ST. JOSEPH'S RESTORATION 2004 - THE CEILING

In the summer of 2004, I was asked by Craig B if I wanted a job restoring St. Joseph's Catholic Church. "HECK YEAH!!!!" I was so excited to shift gears away from remodeling and towards the Arts. Since receiving a BFA, I had always wanted to find gainful employment doing something I both knew and loved - that being art. Secondly, I love the idea of making things beautiful - and in this case - making things even more beautiful! (Click here: To find out more about St. Joseph's Church in Macon.)

This pic is a view of the rose window near the choir and pipe organ balcony. This
half of the church was finished from top to bottom first and then the scaffolding was
taken down and moved over to the other half of the church to finish up the restoration.
For this part of the project, we (Dave S, Craig B and Me) were responsible for faux
finishing columns and window frames along with painting and gilding decorative
elements. I primarily focused on gilding and painting decorative elements.

These pics are of the ceiling that is above a small part of the nave; the crossing
and transepts; and the main and side altars. By now, I was helping Dave S with
faux-finishing windows and column bases. I continued to gold leaf and paint the
decorative elements. The last pic is a detail of the rosettes on the barrel
vaulted ceiling.

This is a pic of the dome located above the crossing. I gilded and painted the
decorative elements and did the gold leaf lines. This was the highest point and
surprisingly not the scariest place I had been on this project. The ladder climb
up to the scaffolding platform from the top platform of the main scaffolding was
scary but, as soon as, I was in the space and could not seethe floor below, then
I felt fine. The most scary part of my job was actually being on my tippy-toes on
a ladder on top of rolling scaffolding that was strategically placed at the edge of
the high top platform of the main scaffolding.