Exquisite details captured in clay
E-mail story
It's easy. Send a link to the story you were just reading to a friend. Just fill out the form on this page and we'll send it along.
Your name and e-mail address are transmitted to the recipient. Otherwise, it is considered private information; see Privacy policy.
During the open house for the Newport Beach California Temple, visitors, who began and ended their tour in a reception area in a neighboring stake center, were touched by a new life-size sculpture of Christ.
The sculpture was a labor of love of Angela Johnson of the Gilbert Arizona Greenfield Stake. "This sculpture is a manifestation of a life-long adoration of Christ," she said.
Eight years ago, when Angela Johnson bought her first block of clay and a few simple sculpting tools, she could not have foreseen where this new path of creativity would lead her. Today Sister Johnson has found excellence in the medium and uses it to convey her feelings and testimony of the Savior.
"No aspect of my life is more precious to me than the gospel of Christ," said Sister Johnson. "It is the anchor of my life."
The 48-year old mother and grandmother recalled the day when her creative focus shifted from 20 years as a professional opera singer to sculptor. She was overcome with a prompting to express herself with clay. "The intensity of it was enormous," she said. "It happened so fast, I didn't have time to think about it." She rushed to a craft store and within four hours created a piece of artwork of a young girl.
She felt compelled to create; discovering a gift she didn't know she had. "I felt divine help that I can't logically explain," she said. "I only know that Heavenly Father knows us perfectly, he knows what gifts we have." Her work turned her kitchen into a studio and her formal dining room into a gallery.
Learning from doing, Sister Johnson eventually began creating representations of Christ. Two bronzed pieces were displayed last year at the Mesa Arizona Temple Visitors Center — a bust of Christ and a larger piece entitled, "Free to Choose," which represents through various figures the joy in life as one turns to the Savior or the despair of turning away.
She created other Christ-centered pieces and began planning a life-size bronze sculpture garden depicting scenes from Christ's life. Those who have viewed her artwork are not only touched by the painstakingly exquisite detail of faces, hands and clothing, but by the spirit of the work.
In May of this year, Sister Johnson said, she was impressed with a sense of urgency to begin work on her first life-size statue of the Savior. The framework was completed just days before she received a call in June from the Newport Beach Temple Committee art director, Brian Andre of the California Santa Margarita Stake. He had been referred to Sister Johnson and was told that she had done a bust of Christ.
Brother Andre explained that in planning for the temple open house, he hoped to create a reception area with a livingroom-like atmosphere with artwork and presentations that centered on Christ. However, he had been unable to locate a life-size statue of the Savior for the centerpiece.
In speaking with Sister Johnson, he thought maybe he could use the bust that she had done, but he mentioned that he really hoped to use a life-size statue. Sister Johnson told him that she had just started work on just such a statue.
"I felt that this was the very reason I had received a prompting to begin work on it," she said. She committed to have the statue done for the open house that began July 23.
For the next five weeks, Sister Johnson spent entire, exhausting days creating the statue. "The Spirit guided me as to what needed to be done each day," she said. "The Lord was my fountain of strength through this."
The clay statue was completed in time; however, transporting it became the next obstacle.
Sister Johnson and her husband, Kenneth, decided they needed to rent a refrigerated truck with a hydraulic lift to transport the 400 pound statue. While they drove, their son, Mark, and his wife, Shalice, kept watch while bundled up in 48 degree temperature inside the back of the truck. After an eight-hour trip the statue arrived safely with only some stress fractures that Sister Johnson was able to repair.
Brother Andre believes that Sister Johnson demonstrated "pioneer-like faith" in being able to finish the statue and deliver it to Newport Beach in such a short amount of time. And because of that faith, many people were touched.
During the open house Brother Andre said he saw many personal reactions to the statue from people of many different faiths; many remarked on the face and how kind, loving and gentle it was, others were speechless, many were moved to tears, most seemed to approach it with reverence.
"We wanted the focus of the open house to be on Christ," Brother Andre said. "The statue was really an exclamation point. It has blessed 175,000 plus people."
