Sacred sculpture

Those who have stepped into Cheryl Metcalf's downtown Coeur d'Alene art studio in the past few weeks have probably had a similar reaction.

A sense of awe and reverence is nearly palpable as they gaze up at a cold-cast resin work in progress depicting Jesus Christ on the cross.

"It’s powerful,” Metcalf said Thursday. 

"What’s been nice is all the people who will come and tell me stories of their faith," she said. "It evokes a lot of emotion. There's people that stop all the time and even take pictures."

The seasoned artist has been commissioned with creating a nearly life-sized sculpture of Christ in his final hours with nailed wrists and drooping shoulders, head topped with a crown of thorns.

"He won’t be pierced in the side,” Metcalf said. “When I’m done with the hands they'll show more tension, his foot is showing more tension.”

A local family requested the cold-cast resin sculpture after they walked by Metcalf's Rockford Building studio and saw her many other lifelike sculptures of varying subject and size. They asked if she would be OK with making something of such religious significance, which Metcalf was more than pleased to do.

“I cried when I made the small one," she said. "It will really impact you."

The 5-foot-tall clay sculpture will be cold cast in resin blended with bronze powder and attached to a large olive wood cross with one side of the Jubilee Medal of Saint Benedict carved in a circular piece in the center. Metcalf said the family plans to attach the cross with the sculpture to a tall stone hearth above their fireplace.

Metcalf has made many lifelike pieces in her 15 years of sculpting, including a large bear, but the only one that comes close in terms of size and cultural significance is her sculpture of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe's Chief Morris Antelope, which looks out over the Spokane River.

She is in the process of finalizing the Christ sculpture and hopes it will be finished in about four weeks.

"It's going to be pretty impressive," she said. "It's been a wonderful job."

    A small-scale version of Cheryl Metcalf's Christ sculpture is seen Thursday morning with the olive wood cross to which the final product will be affixed in the background.
  

    Cheryl Metcalf adds texture Thursday to a toe of the Christ sculpture she has been commissioned to build for a local Catholic family.
  

    An early phase of the clay Cheryl Metcalf is sculpting into Jesus Christ on the cross is seen in her studio earlier this year.