ST. JOSEPH'S CHURCH FALL 2006 - ANGEL STATUES

I was asked to come back to St. Joseph's in the fall of 2006 to do a marble faux-finish on two angel statues. I wish I had better pictures of these statues. The finish on them is quite nice. I actually love how they turned out.

STENCIL IN DINING ROOM OF RESIDENTIAL HOME - FALL 2006

I was asked to do a border stencil near in a dining room of a residential home. The owner had some photographs of the original stencil which I used to vector trace the design.

Here is the vector trace. (No Copying or using image without permission)

I had the vector trace cut-out into three segments so that accurate
placement would be easier.

Segmenting the stencil allowed me to place an urn in each corner
of the room as well as centering an urn on the halfway mark of
each wall.

I also fixed the decorative elements on this mirror.

ST. JOSEPH'S - STATUES 2006

During the spring of 2006, I was asked to go back and fix and repaint some statues of saints for St. Joseph. A few decades earlier the statues were painted a light gray color. Perhaps to give the appearance of stone...I really don't know why, but they were sure drab looking. Before I came in, the statues were lightly sanded and primed by a paint crew. Afterward, I came in to fix broken fingers and other parts and repaint them.

Before pic of St. Vincent de Paul.

Before pic of St. Therese. Her eyes are glass - we discovered this
during the restoration.

Me doing some detail painting.

St. Therese finished right before installation.

St. Vincent de Paul finished.

Finished St. Ignatius on marble pedestal. He was positioned on the left
side of the back wall near the confessional room.

St. Vincent de Paul finished. He is on top of an oak leaf and acorn shelf
that I gilded and painted. He is positioned on the left side near the main
entry of the church.

St. Joseph finished. He is positioned on the right side of the main entry.

Finished St. Therese on a marble pedestal. She is located on the right
side of the back wall near the balcony stairs.

View of all the Saints on the back wall.

BROADWAY LOFTS - 2006

Here are some images of a faux tile floor I did for Broadway Lofts. This faux tile floor is located in one of the hallways of the old textile mill building. The floors in this hallway were cement with cracks and all.













I decided to go with a diamond shape tile layout. Laying this floor out proved to be the most difficult and time consuming part of the entire project.

COX CAPITOL THEATRE - 2006

The last thing I did on this project was the banister of the balcony, which I started and completed in the first couple of months in 2006. The face of the banister was decorated on a three sides with 40 frames containing a decorative element. Every other frame alternated with a knight's armour with a crest, two lions holding a crest, or a crest by itself. Each of the three varied slightly by color or by a symbolic imagery, but overall the alternating images were consistent.

Here is an example of one of the crest. I took a photograph of each decorative element
in each of the 40 frames, which I then brought home to digitally recreate in Photoshop.

The three images above are examples of what the digital version looks like.

I had all the 40 images professionally printed on canvas using archival inks. I then
adhere them to the interior space of the frame using wallpaper glue. Finally, I aged
them a bit using a ragging technique.

Here are two sides of the banister.

The middle section of the banister contains only the knights and lion images.
The sides of the balcony only contain the crest.

COX CAPITOL THEATRE - 2005

The people behind restoring the Capitol Theatre decided to have a full functioning restaurant and bar. Inside the kitchen they placed a wood fire pizza oven. The oven can be seen by the public through the front window and the side ordering counter. There wasn't enough space in the kitchen to create a substantial base that would be bigger than the top part or to tile around the entire oven. I was asked to design and install a mosaic on just two sides of the oven.

Picture of me working on the mosaic. I created a design that would reflect the
Moorish style and color theme seen through out the theatre. I used stained-
glass for the center part that I am working on in this picture. I appreciate a very
tight mosaic with very thin grout lines, so this entire project was very tedious and
needed the help of my partner, Craig C, and long days to complete the project
within ten days.

Here is the project completed. Most of the materials were recycled
(from other projects) or were bought at extreme discount.

