the Lost Bottega (Dony Mac Manus & Christopher Alles) | Ep. 46

In this episode, Sean is joined by sculptors Dony Mac Manus and Christopher Alles to explore a world most people never encounter up close: the ancient, demanding, deeply spiritual craft of classical sculpture. 

Chris shares how a college drawing class, a study-abroad coincidence, and an unexpected invitation led him—at just nineteen—to Florence, where he apprenticed under Dony in the historic studio of Fra Angelico. Dony recounts the origins of his mission to revive the bottega model and form artists both technically and spiritually—a vision that eventually contributed to a sacred art school and significant commissions, including a bronze altarpiece now housed in Rome. Together, they reflect on mentorship, vocation, the Church’s role as patron, and the interior life that shapes the work of an artist.

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Transcript

Speaker 2 0:00

Tony McManus, Christopher Allis. Um Dony is a three, four-time returning champion of the Walk-Up Podcast. Uh and in part, I I I can't remember if we ever talked about this uh on camera, but that you you're you're partly to blame for me having started a podcast in the first place over uh over uh many a whiskey uh visiting you in uh in the DC area. Uh you were like, you should really start a podcast. I'm like, but what would I talk about? Who would I interview? And turns out I just interview my friends. And uh and most people don't have one sculptor friend. I have two sculptor friends.

Speaker 0:37

Oh, what a loser.

Speaker 2 0:40

And they're friends with one another. So so no, I I I think we talked about this before, Donny, that the um, you know, this this this uh artistic expression of sculpture is something that in a modern context, people are just don't have the opportunity to engage with. They appreciate, you know, Chris, you and I were just talking about having seen the uh Joan of Arc statue that's here in the uh Upper West Side, or we appreciate certain public works that might be there, but because of the way that um art uh the artistic uh development, especially in the States, has perhaps waned in the the last hundred years. We don't necessarily get the opportunity to meet uh an actual sculptor. So uh so I people have gotten to hear from Doni about his journey towards discovering this art form. But Chris, maybe you could take us into that world. You know, how did you discover this interest and then eventually the talent? And then you you then that led to you being in Florence and learning as an apprentice under Dhoni at nineteen years old. That's not a normal path.

Speaker 3 1:45

No, no. Um and luckily it uh it was not a normal path because uh it wouldn't have worked any other way. And I can get into that later, but um I think it it really began when I was taking classes in college, and um I kind of wanted to figure out what where what direction I wanted to go in. I I knew I wanted to do something creative. Um I was really interested in music. I was taking um music theory and stuff and and that that stuff and I wanted to kind of get into composition. But then I was also taking an acting class and um but uh I also You were focused on practical skills. Yes, right, right. Um and but I also took a drawing class and and drawing is something that we all kind of grew up doing in our family, and it really kind of started with my oldest brother, who's um uh who's a priest now, uh uh a a monk, and he um I feel like if had he pursued art, he he probably would have been the best of us because he was very talented growing up. Um I look back at his drawings uh when he was younger and I just blown away. And he he was doing a lot of drawing, and that got all of us doing tons of drawing when we were little kids, basically. And I didn't really ever take it seriously. Um and in, you know, in high school or whatever I was kind of into music. I wanted to be start a rock band that was kind of you know every adolescent male classic dream. Um and this is Portland. Yes, uh yeah, I grew up in Portland, Oregon, so there's a um be grunge. Yeah, there's a lot of grunge going on. Um but but when I started taking drawing classes formally, um I kind of rediscovered this interest and realized I had a talent for it uh and an aptitude. And so it was something that I I just started focusing in on at that point. Um I kind of set aside music and acting um and kind of st started hammering away at that. Uh and uh it was so it was kind of a gradual thing. I mean, it I was had been kind of looking at different art schools um to attend and how to how to continue with that. Uh but it was just happenstance that a friend of mine who was at going to Steubenville, um, she was doing a studied up study abroad uh in Gaming, Austria. Uh Helen Freiling.

Speaker 2 4:26

All right, because Steubenville University has a n has a formal relationship with Austria, right?

Speaker 3 4:30

Yeah, they have a they have a campus there. And obviously when you're there you go and travel, and I guess somebody, an art history professor or something, knew you. Healy, yeah. Anyways, so when they went to visit it when they were in Italy and when they went to Florence students from um their study abroad, they uh they got connected with Doni, uh who was living there at the time, and he showed them around, you know, gave the tour, showed him his studio and all that stuff, and she comes back that Christmas and tells me about this Irish guy uh who wear you know wears Converse and you know, talks about Bono. Um at the time, anyways. About Bono, but Oh, and then not about the converse though. Yeah, yeah, no, no. Um and said he basically gave them a pitch if you know any artists, Catholic artists in the States, send them my way. And I basically sent Dony an email and um I guess the rest is history. Um so what did your parents think about this? I think they were supportive. Um and 'cause you were in college at the time or you were Yeah, and I oh I think I was in and then I was taking a gap year to kind of figure out what I wanted to do. Um and this opportunity came up uh when I was nineteen, uh and I yeah, we just it just seemed like a something I'd want to try, you know, and and uh give it a shot. And then Dony at the time was just starting a big project. Um and so it was it was a unique opportunity and the reality is like w Dhoni was offering something um that a lot of art schools don't offer really, which is uh a deeper uh study of of the figure um and more class a more classical orientation. Um and and it was a un and it was an opportunity where I could essentially work with Dhoni and assist him on his project in exchange for lessons um in anatomy and uh you know we'd spend time drawing from the master. So it was a really golden opportunity for me. Uh and so I went over there initially for three months. The uh that was the other thing is the issue of the visa. You kind of have to figure that out. Um, because nothing was formalized on Dhoni's end. And I know Dony, you you had been wanting to start a set up something official and a school um and bring in students uh from across the world. Um and obviously you probably talked about that previously. Um but uh I you know I I guess I was kind of one of his original students in that regard. Um along with uh Michael Potter, I don't know if you ever mentioned we were kind of the two first students. When year did you come up with 2009? So it was like sixteen years ago.

Speaker 7:36

You were in San Marco.

Speaker 3 7:37

Yeah, San Marco, yeah, yeah. So which was an amazing experience in and of itself because it was Fra Angelico. They think it was Fra Angelico Studio.

Speaker 2 7:46

And you had spent any time in Italy previous to this?

Speaker 3 7:49

No, no. Okay. I hadn't been overseas at all. Wow. So I flew go over there at 19. Um and uh yeah, with landed and be out there Angelico Studio like that.

Speaker 8:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 8:02

I uh I went over to to Italy or and overseas for the first time at 19 as well, but it was with uh uh those considering the priesthood. Uh so I went to the uh stood in a seminary for a week uh outside of Rome. We probably all know which seminary I'm talking about. And um and uh I might have shared this story before, but that after the end of the week, every single person got a one-on-one meeting talking about, you know, where are they at in their discernment process and are they, you know, do you want to take the next step in you know determining whether you want to be a priest? They never talked to me. They did not see any potential there. Um But then so so Doni, you're you're now developing at that point the the school had been established or no?

Speaker 8:49

Oh no, no. That was um so that was my second leg in Florence. The first leg was 2000 well, Rome was 2001, so straight off September 11 to for a year and a half in Rome and then a year and a half in Florence up to 2003 or three or four. And then I returned to Florence three and a half years later after establishing the Irish Academy of Figure of Art in Dublin. Okay, so I returned about 2007 or 8 or something like that.

