Head in the Clouds: Painting the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Czestochowa

Dear friends,

I am thrilled to share pictures from a recent renovation of the murals of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Worcester, MA. I worked alongside two excellent painters to update the design of the sanctuary and to enhance the reredos. Painting a Catholic church was a dream come true, as it allowed me to unite my faith and my craft in a very meaningful way. Also, spending all day in the presence of our Lord was a treat! The simple acts of genuflecting before the tabernacle and bowing before the altar whenever I passed by them, which are customary acts of devotion, were frequent reminders that I was in the realm of the sacred. It was a formative 5 weeks, both spiritually and professionally. I am so grateful for the opportunity and look forward to the next church project!

Please enjoy the following pictures from our process, starting with the original design of the sanctuary. Our task was to update the interior of the dome so that the angels exist in a unified sky. We also enhanced the reredos (the large altarpiece in the center) and touched up the flat mural on the wall above the dome.

Here is a close-up of the dome before we started:

Staging was constructed so that we could access the murals. It was surprisingly sturdy!

One of our first steps was to remove the old varnish that protected the art so that we could get see the true colors and paint. We used chemicals to get it off and protected ourselves with respirators.

The following is a picture of the dome walls from the staging. We painted out the borders and replaced them with a sky and clouds to unify the angels into one scene. We did slight repairs of the existing figures but otherwise left them untouched to preserve some of the original artwork. We also repaired parts of the existing canvas that were delaminating from the wall.

Once we painted out the borders and painted in the sky between the figures, we incorporated naturalistic-looking clouds to add to the heavenly vibe and improve the design. See below:

The central focus of the design was the Eucharist in the monstrance, the flesh of our Lord. It is a key requirement in liturgical design for the Eucharist to be the focus.

Here is an image of the completed dome interior from the staging:

We also touched up sculptures on the arch, as well as the wallpaper on the arch. If we identified any repair needs while we were up there, we tried to fix them for the sake of the overall longevity of the space.

We also enhanced the reredos at the back of the sanctuary by painting in faux marble and glazing some areas in gold. We incorporated colors from the mural to harmonize everything in the sanctuary together. This is the beginning stage of our painting:

Painting in progress:

Painting complete:

Here is what the final product looks like after all of the painting was completed and the scaffolding was removed:

Thank you for reading! Please check out the beautiful artwork of my teammates on this project:

John Folley: http://www.johnfolley.com/

Shawn Vales: https://shawnvales.com/collections/original-paintings

God bless,

Kevin