The Nautilus Sculpture
The Cathedral selected artist Donald Lipski to finish the Cathedral's pediment. Read more about the project and the history here. Read an extensive review of the new Cathedral pediment design from "The Living Church,” a national publication.
The Nautilus sculpture by artist Donald Lipski is being installed, and we will have our inaugural lighting-up on the evening of Wednesday, May 8th. There will be food, music, and fun and surprises for kids and adults beginning at 6:00 p.m., Remarks at 7:15 pm with a service of dedication and blessing following.
Bp. M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE, will preside and lead the entire congregation in blessing the Nautilus. Everyone is invited to join us for the public debut of this new work of art, which has been hailed as the most significant new work of public art in decades.
A few words on the project from our Dean, The Very Rev. John P. Streit
"There are dreamers and there are builders, and each is his or her own kind of visionary and genius.
The sculptor Donald Lipski had a vision of a beautiful section of a nautilus shell, spiraling out from the center of the Cathedral pediment, backed by a beautiful blue background, giving color and an inviting vibrancy to our rather somber building. He was able to share his vision through the modern miracle of computer software and so the Cathedral was magically transformed, at least in his computer-enhanced photographs.
Lipski's vision is now being made, hammered and bent and welded into a large, arcing sculpture that will be transported across the United State in a large flatbed truck and then installed in the pediment at the apex of our building. John Grant is the project manager, the builder who has the task of translating a vision into an actual piece of art. He has had to figure out how to actually make it. His initial idea of crafting it from molten aluminum was not chosen because it would have been too time consuming, too expensive and in the end making something too heavy for our pediment, and so he devised a method of cutting long, flat pieces of aluminum, curving slightly them inward and then welding them to aluminum piping, creating pieces that can then be bent into arcs and welded together to form the outward spiraling form of the nautilus.
I flew out to Denver to check on the progress and see up close how our pediment sculpture was being made and how it looks. I had an opportunity to have an extended conversation with John Grant, meet his partner Michael Mancarella and also meet Cody Moore and Scott Schuller, the two young men who have spent the last several months bending, welding, grinding aluminum into the shape of a nautilus shell. They were hard at work when I visited the shop, an enclosed area like a very large garage or a very small airplane hanger. The sculpture is coming into being on the floor, actually being built over a large, true-to-life scale outline on paper of the Cathedral's pediment dimensions.
Like any workshop there were electrical cords crisscrossing everywhere and tools lying around ready for use. The paper outline of the Cathedral pediment lying on the floor is now somewhat ragged and dirty, covered by dark grey aluminum dust that is produced when the aluminum pieces are ground and shaped, but in the midst of all this the nautilus sculpture lies miraculously immaculate, the aluminum burnished and shining, the metal arms arcing out with grace and beauty just like the much smaller original nautilus that is the model.
I can't wait for it to be shining from our Cathedral, inviting and welcoming people into the gospel witness of our ministry and worship."
- The Rev. John P. Streit, Jr., Dean
The Cathedral Church of St. Paul