Speaker 2 9:18

And it was with the intent of eventually starting the school or no, no.

Speaker 9:22

Uh well it it was I was open to, I'm always open to it because essentially my interest is not just in creating art but creating artists. Right. So it's not just forming art but forming artists. Because the way I look at it is um I I can only do so much myself. I have limited talent and limited time. But if I can get other artists, a younger artist with more talent and more time, like Chris, uh then uh we can do a lot more. So uh so that's that's that's that's so I was open to that. So the reason I asked him was to just to recap on on memory. So I was just back, I had just started, uh I was just given a studio by the Dominicans and San Marco, uh given Beaton Angelico studio, and when Chris arrived, I think we we I still had my stuff in the garage in Savannah Piazza Savonarota. And did we uh put it all together and wheel it through the streets? Do you remember that?

Speaker 3 10:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 10:25

Yeah, that was pretty dramatic.

Speaker 3 10:26

I was actually thinking about that the other day. Because Doni got so he had these three big panels, four by eight foot, wooden panels that are reinforced by like two by fours in the back that he was going to use as a uh the armature to hold up the clay. So it's a big giant relief, and you have three boards, and you you put the clay on the boards, and that's how you build, that's how you have support the clay. Um and the strategy for getting them down, I think it was at your the the space was the the the garage was at where you live. Yeah. Yeah. And that was about maybe half-hour walk from the city center. And so he had this just one of these little carts, you know, with the wheels like that big, like little tiny. And he decides to screw all three of those on, two on the side and one on top.

Speaker 11:17

And that's probably I shove the whole studio inside.

Speaker 3 11:20

And then wheel that thing on cobble streets all through the streets of of Florence. Uh and those wheels are definitely not designed for that level of the street. Oh, yeah. They burnt. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 11:32

We burnt the rubber off them by the same thing. They probably broke, I think. They broke at the just at the door of the studio.

Speaker 3 11:37

Aaron Powell stare at us though, you know, as they're going about their business or just offering any advice or help. Two like obviously non-Italian guys wheeling this big like wooden structure.

Speaker 11:51

The city is full of Anglo artists. Uh yeah. They're used to it.

Speaker 3 11:55

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we did it better, but we don't have we don't do that anymore. They're their attitude.

Speaker 2 12:02

And that's that altar piece that that's discussed in this book, yeah? Yes, yeah.

Speaker 12:06

Okay.

Speaker 2 12:06

So now as some of our audience would know, though we already we had Steve Auth and and you together talking about uh his approach towards supporting the arts um as a finance guy, but then he features this this altar piece. So maybe to walk us through that commission.

Speaker 12:22

So I think it's on I think I marked the page here. Uh yeah, it's on it's on page uh 165. That's the altarpiece there. So that's the one we both worked on. So it's a bronze altarpiece, and it's uh essentially squeezed it between uh the Cathedral of Orvieto and the Ghent altarpiece. So it's a pretty nice place to be. I'm the only contemporary artist in the book, which is uh it's pretty nice. So uh so Steve, I thought I might put this on the show so you advertise your book. Uh so it's about it's basically about visions of the divine is about finding the mass in art history. So uh he's unpacking the great masters in the context of the mass. So it's in the structure of the mass, so the introduction, the first reading, second reading, the um so the liturgy of the word and then the liturgy of the Eucharist, and he's unpacking it through the history of art through 20 different art museums. So it's it's it's an interesting uh, and of course my own stuff. So it's an interesting exploration, but I thought it would be really interesting because he just sent this book to me there last week, and I thought, oh, I was just reading through that. That's the one that myself and Chris worked on. So I thought I might link the podcast.

Speaker 2 13:38

So how did that commission come together? Because now that's now that that piece is now in in Rome.

Speaker 13:43

That's right, yeah. So it's in the uh uh it's it's what's the hospital is Campus Biomedico, which is uh a hospital on the outskirts of Rome. And it was commissioned um It was a school, right?

Speaker 3 13:58

Like a medical school?

Speaker 13:59

Yeah, it's a medical school and a hospital. So this this chapel is the medical school hospital, uh chapel. And uh so that was commissioned back in uh must have been 2008 or something. 2008, yeah, it would have been 2008. So um it was a it was a beautiful uh like to to do an altar piece as a Catholic to do an altar piece for Rome was a really beautiful challenge. So um so I got working on that in Beatle Angelico studio, and the Cardinal started to show a lot of interest in it. So he wanted because uh six of the assistants that I was who that were working with me at that stage had already come to the faith and they were being baptized in uh and other artists that were being baptized in the uh Duomo. Um Osamu, for instance, came came through the the studio there. Uh I was teaching them anatomy there. So Osamu's from uh from Tokyo. Um but a real character. Yeah, amazing character. So the after the bishop baptizing six of these students, he said, What's what's going on there? I'd love to visit your studio. So I said, uh come on down Saturday morning, and he came down and he spent the first half hour talking about this altarpiece because he was really interested in that and the theological and liturgical aspects of it. And then he spent the second half of the discussion asking me about the possibility of establishing a sacred art school in Florence, like a a diocesan art school, because he wanted not just the artistic formation but also the spiritual formation, because he see the he saw these young artists from all over the world come to the faith through art.

Speaker 3 15:42

Was that the just sorry, was that the first time that you actually had that idea of a sacred art school? Yeah, um had you had it prior prior to that?

Speaker 15:50

I had it prior to that, yeah. I I always uh I the reason I left Ireland was to to do something with regard to sacred art uh in Florence. And being given Beat to Angelico Studio was like such a nudge, you know. Yeah, this is what I want you to do. So uh that was definitely uh an idea I was working on. Uh, but for the cardinal to come in behind me was uh extraordinary because that opened up the Chamber of Commerce and the Bank of Florence and all the finance.

Speaker 2 16:21

Um Well, and maybe you speak to because there's two elements here that are interesting to explore. One is uh well, more than two, but the two that come to mind immediately are the the role of kind of the the the master and the apprentice or the the the maestro as you mentioned before, and the and the apprentice, that apprentice model which has been lost in a lot of ways. And then the second is the role of the church here, right? The church as um as patron, uh the church as and why is the I think some of of those that might not come from a uh a faith-based background are maybe a little they know that there's these great works of art that the church has been involved with in throughout the centuries, but but why does it why is that seeming to be a natural for for the church, or maybe um they wouldn't necessarily assign that to a uh an institution such as that?

Speaker 17:13

Well, essentially the the bottega uh uh workshop uh system is a Florentine invention. Okay. Because all these artists initially started.

Speaker 2 17:24

Not to be confused with the bodegas here in the U.S.

Speaker 17:26

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 17:27

Bottegas. Botega. Bio Kitty. They invented 24-hour delis where you can be that I am very grateful. I don't know, the bottega doesn't really affect my life, but the bodega affects my life i i in immense ways. When I had that 2 a.m. craving for uh for uh chopped cheese.

Speaker 3 17:47

I thought that was uh taco bell.

Speaker 2 17:51

Don't be spelling my secrets. But it was the bottega.