I used rounded glass as a decorative accent. I really love how it looks in between
the moulding on both the top and base of the mosaic. This was one of my favorite
projects. I am very proud of the way it looks, but sadly, because of its location, it is
the most overlooked.

ST. JOSEPH'S RESTORATION - STATIONS OF THE CROSS (2005)

The stations of the cross were actually restored back in the winter/spring of 2005. We cleaned the actual marble and then gilded and faux finished the the framing of each station.

The base and top were stone faux finished and gilded by me and MB and the
columns and pilasters were marbleized by Dave S. I wanted this pic and the
detail pic to help better explain the next project.

I was asked by TL in the fall of 2005 to come back to make a computer mock-up.
At this point in the project, they were working in the stairways to the choir balcony
and the confession room. They knew this area had some stenciling where the the
wall meets the ceiling.

This is what they found. I took a couple of pictures of the original stencil and
then went home and vector traced the photo to create a stencil for the job.

This is what I digitally created.

I then colored the vector drawing and placed it on a photo of one of the stations.
They loved the mock-up; but unfortunately, the budget ran out and they opted
to not do this project.

GRAND OPERA HOUSE 2005

In August of 2005, I was asked to help restore Macon's Grand Opera House. (Click here for more information about the Grand Opera House.) They had started the job earlier in the summer, but I was out-of-town for a memorial and could only make it for the last month of the restoration. My main focus on this job was faux finishing and painting flowers on the box seat ceilings.

Above I am in the process of painting one of the box seat ceilings.

Here is a flower finished. I love how the light looks like the stamen of an
actual flower. The entire ceiling ragged with a lighter blue.

By this point, I am almost finished with the ceiling minus one.

I also faux finished the columns and two statues located on both sides of the proscenium.

Here is a detail of one of the statues. She and her identical sister are the first
statues I would paint/ restore, but thankfully not the last.

OLD GOVERNOR'S MANSION 2004

During the summer of 2004 and while working on the St. Joseph's project, we were asked by TL to go to Milledgeville, GA to do some gilding to the decorative elements located on the interior of the Old Governor's Mansion dome. (Click here, to find out more about the Old Governor's Mansion).









All the decorative elements in this dome were gilded using a 23k Monarch brand gold and they were sized the day before by Dave S. It is interesting to notice the range of quality between different brands of leaf. The stuff one can buy at a hobby store severely pales in comparison to real gold leaf from a reputable company.

ST. JOSEPH'S RESTORATION 2004 - THE SIDE ALTARS

Here are some pics of the side altars. This was, what I thought to be, the last part of the job. All the scaffolding with the exception of the scaffolding in the pic was removed. I was actually bummed to see the scaffolding go...should I say this...well I really loved climbing the stuff. Of course, the climbing only happened when something needed to be gilded or faux finished.

The two pics, the one above and the one below are 'in progress' of both the left and
right side altar respectively. The above pic, shows how I, with the help of my partner,
used a computer to design the shape and a projector, with the help of the other artists,
to trace the shape onto the wall. If you look closely on the red wall you will notice two
chalk lines that mimic the shape seen on the computer screen. It was necessary for us
to do this since the altar space had two arched openings and one arched window that
were all different in height and width, thus making the wall space asymmetrical.

Here Dave S and I are gilding small squares on the wall behind the Virgin Mary Altar.
If you look closely you might notice how the color gradually changes as it gets closer to
the marble altar. We did a ragging technique using three different glazes over the original
color. I also gilded star shapes onto the ceiling.

The above pics show the side altars finished. I unfortunately wasn't around to see the
side altars fully completed since I had to go to Colorado for a memorial. The figures
were painted by the sister of the liturgical designer. (I completely forgot her name - ugh.)
I did help her sketch some of the figures onto canvas and I even modeled for one of the
angels. Of course, it looks nothing like me. She just needed to get the gesture and pose right.

I also helped Dudley - this awesome and hilarious foreman - hang the painted angels.
We used wall paper glue to adhere them to the wall.

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.