Stations of the Cross

The church renovation will start right after Christmas with the removal of the pews as they will be taken off site for refinishing.  The flooring will come out and scaffolding will be put up to access all of areas for painting, lighting, and stained glass cleaning. The church will then be closed while the various contractors do their jobs. We will be finished by Holy Week of 2017!  Does that sound like an aggressive schedule?  It is indeed, and will take a lot of coordination to complete everything on time.

One thing that we can do ahead of time is send out the Stations of the Cross for restoration.  These beautiful works of art were donated by the Catholic Daughters in 1959 and were hand carved in the Austrian Tyrol.  The artists at Conrad Schmitt studios will re-glaze them and make sure that they are in perfect condition.  The woodworkers at Gunder will create a gothic frame for them out of darker wood that will highlight them and bring a larger presence on the walls of our church.  The frame will have a "landing spot" for people to touch as the pray, and they will be easier for people to reach. 

This is an artist's rendering of the wood frames that will be custom built for each station.

We have taken photos of our Stations and made canvas replicas which we be put up into the church this week.  The plan is to then put them into the Parish Center when the church is closed for remodeling to ease the transition.  We hope to donate the canvas replicas to a mission church at the end of our project. 


Stay tuned to this blog, the bulletin, and Facebook for updates on Project 2017. The next meeting of the Project 2017 Committee is Monday, October 31 at 7:30 p.m.  As always, these are open meetings and all parishioners are welcome to attend. There is a LOT happening now very quickly!  It's an exciting time for our parish!

This early photo shows the original Stations of the Cross at SFDS which were oil paintings in Gothic frames.

Dave from Conrad Schmitt Studios in New Berlin inspects one of our Stations for restoration.
 

Painting Preview--get a Sneak Peek!

You might have noticed that there was some temporary scaffolding up in the northwest corner of the church.  If you go back there and look up, you will see that the artists from Conrad Schmitt Studios created a sample of the colors and stencil that they are proposing for our church renovation.  It's important for us to see what it will look like in different kinds of light as well as how the colors and patterns interact with our beautiful stained glass windows. 

We studied some historical photos of the interior of St. Francis de Sales church and noticed that there was some stenciling along the walls and the windows when the church was first built.  The artists are working hard to recreate this beautiful embellishment.  The painting of the church is the largest part of our budget and will be the most labor intensive.  The church itself will close shortly after Christmas and scaffolding will go up throughout the church shortly after that, enabling the artists and painters to restore and decorate the space.  We will be having all of our Masses in the Parish Hall until the work is completed....we're aiming to have all of the construction done in the church celebrate in time to celebrate Easter 2017! #Project2017 #sfdsrestoration

Our next meeting is Monday, October 17 at 7 p.m.  As always, these are open meetings and all parishioners are welcome to attend!