Speaker 17:55

The bottega it started that was like the the art scene, the the whole concept of the artist came from Florence, essentially from the bottega system. So that you have all these artists in their workshops, uh mostly uh silversmiths and goldsmiths and stone carvers, who uh were very uh good at their craft, and because they were not only really articulate at their craft work, they also were studying philosophy and theology in the Medici ambien. Like Michelangelo, for instance, was introduced as a stone-carving kid at the age of 14 to the household of the Medici, uh Cosmo il Vecchio. And under him he had all these philosophers and theologians at the table with Michelangelo. So he's absorbing philosophy and theology as well as honing his craft. And what that what that gave us was a craftsperson who thinks deeply. And that essentially what is what an artist is. Okay, so it's a marriage of philosophy, theology, and art, truth, goodness, and beauty. So that's why Florence is the is is the birthplace of modern art, as it were. So that's where the bottega system comes from, and that's why I wanted to reintroduce uh uh an art formation through the botga system because I saw what happened since then is that uh the bottega system was adopted by the French academic into the Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris, and that became a very uh scientific reductionist approach to arts, which basically took all the technique of the uh Italians and the Spaniards and ripped the soul out of it in a very became very illustrative illustration, basically. And and not only that, but it you and that's what happens when you take the soul out of it because you're you're you're left leaving an empty shell. So it was only technique. Um and then since then we've had a reaction to. That which is like Impressionism, post-impressionism, and modernism. And with that, we have the modern art school, which is a rejection of all the techniques of the French academics. So what I did in Ireland was in the Irish Canary Figurative Art was re-establish the discipline of the art form through a kind of an academic structure like the Ecole de Beaux-Ar and Paris, reintroducing the technique and the, as you would say, maybe Aristotelian understanding, which is like tangible, factual, scientific reductionist aspects of artistic formation. And then once I had done that, I hoped that the students in Dublin would come through that beauty to truth. But it wasn't happening. So I knew there was something else that was needed, and it's a missing ingredient. And that's why when I returned to Florence, I wanted to bring the spiritual into it. So that we weren't just, I wasn't just training artists to be technically proficient, but I wanted them to have an interior life that would overflow in their work. Because essentially art is the overflow in the interior life of the artists. So I wanted to form the students with a spiritual life that it was healthy and it was it was in love with the world and with God. And that would overflow in their work. And that's why the sacred aspect.

Speaker 2 21:19

That's an awesome responsibility, though. I mean, uh, and obviously you you've been given good formation in your spiritual life and in your artistic life, but I mean that's a that's a big I want to say audacious uh uh attempt. But I mean to say that you're gonna form uh uh somebody like Chris at ninety teen years old who's coming in where you could you have a lot of the potential to influence is huge at that point, right?

Speaker 21:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2 21:46

I mean because they're I mean at that age you're open to to to anything. And we see this now on uh university all the time, and with certain certain things are really being pushed at the at the university level. So I how did you approach that from a from a stewardship or from uh from a vocational standpoint?

Speaker 22:03

What really helps is that Chris came from a very good family. So he had that philosophical and theological basis and the character formation and an artistic uh launching pad to work from. I think uh he could explain it better.

Speaker 3 22:20

Still was kind of an idiot back then though. Think back about how crazy 19-year-old immature, but I guess that's pretty normal. Um Yeah, I mean uh I the having the launch pad I mean having the launch pad of of having faith in the family um i it was a crucial element. Um it's obviously n everybody has their own personal journey. Um I do think that though being um in when I went over there um to to Italy, uh the faith life became uh a little bit more concrete than it had been before. Um in a way that I think could only work when you leave the family because sometimes you ha there's a point where you have to leave the f family and start forming your own identity. Especially uh, you know, I just I I just with everybody I think growing up at some point exp experiences that and I think that had a there was a crucial point in that with Dony's school and what he was doing and how he lived, and he was following Opus Day's structure. Um and so everybody living with him, my myself and Osamu at the time, were kind of following that structure for the most part, and that kind of had a kind of uh this kind of concrete um uh way of man of deepening your faith and making it more real. Um and in the context of making things and doing things that we all like to do. Um so so it's it's not just like you're a bunk but with a bunch of people who are saintly people, but you're also sharing in the common drive of what you what your passion what your passion is. Um and I think it's so easy to um become isolated uh for uh to isolate those two things, um especially in the arts, because you're not there's not a lot of people around that you can share that with generally. Um Although every the these days everybody's an artist, so that's the everyone's an influencer or creative, yeah. That's war what Warhol said, right? Um but no, but I think that that was uh it created a uh a honing mechanism. And I think that one of your analogies, Tony, which which I really l always like, and I think about it a lot, and I in my own life and then other people's life that I see is that when you have a direction, um you you know everybody's full of energy, right? Potential energy. And when you have a direction i in a focus, it's like being a bullet. You can hit a target. And if you don't have a direction or structure um in your life, you're gonna blow off like a grenade. And ev ev energy is gonna go everywhere and it's gonna be chaos. Um and your life will end up being kind of chaos. Uh and I think that as much as the art was important, I think that was that aspect really hit home for me when I was there, uh especially the first time around. I I had gone a couple times and spent time in Italy and two separate times, but especially the f when I first got there, that kind of focus in the spiritual life um had a major, you know, big impact on how I began to develop um as an art just as a person, but also as an artist.

Speaker 2 25:54

And then so walk me through this this altarpiece. So you get you have this commission, you're now you have not yet a school, but but a burgeoning school, and you've got now at least one student with you, or maybe now maybe two at that point.

Speaker 3 26:09

Uh I think it was just me, but then there's also uh Michael Potter, who uh and they're Samu as well. Yeah, Samu, yeah, he did help too.

Speaker 2 26:18

So how do how do you as the kind of what what is the process? You're being the the more expert, he being an apprentice, you're building this thing together, you're setting the the the the kind of um I don't say agenda, but you're setting the the the tone for how you're laying this thing out and then you're over time giving him more and more responsibilities. How does he how do you how do you take the make sure that you're completing the work to its you know highest level while also giving somebody with less experience the opportunity to learn?

Speaker 26:51

Well, uh it's it's it's the same as what I'm doing at the moment, because the the the the next leg of this journey is uh I've just established a studio in in Washington near Washington, DC, uh Falls Church. So I'm building a three-story studio there. It would be a teaching studio, so a sculpture studio, painting studio, and uh drawing studio. So that's uh the reason I'm doing that is because I'm working on this commission for the Navy, which is six seven-foot figures in bronze. So I'm doing the same thing as I did with Chris. Now I'm taking in students that I had at the CUA and uh local students who are coming in to assist me on a project. So I would enlarge these figures, and then if the student has no experience, I would let them work on a foot and get them to do the best they can and then adjust it and show them where it needs to be adjusted and then work on the next limb and so on. So you have students with different abilities and you can set them at different tasks. But at the end of the day, it's my piece. I have to I'm responsible for it, so I have to do quality control and I have to tidy up all the messes. But if a student shows aptitude, well then there's a there's a there's a chance that that student could actually not just draw time from you but actually save you time. And that's the transition uh between uh uh like a student and an apprentice, and then a full-blown sculptor or a painter. So that's that's the the whole thing is uh I just use the opportunity of a commission to create the most beautiful work I possibly can and form as many young talented artists as I possibly can within that procedure. Because they're not just learning um like technique in in an academic kind of stay environment, but in a real life project where they can come and do a site visit with me, see me deal with the client, uh, work out the books, work out the payments uh s system, work uh I go to the foundry, work with uh the foundry uh and help the uh tr to basically translate the work through the bronze procedure so as to quality control and see how that's done. So that when they get their gig, they know the whole process. Instead of just some sort of false uh kind of like academic training which they just get a piece of paper.

Speaker 2 29:19

Right, right.

Speaker 29:19

This way you have a whole way of working and a whole way of being.

Speaker 2 29:23

So it can become a it can become a career. Oh yeah.

Speaker 29:26

If you want.

Speaker 3 29:27

A lot of that still too is you're you're I mean, it still always is going to be learning on on uh as you go. I mean you'll never even even training w in that context, you're still it's still like a l takes a lifetime to just kind of figure out ev just the even the practical nuances. But as you go, I mean it becomes more and more clear.

Speaker 29:48

I think the more important thing is that you actually know it can be done. Like you've seen it, you've done it, and say, Oh, I could do this. Right. Yeah. But without that experience, it's very difficult to start.

Speaker 2 29:58

And Chris should promise right away, I mean you could you could recognize his natural abilities and interest and oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 30:05

His drawing so the other thing we we used to draw draw on the weekends. Yeah. So we go all all to different churches and uh sculptures out in the street and we were just drawing all weekend. Um and through drawing, you really develop your technique. Because 90% of any artwork is drawing. So if he can really hone his drawing skills in and then use anatomy texts and models to critique his drawings, and then go back and draw again with that whole understanding. So if you're like let's say if you're drawing a hand, you could draw a hand, and then you could use that drawing and analyze it with with transparent paper, and then pull out the bone structure with the skeleton, and then our uh text, anatomy text, and then pull out the muscle structure with anatomy text with another transparency on top. And then once you've done that, then you're you're conceiving the hand, not just perceiving it, but conceiving it. And the next time you draw it, you're drawing not just with perception, but with conception. And when you conceive more, you perceive more. Because if you know there's muscles and bones within these joints and so on, you will start to perceive them deeper. So this is how uh I'd like to teach the students to understand essentially the grammar, to become familiar with the grammar of anatomy. And in one word, it's incarnation. That's that's that's that sums up everything I do.

Speaker 2 31:37

It's like building a house. I mean, I remember um you know, when you're growing up and you say, Well, where does where does water come from? And you're uh well, you just turn on the faucet, right? You know, where does the food come from? I don't know, it's in the pantry. I don't really ask where it comes from. Uh but eventually you're like, oh, there's a there's a plumbing system, there's an electrical system, there's a foundation, there's something that keeps these walls, you know, and the foundation in the really good analogy because it's like drawing, let's say if I was drawing your face.

Speaker 32:02

I have to conceive the architecture of your head before I put the features on. It's like building a house from the door and the windows. It doesn't work.

Speaker 3 32:10

No, that's just well it's like building the with just starting with the details like the door, how cool the door handles are when you don't have the structure.

Speaker 32:18

And that's what the amateur jumps in on, the details.

Speaker 3 32:21

So if you get an amateur to draw a face, they go straight into the eyes and the nose and the mouth, but they don't connect because they don't have the full you just get the overall expression of the form and express that overall thing, and then you gradually those other things fall into place.

Speaker 32:36

The secret is in art, it's from general to specific. If you think about it, it's like uh a camera out of focus, and as it gradually moves into focus. So as when it's out of focus, it's very diffuse, and it's just a a uh a bl it's just a a series of shadow shapes, and then it gradually comes into focus. And that's how an artist perceives because it gives a holistic, full understanding.

Speaker 2 33:00

Yeah, and I think um you know, using the the building of a home analogy, it's it's really just almost like a what we see is almost just a curtain, just like the skin is just the just the the the the what you immediately perceive, yet when you really understand a home, and then the home actually is part of a much larger ecosystem, right? I mean the the the world like the plant source.

Speaker 3 33:24

Yeah, like I'm building a studio at the moment.

Speaker 33:26

I've always almost paid half the money and we haven't started building it. Right, right.

Speaker 2 33:30

No, that that's just like people are always like, what are you doing? I don't see anything. Yeah, right. When really it's it's going on underneath the surface, right? Uh but you're gonna be a lot more thankful that you spent the time putting in the good foundation and the good plumbing and the good art infrastructure, just like you're gonna be as an artist, the end result, while it might seem like, well, I'm not not seeing you know the the uh the uh the end result of this yet, it's because you're like you say, you're trying to understand the entire person. Yeah. Um so now, Chris, for you, is there a moment where you felt like, all right, this is this is it. This is I'm gonna do uh this is my career, this is my vocation, this is like was there a moment or carrying that cart down uh when you're like, man, this is glamorous. Yeah, yeah. I just feel like I've made it now. No.

Speaker 3 34:20

Um could have been around then. I you know. No, I think that the I mean what Doni said earlier about uh somebody who actually had the the vision um of how to operate as an artist, um taking on commissions, uh and to do work for the church, uh uh which was a common place. Um and uh you know, at one time, so that that was already kind of a vision for art that a lot of people don't get exposed to today. Most of the time people conceive of art as you know, you you you become a painter and then you paint paintings and then you sell them in a gallery. And um which there's nothing wrong with that. Um but or and usually there's some kind of uh esoteric meaning behind your work or whatever, and it's uh kind of hyper-intellectual or whatever, and the idea of seeing something that's very concrete and very historical and very um positive, uh like doing work for the church, and it doesn't have to be for the church, it could be like the war memorials or whatever, civic monuments. Public works, yeah. Public works, which you see you see, you see a lot of that around um in these old towns across America, and that just that used to be done by you know kind of unknown sculptors for the most part, uh or not well-known sculptors, and that was just a commonplace thing. And to have that vision again about being an artist doing this kind of work for churches uh and for civic in this non kind of more, I guess you could say more humble way, uh in in the sense that it's kind of serving a f it has a function in a way that it serves. You can still be strive to be a great artist, um, but it's not this it wasn't surrounded by this pretentious world uh uh of what art had become, which is this highly prestigious thing. And in a way, even still being an artist is still prist has prestige associated with it. But the the reality that there's so many artists in the past that were were very good. They they weren't they weren't Titian, but they they were great though, and um they were they were competent and they did their work and they did it they put their heart into it and they did it for the church and or for whatever situation. Um that was a vision that was a lot more hopeful and positive um and uh than what this whole prestige kind of world was. Uh and I think I I I really like that and it gives it gave you kind of a blueprint for okay, well, I can I can be an artist in this way. Like this is a much more tangible and real way to be an artist. Um and so, and also I think even the the interest in doing liturgical art increased um because again, it used to be such a commonplace thing because we were building churches that were beautiful and full of beautiful art. Uh and you needed a ton of craftsmen and artisans and artists to do that. Um and there used to be a lot of them. Um and now there really isn't that it's just it's kind of almost almost a lost art, um, and which is what we're donies trying to solve. But the the I the vision of doing art in that way was so positive um and so getting yourself out of the way um and your own ego. Uh and it was it it it it gave a blueprint for any anybody getting into art for how to possibly even make a living as an artist. Um it was very practical in a way. Um yeah.

Speaker 2 38:22

Yeah, I like for example, the um restoration of Notre Dame and in Paris. I I I I want to s uh I know I saw a 60 minutes piece on it, but I hadn't done a deeper research in that. But was there a need for them to find like to find artists to even do this work? I mean, I don't know if you know much about it.

Speaker 38:40

Yeah, it yeah, there was uh it would be tricky enough to find craftspeople who had the ability to do that, but they managed and some people actually trained through the through the project. But I think I think it's it's it's it is it's an interesting fact also that you this is this is something I tried to reintroduce to the studio was that I don't like to sign my work. So uh for legal purposes I might sign it on the back just so because the client demands that your name is on the piece. But I try my best to not sign it so that the glory goes to God, especially with liturgical work. So that bronze altarpiece there, there's no signature on it. Um so uh this is a really important thing because this is this is this is bringing everything back to God. So that that's a very important part. It's kind of a medieval idea, and of course, Michelangelo was the person who broke that mould because he he did the Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica, and no one believed that he had done it. So that's why he snuck in and carved his name across Michelangelo Fiorentino Feceteste. Michelangelo the Florentine made this written right across the chest of the Virgin Mary, and he regretted that for the rest of his life. He never signed his work after that. So I know, yeah. I want to make sure people see it.

Speaker 2 40:05

Um they were he didn't think people would know he did it because the talent was It was so unbelievable.

Speaker 3 40:13

He also some other sculptor people Yeah.

Speaker 40:15

They said an o an older sculptor did it. Oh, I see. He he overheard a bunch of cardinals talking about the piece and saying that they thought that so and so did it because there's no way that so Michelangelo wasn't even nobody even knew who he was. And it wasn't going to be this 20-year-old kid, you know.

Speaker 2 40:32

Um so now uh I've gotten to spend a lot of time with you guys. I mean, we actually, you know, lived in an artistic community for for uh donate for you and I for a brief period of time and Chris for many years. So I got a kind of an up-close, you know, view of of this process. I remember you doing the kind of two-figure St. Charles Borromeo and and kind of a penitent or somebody who was also uh uh suffering from the plague, I think, right?

Speaker 3 41:01

I think that was kind of the vision with that. Um uh just because that was part of Borromeo's history was that he didn't flee from the plague. He went out and served people and I think even worked miracles. Um but yeah, it was also this kind of obvious connection to um confession and uh the prodigal son, um which is all these all these themes are kind of interlinked. Uh uh you can even see kind of a how Rembrandt depicts it. I mean, it's it's all kind of the same the same gesture, so in that you can have multiple meanings, but they're all kind of the same meaning though, um, of repentance and and returning and and illness can be you know a symbol of our own frailty as hum humanity and god Christ entering into that illness to heal us. Um and so that's kind of the general vision with that, and that was obviously symbolic in Borromeo's life. Um so yeah, we did I did that. That was and actually it's just as a side piece, and I was thinking about this a few days ago. Uh I did that piece on the second floor of the are this old beautiful building we're in. And uh I was like so freaked out that it was gonna literally collapse the floor because it was about two thousand pounds of clay. Okay, and then when they made a mold, they put another fifteen hundred pounds on top of it. So you had about like a a pretty big car on the second floor. I didn't realize it would be a little bit more. Now luckily it's it was one of those old buildings, they had big giant joists or in you know beams in the um so it but I I promised I would never take that risk ever again. And so but I it did really bother me.

Speaker 2 42:55

Well I don't like a little platform and I disperse the weight a little bit, but it's so have you seen the film The The Rebel, Tony Hancock?

Speaker 3 43:03

I haven't no, I've heard of that.

Speaker 43:05

It's really good. It but it captures that he's he's he's making the sculpture on the second floor and just collapses right there onto the landlord's bedroom. It's brilliant.

Speaker 2 43:13

Well, it's just um I mean we were talking about you know kind of the building of a home before and craftsmen and the restoration of Notre Dame. I mean you think about that place where we lived that was built right around the turn of the century, a little bit after.

Speaker 1 43:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2 43:28

And you could put three thousand plus pounds on the second floor, didn't have an impact whatsoever. I remember like the the um I mean the the the doors were like made out of oak and the uh the the banisters like you you think after a hundred years people you know pulling on the the the corner of the banister as they go up the stairs, it didn't even budge.

Speaker 3 43:51

Well it's also all that old grow just as a side, that old growth wood. I mean, it's like you don't it just doesn't exist anymore. Um yeah. Actually speaking, it's kind of like the analogy of like how craft in general has disappeared. I mean, I was at a friend's house in uh Florida and he he just got it, and you know, it's a nice house, you know, but it was a new build, and he was kind of setting up art uh and pictures on the wall, and the the pictures kept shifting on the wall, and everybody was wondering like what's going on. And the whole wall was shaking when never anybody would shut the door. It was like one of these floating walls. I'm like, this is like this is really bad. This is like paper walls. Um and it probably, you know, it was it it was a nice house, but it's just like new builds, they just don't have the the same level.

Speaker 2 44:38

Um, and I think yeah, I think it was your your brother who's an architect, yeah, was the one who pointed out because that in that great room where you guys did a lot of your your big pieces, because don't you you designed a uh mosaic that ended up in a church in in Wisconsin there, and uh so you needed a lot of a big space high with the colour. Not a wing issue there. It's just uh no no no.

Speaker 45:00

28 foot by 28 foot.

Speaker 2 45:01

Yeah, you needed light coming in, and there was that staircase, but it w well we but that room had was the opposite side of the staircase, and people would see this kind of this this cylindrical looking shaped wood with paneling, and they'd think, what is that? Like it almost looked like it was like a confessional or something. Yeah, confessional or somewhere like a tower almost like uh and I think your brother was the one who posited that what's probably you know, they had master carpenters back then. There wasn't necessarily like a full blueprint, which weren't necessarily every single detail because there was yeah, you could kind of figure it out on on site, whereas nowadays you have to have everything because no one can figure it out. They don't know how to build. Um his guess was that they forgot about the staircase and were like, yeah, we'll just build this gorgeous, you know, customer. Yeah, to hide the staircase. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just yeah, you know, and and so in other words, a mistake turns into this beautiful piece of art. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 45:59

Or they could have just done it. It's a little odd and funky, but that's okay. And you know, there's a lot of odd and funky things. If she actually if you go to the old. Yeah, uh yeah, actually that's a good point. I mean, any a lot of these old cathedrals and stuff have really weird, funky things that like I think even St. Peter's, yeah, the front is slightly off center from the the uh the piazza, so they had to so they had to widen one side of the uh the uh entrance. Um I'm not explaining this very well, but they didn't they mismeasured something, so they slight so the facade of St. Peter's is slightly off center from the actual rest of the church.

Speaker 46:35

It might have been connected with Bernini's mess up because Bernini did two towers on either side. Uh he started on one side and started subside so that he lost that gig. So uh Innocent the Tenth fired him. And then he was out of favor for quite a while until he won back Innocent the Tenth through a commission to do the Exodus of St. Teresa, the famous one. Uh and that got him back in in with the with the big popes because he had worked for about five different popes. Like he was dining with five different popes over the period, but Innocent the Tenth fired him for destroying the front.

Speaker 3 47:12

Well he should have been because he didn't he wasn't doing a good he was not being a good architect there.

Speaker 47:16

Yeah, he was an artist and he wasn't an architect, but the Boromini knew that was going that was going to happen, and that's but he let it happen.

Speaker 2 47:24

And then when he was back in good his in good graces, he that was when he did the the the cupola or or had that an architect.

Speaker 47:30

Oh no, Michelangelo did the cupola. I thought Bernini Bernini did the uh Baldacchino. Oh sorry, the altar and the Baldchino the uh the chair of Peter at the back.

Speaker 3 47:43

Actually, if you see that with the old mass, like with the priest with his back turned, and then you see the the the you can actually immediately see how that was originally designed, because there's this just this unbelievable photo of a priest celebrating Pod Orientum, and then behind it is this empty chair. I mean, it's implied with the um being held up, and it's just like this like awe-inspiring. You could just see why how everything was designed in that way. Um actually even Michelangelo's Pietà was an altar piece.

Speaker 48:14

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 48:15

And that was designed to be the altar was right next to right beneath the idea was I I've heard this anyways, I I can't cite the source, but the idea was that Mary is essentially dropping the body of Christ onto the altar for us to consume.

Speaker 48:30

Exactly. It's awesome, huh?

Speaker 3 48:32

Because he looks like she he's about to fall off hit her lap, right? He's very like teetering right on the edge.

Speaker 48:37

His second pietà was the same, uh Michelangelo's Pietà in Florence in the opera del Duomo Museo. That's that's also it we he designed it for his tomb, which would be in an all you know over an altar. So this would uh the the the Christ figure is falling in onto the altar. So this was remember, this is just after the Council of Trent. So the whole emphasis on the Eucharist was was very clear, and all the artists were encouraged to emphasize the real presence of the Based Sacrament. And you can't get more real present than Our Lady dropping the figure, our Nicodemus dropping the body onto the altar. Also, Caravaggio did the same thing with his deposition, which uh was in the Chiesa Nuova. Uh there's a copy of it now in the Chiesa Nuova in Rome, just on the right hand side as you enter. But the original now is in the Vatican Museum, and you can see that same whole composure, uh composition of all the figures directing down and holding Christ and then dropping them onto the altar. And just before he's dropped on the altar, the hand of Christ is pointing like this, uh, and it's pointing to a black um space within, which doesn't make any sense. It's just like this black void in the middle of the canvas. But if you understand the compos the context of this in front of an altar where the priest is saying mass ad orienta, what's happening is the whole commit composition is leading to Christ's hand and he's pointing to the Eucharist.

unknown 50:08

Wow.

Speaker 50:08

At the consecration. I mean, it's just mind-blowing.

Speaker 2 50:11

So that's that's too bad that they I mean, it's good for the Vatican museums, they have it, but it seems like it's out of context, right? I mean, I'm just extracting it.

Speaker 3 50:19

I guess you get a copy of it's keep it safe or whatever. But I mean at some point maybe these things should degrade over time because that's what they're for. They're not, you know, they're meant to be used in a way. Yeah in the liturgical. That's actually one of the problems of going to the museum, like the is like it's a bunch of like visiting orphans in a hospital.

Speaker 50:36

Okay, because these these uh these works don't believe a lot of them don't believe.

Speaker 3 50:40

They don't impact you. I mean, even like when you go to say in New York, you go to a church like say St. Vincent Ferrer, which is one of the most the prettiest churches in the city, and the artwork uh is is very is beautiful. Um I it but it's it's not at the same level of um, I don't know, stuff you see in the Met. But it impacts you actually more, I think, than the stuff that you see in the M, because it's in a context that makes sense. It's actually the same with like liturgical music when you hear Palestrina or something in the context of the mass. Um it's it you know it it's matchless, you know.

Speaker 51:18

Um it's interesting to think of that that church is directly across Central Park here. And who went to their mass there every week? Andy Warhol. He sat at the back of that church, the most beautiful church in in all of Manhattan, and he contemplated this after spending the night in Studio 54. You know, he just it's kind of fascinating to think that that he had that he had that appreciation, but yet he was he was creating these brittle boxes and all this kind of very uh kind of uh pop art uh very cynical works. But at the same time he also funded the school I graduated from, the New York Academy of Art. So he he he he cherished the liturgy and he cherished art, but he produced the most cynical work.

Speaker 3 52:09

Oh, and also he kind of like m put the nail in the coffin in terms of like began the idea that art is basically a subjective reality that anybody I mean he's the one who said that everybody has 15 minutes of fame, right? And that kind of art degenerated so much from any kind of representation or re you know, that now it was just about the ideas behind it. So now you get all these kind of crazy conceptual art. Um and he kind of brought that along. It was you know, there was a kind of a humor to it. I mean, there's some kind of joke about it, but it's it you can't live in that world because the you know and that that's the kind of world that I I guess he's a very complicated character uh because of that. Um but he definitely pushed that um you know, the highest virtue being irony, basically, for somebody who doesn't have any belief in anything. That I you only have to be ironic and you can only be ironic and everything's kind of a joke in the end. Um and and and you can never you know, you can't really take things seriously, you know. Um and I I feel like actually in my own experience I have a little bit of that just because of how we're raised in this world that you like don't want to be too you you want to be a little ironic about things, you know. Um because uh it's just how we're kind of you have to kind of fight against that. Um at least just for me, I I kind of notice it creeping in sometimes.

Speaker 53:44

I think it's important to take life seriously, but not yourself seriously. It's it's a very fine line. You wanna because life is serious. Uh but if you don't take yourself too seriously, it it's it's a kind of like a lubrication. It kind of makes things happen. It's much and it's much more beautiful and open.

Speaker 3 54:03

Well you yeah, yeah. But you and you also I guess like to I mean, insofar as like you I mean obviously you to when meaning take your life taking life seriously um obviously when you you you take you do take your life yourself seriously in the sense that um you take care of yourself and you're going in a in a correct direction. But I guess you know, like that you basically detach yourself and that it's not really you. And actually this is an important thing, a realization that I kind of connected with is uh connected to this regarding art I had come to um which is this I guess I kinda had this um attachment to art and make being an I want to make something that I that I think is perfect, a perfect work of art, which I you know, I I don't think I'll ever do that because you'll never be happy totally satisfied. But I I realized that I was taking myself too seriously in that sense, um in the sense that uh it's um you need to take whatever you do seriously um because it's a gift uh given to you by God, but it does you don't get a dictate to God what uh uh the the terms of how he's gonna use that. So, you know, if he does if something crushes my hands tomorrow, you know, I won't be able to work on it anymore, but so be it. I mean it's it because the art that I'm making is not mine. And he I kept thinking it was mine and I wanted to do this thing. Uh and I I kept, you know, I wanted to do this before before you take away anything from me, God. And I pray he doesn't, but I I want to do that, I want to get this done first. And I realized I I actually had a lot of anxiety about my life because of that. Um worry, you know, worried about problems when problems came up, whether it be health or or anything else, I would like want to fig figure that out as soon as possible and get it just to get it out of the way so I could go back to ensure that feeling that I can achieve my little goal, which because I thought that the art was mine, but it's not. And once you kind of come to that realization that whatever you're doing, even though it's cool and it's fun, and it could be f anything, it's not just art, your your business you're starting, the temptation is to really make it think that it's yours, but it's it's not yours, and and that's okay.

Speaker 56:37

We're custodians, yeah. Yeah, we're custodians of a talent, and and all we have to do is be faithful. We don't have to be successful. That's up to him.

unknown 56:44

Yeah.

Speaker 3 56:45

Yeah. And then and then the main goal is, you know, with our vocation, in my case, wife and children, and but all and also ultimately the life with God. Um and all these other things are sort of byproducts or overflow from that. Um But it's an important thing that actually can be really hard to struggle with because we kind of become attached to our the things we're doing.

Speaker 57:10

Um and yeah, I don't know, it's just something that's well, they're kind of artistic children in a way. So it's a there's a there's a there's a tendency to be attached to the work you're doing. Even it's hard to let go of it sometimes because you live with it for a yeah.

Speaker 3 57:26

There's a certain natural It's good because in a way, it's good to take whatever you're doing seriously um and to do as best you can, and you need to do that. However, you also need to be completely detached from it and not and that doesn't that isn't what makes your life meaningful. It's actually your relationship with God and your life with God. So you have to be totally detached from it too. In a way, it's almost like your relationships too. You can be, you know, you obviously love your family or whatever, but you you you have to love them in the context of that God is the most important. Um I think somebody like Thomas More actually is kind of an interesting. I was just listening to something about him, how he was a family man, he loved his children, and on his way to being executed, his daughter came up to him and kissed him and um and affectionately hugged him, but it wasn't so much in this um fantastical, like well lam lamenting way. Um it was more of They were British, by the way.

Speaker 58:34

Was that they were British.

Speaker 3 58:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well that's But in a way that was giving knowing that he's reaching his ultimate destiny. Yeah like you know, and that there was a certain weird, maybe a sense of joy in a way. Um and that's what it means to to actually be detached. Is obviously doesn't mean that you don't love them.

Speaker 58:52

No, order is really important. The order of love is the most important structure of order. God, spouse, children, friends, if you screw up that order, it can be a disaster.

Speaker 3 59:04

Yeah, and that and that really has a big impact also in the artistic life as well.

Speaker 59:08

Like your kids need to see you love your wife. Yeah, yeah. That's the best love you can give your kids, is loving your wife first.

Speaker 2 59:16

So then uh just to return to this question about artistic community, apprenticeship. Um, you know, you had started a school in Dublin, then another one in Florence. And I know you've you've always wanted to start one in New York, you're now doing one in in in Falls Church, Virginia. Um, but there's been this collaboration and partnership with with the church in in allowing you to have space to to develop your art, to teach, to sometimes even to live, right? So uh you know, I got to be a part of watching you all live in that in that um reality, and that a lot of the works that I mean, what would it take to get a studio in? New York City where you could create a three thousand pound piece of uh uh uh uh you know two-figure sculpture, that would be you know, you'd you'd have to probably increase the uh the the the size of the commission to accommodate for a lease and all these sorts of things, right? So so I would if we could just speak to that where the where the the relationship with the church as patron, not necessarily as commissioning the art, although they do sometimes, uh, but also in in making available, you know, what we do have sometimes is is physical space to be able to to to allow the artist to to develop their their work.

Speaker 1:00:38

Well, I mean at the St. Gardens, uh he's the grandfather he's the godfather of American sculpture, really, born in Dublin, by the way. And uh so All the good ones are but at the height of his career, he had four large studios in operation in the city in Manhattan. Really? Four large studios. Like that just shows you the how things have changed since then. So um, and Jenny Dinerchester French, who was just a little younger than him, he had a studio in town and also in Cornish, New Hampshire, up up in uh so there's Massachusetts. Massachusetts. So there they're they're uh the the times have changed a lot since then because artists had a lot more prestige.

Speaker 3 1:01:20

Um like real artists, people who actually now those are all being filled with like fancy flats that people exactly.

Speaker 1:01:28

Yeah. So it's really important, I think, uh, for for the church to recognize that uh it the the church, well the way I look at everything is uh when I point my finger, three fingers are pointing back at me, I see in the church, my church, the Catholic Church, there's a big problem in that we've dropped the ball with God to art for over a hundred years. And this has kind of really caused so many problems in the church because art and architecture are like languages and they speak. And if we don't understand the language of liturgy, if priests don't understand it and they're not teaching it to the artists and architects, then there's going to be a huge crisis in art and architecture in the church. So to think to to sculpt liturgically, to paint liturgically, to make liturgical architecture, you have to think liturgically. And that means really steeping yourself in that. And that that means a lot of the clergy have to understand it so as to pass it on. So I think that's really where the main problem is. And if we don't support young artists, form them both theologically, philosophically, liturgically, and artistically, we will not have these artists who can serve the church. So, for instance, if you want an altar piece that's going to feed the congregation for centuries going forward, well, that means that the artists need to steep themselves in the liturgy and steep themselves in the interior life and deep love Christ so that overflows in their work, so that that work will feed the congregation going forward. Just as a priest needs to pray to create great homiletics and to teach, so artists need to pray so as to create liturgical art that will bring people to Christ.

Speaker 3 1:03:23

I also think that and and kind of to that point though, a lot of that the a bunch of the theological stuff comes in through collaboration between between theologians and artists uh or priests who have that um because I mean l let's be honest, the art the artist for the most part is focusing on the problems of art, like how to make something, how to do the thing, and what is art basically. Um and it's helpful to have that connection between somebody who's who is in the world of theology and understanding that, and then it creates a in an in the ideal situation, and you could even see that in the past, this kind of collaboration between um priest or or theologian and artist um coming up with these uh deeper and more profound things. I mean, I think of Michelangelo and the and Julius, Pope Julius. Um but also and also you know, just kind of a more practical thing, um I think people kind of you need to understand that this is a lot of work. Um that like in terms like going to the space question, especially with sculpture, and we like sculpture here. I mean, in in the church in America, they like sculpture. Um and if you want things that are done really well, it takes a lot of time and you need a lot of space. And these are all things that are very hard to come by um today. And uh so it it just that's just kind of expands the vision of the of what the operation is involved because it's very easy to go and like purchase something from a catalog that's mass produced, um that uh from wherever uh but it's not gonna have it's just not gonna have that same quality um or original idea or or anything, and something that's kind of an original uh a concept of something that you know you might even have this the effect of having kind of regional looks, you know, uh uh uh the way things look is has a regional feel, and that's what we love about Europe, um, and the variety and all these things, but all all this stuff takes a lot of work and a lot of effort.

Speaker 1:05:45

Yeah, and you're talking about time and space, it's very important. Also, the uh faith and culture are things that I I decided to invest in from the very start because they're the most repudiated aspects of contemporary culture, is faith and culture. So if we invest in that then and build a career on that, then there's going to be such a vacuum of faith and culture that we have today, and that I think is why the work I'm doing is appreciated because by people of faith and culture, uh, because they've found something that is missing. Uh and once people realize that there's a a void of faith and culture and they know where to get it, that's where the real dynamic happens.

Speaker 2 1:06:31

Yeah, I think of um uh the Dominicans in um at St. Joseph's in in Grandich Village, they wanted to build an adoration chapel. And I remember having conversations with the previous pastor, and of course I'm more practically oriented, so I'm like, you know, you could just take this corner of the church, and like you could just throw up two walls, bing, bang, boom, you get the monstrons out of the Eucharist, you're ready to go, man. Uh, because I was just like, let's just get you know, let's get adoration going where we can have it available 24 hours. Uh thankfully that they they didn't listen to me. Uh and years later now, the pastor Father Boniface, he put some real serious time and effort and money. Um, I'm sure there was an easier way or a cheaper way. Oh, you do? Yeah. And uh but you were just talking about like how it's a reflection of you know the like culture and and and it's um I think of I was just now reflecting on because he put the time and effort and resources into that chapel, you have a it's a it's a bit of a uh time stamp, right? Because we're having that's where this artist, this community, this place, Granite Village, he decided to focus on Divine Mercy. Uh there's a beautiful image of of Christ with uh with uh his heart open in in in Divine Mercy, which is a newer devotion of the last you know hundred years, right? Uh yeah, mosaic as well, yeah. So we get this um glimpse and it's a it's a a reflection of of the influences of the time. But I I go there, I'm very encouraged. I mean, the amount of young people coming in from NYU, uh that place is is regularly. I haven't been um well we can go we can go today when we're down at our party in uh in uh in in West Village.

Speaker 3 1:08:32

Um Well, also another thing too, I mean, just kind of connected to this is that um you know, you're talking about putting time and effort and money into things. Um I was all always trying to figure out this problem because we talk about the faith of the interior, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, the church is not a building. But it's not exactly true because the church is a building and there's a physical reality. I think what people are trying to get at is that your c your context matters. So like if you're a priest in Siberia in the Soviet Union, you're gonna have a very simple little chapel. Um it's gonna be like a shack. And that's uh an extension of your interior the the maximum of your what you are capable of. But if you're in a different context and you know, you live in a wealthy area or or you have means, um the the the manifestation of your interior life will spill out into the into the physical world and you would put we were supposed to give the best to God. Uh do we al always do it? No. Um but that you know that's all other all other aspects will flow from that. So if you're in a if we are in a position in an area where we have means, then the churches should be beautiful because they should manifest that.

Speaker 1 1:10:00

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:10:00

Um and that's the kind of distinction because we have this divide where it's like, well, it's all interior. And that's kind of like I guess kind of I maybe Protestantism kind of goes in that direction where it's this internal thing. Um where the Catholics say, well, no, it's it it there is this exterior reality, but it's not all exterior because you have to have a an you know, and in you know, like you have the Episcopalians that are all exterior, exterior, they have great beautiful churches and nice music, but nothing, but they don't believe anything. Um, it has to be incarnate.

Speaker 2 1:10:36

The faith is all about Episcopalian listeners.

Speaker 1:10:41

No, the faith has to be incarnate. You have to it has to manifest itself in in reality. Uh and it and we're that we're that's like especially Catholicism, it's a really it's a faith of smells and bells. I mean, it's it's an incarnate faith. Everything is tangible, uh, it's experiential, we experience it through our bodies. So that's really, really important. And for that reason, you know, if your tabernacle costs less than your Lexius or your Ferrari at There's a problem. It means you're prioritizing the comfort of your ass over the tabernacle.

Speaker 3 1:11:17

And that's the problem is though, there is this idea though that simplicity and all these things is the goal. And it's like, and people that you don't want to bring in those other things because but everybody has nice has a comfortable home and a nice thing, and they do, you know, but then when it comes to liturgy or or yeah, the liturgy of the church, they they simplify things and and dumb it down basically because of an ideological thing that says, well, it's a ma what matters is your interior encounter, and all this stuff is just sort of like you I guess sort of like a vague window dressing to that.

Speaker 1:11:55

Um if you read Sacrosanctum Concilium, which is the part of the Vatican II that that deals with the liturgy, it says noble simplicity, not just simplicity, noble simplicity. What is noble? What who are the nobility? You know, that's a that's a that's a very high level of culture. So it's noble simplicity. It's very important.

Speaker 2 1:12:20

Well, I think it's it's always ironic that that at the end of the day people kind of vote with their their feet or they vote with their uh vacation dollars. They always end up going to these beautiful churches and beautiful towns and classical architecture, and and what they they're they're what they're saying is this is what I want to spend my time and my and my money on and and travel towards, right?

Speaker 1:12:42

They're not because they want to be. You go to Europe to be. Yeah. And you come to this you come to the States to do. I I That's my experience. I don't mean to be rude, but America is a great place to get things done. Yeah. Europe is a great place to be. That's why you go there to study. That's why you go there for vacation. They could do a little bit more. They could do an awful lot more. And I'm speaking as a European. That's why I'm here.

Speaker 3 1:13:05

We could be a little bit more in America.

Speaker 2 1:13:07

We could we're practical to a fault that sometimes. Um Well we'll have to wrap up here shortly, but I think um, you know, we've had the the fortune of being here in New York where we, you know, a lot of the churches were built, you know, 100 plus years ago, so we've got those places to go to, and then um and then there's something about that confluence, right, of of art and commerce and uh social capital that New York provides, but in a lot of ways, almost cities provide, right? This uh even if they're smaller cities or you know little little places throughout Europe or Central and South America, there's something magical about that that's hard to recreate outside of uh those places. So is it is it still one day you'd want to have a a school here in New York?

Speaker 1:14:01

Oh fantastic. I love it. Uh I mean I I tried here for a number of years to establish the school. But uh if if the if the if the earth isn't ready for it, there's no point in throwing pearls to swine. So I found fertile fertile soil in uh northern Virginia because I think it's probably because there's a very strong Catholic intellectual tradition there. Um very good families, very good schools. I think that's why it's taking root there. Um so I think I'll start there.

Speaker 3 1:14:34

You also did changed your approach, which was that you were basically building it yourself. Yeah. Um, and I think that I always thought was just the right approach when you would just work focus on your own work and your own pro your own studio. And you necessar you don't necessarily need to work with an already established institution um because it it just for whatever reason it just doesn't seem to uh flower in the way that that you want it to. Um and I think what you're doing now with just building your own studio and the students are coming, and that's actually always the way it was. The students would come when you were just doing your thing. Yeah. And not, you know, it was most fruitful.

Speaker 1:15:21

That's where most most that the most artistic, the best art came from, the personal studio. And the the best students and the m the more vo people who came to the faith came through through the studio, not from the schools.

Speaker 3 1:15:37

But less less control too. You're just sort of like you don't really know. You're just doing your thing. Yeah. And then things just happen.

Speaker 1:15:43

I think that's a really big part of it. You don't control people.

Speaker 2 1:15:46

Yeah, but you have to protect a school calendar. Well, we've got to get applications in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:15:50

Well, that that's a big problem because it it becomes a slave to itself. It's it's it's chasing students and it's chasing now. If you have a studio and you're just doing your thing and you're doing it really at the highest level possible, and you take in those students who are really hungry, who are prepared to cross the Atlantic to join you. Okay, this guy's serious. And and if you didn't cross the Atlantic and take that risk, you probably wouldn't have learned as much.

Speaker 2 1:16:14

I don't know where I'd be. Um Well, I think it's uh giving people a glimpse of what it's like to uh in the life of the sculptor. Um and uh I appreciate you being back for the I think the fourth time and we'll hopefully have you back many more times. Chris, I'm not so sure about you, but um if you come back, you bring uh bring your cute kids, and then we'll they'll uh you should have a pulley that just falls down in the world. I appreciate you guys coming from your studios to our humble podcast studio here. So uh so thanks for joining us.

Speaker 3 1:16:45

Thank you for having us.