Art as a leap of faith: Kansas artist quits job to paint murals to revitalize parish

CNA Staff, Feb 22, 2024 / 07:00 am

An artist in Kansas is revitalizing her parish by painting two 15-foot-tall triptychs of the descent of the Holy Spirit and the presentation of Jesus with parishioners as the subjects. 

Mattie Karr’s three-paneled recently-completed murals will be installed at Holy Name of Jesus Parish in Kansas City, Kansas.

Karr studied illustration at the University of Kansas but left behind her dreams of filmmaking to move into a more secure corporate role after school. But when Father Anthony Oulette, pastor of Holy Name, discovered Karr was an artist, he told her about his idea for the parish.

“He took me to the church and was like well, I have this idea; I have tons of ideas to renovate the church,” Karr recalled. “And he told me on the left side there would be Pentecost and St. Michael at the top and Mary in the middle, and then on the right side would be St. Joseph presenting Jesus at the Temple with Gabriel at the top. He wanted them to mimic the beautiful stained-glass windows that we have.”

Karr accepted the mural commission in 2020, and in September 2022, she left her full-time job and launched her career in sacred art, beginning with the Holy Name commission. Oulette organized fundraising and built the panels for the art in his garage.

“I remember leading up to it, this voice in my head, like ‘what if God’s not even real.’ It was crazy,” she said. “I love Jesus so much and I know that he is real, but there was really this temptation of like, you’re gonna base your entire life and your entire career and your safety, security, money off of this person who you think is alive and is real — like what if God’s not even real?” 

But the leap of faith slowly began to prove itself. 

When Karr needed visual references for the figures in the art, she and Oulette decided to ask parishioners to volunteer. They both had the same parishioner in mind for Mary: Leticia DeCaigny.

When Karr was taking photos of the parishioners in costume for reference, she found out there was a deeper connection for DeCaigny.

DeCaigny and her husband lost their 8-year-old son after his five-year battle with cancer. 

“She was like, ‘We lost our son to cancer about 10 years ago, so I know what it’s like to walk with the suffering son. I feel very close to Mary and this is a confirmation that she sees me and that she’s with me,’” Karr recalled DeCaigny saying. “She came with her husband; her husband’s in it too as a disciple … and he was just in tears, and it was very moving.”

This affected Karr’s view of the project. 

“This project really is not mine: that’ what I felt like in my heart,” she recalled. “I’m participating in this, I’m painting it, and gathering models, but this is so much bigger than me. Because there’s no way I could have known that, I just chose her because I liked her hair. I didn’t know that her story was really linked to Mary. And so that was a huge gift I think for her, but also for me.”

“It’s not just a piece of art,” she continued, “but it’s really something to impact the people who are going to be involved in it and the people who are going to see it, for hopefully many many years.”

The scenes Oulette chose mean something special to the parish, Karr explained. 

“The Lord has such unique things to say to all of us,” she said. “My parish, for instance, is very Holy Spirit-driven. I don’t know if I’d call it a charismatic parish per se, but we love the Holy Spirit, and so having a scene of Pentecost is really important for our parish. And then our name is Holy Name of Jesus, and so the other [triptych] is the scene of Jesus the day of his circumcision, which is when he would receive his holy name.”

Karr’s depiction of the presentation of Jesus features Joseph holding Jesus before a priest, when he was presented with his holy name, with Joseph’s ancestors gathered in the background, holding candles. The archangel Gabriel looks upon the scene from above, holding a lantern over the blue, candlelit scene.

“And so these paintings, they could be replicated in another parish, but I don’t know if they would have the same effect,” she said. “The Holy Spirit has something so unique for each community, for each person, because he knows us so well.”

The Pentecost and Holy Name triptychs are scheduled to be installed at Holy Name by Easter or Pentecost, Karr said, noting that much of the work is volunteer-based. 

When asked about the importance of art, Karr shared about the intimate effect beauty can have. 

“[Art] really helps draw people out of despair and depression,” Karr said. “I’ll be the first one to tell you that beauty has drawn me out of my own depression.”

Karr recalls a moment when she was painting the presentation of Jesus in the Temple. 

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“Even with this triptych, I was painting little baby Jesus at a time that I was not doing very well, and just looking in his eyes and looking at his face, it was like he was communicating with me, like I was having this conversation with him,” she said. “And it just broke through in a way that I can’t really explain.” 

When asked about her own faith journey, Karr shared the role of beauty and art in it. 

“I always wanted to go on an adventure for God,” Karr said. “This was something that was really a desire of mine from a young age. I remember reading ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ as a family, and my dad explaining how Aslan was like God and Jesus, and how there are all these analogies. I think deep down I just knew that if I said yes to God I’d be on a wonderful adventure just like Narnia.”

“And obviously life is difficult,” she continued. “It wasn’t always this adventure and I got into some pretty dark moments … in college, [I] had some pretty dark depression. But God, he rescued me in real, personal, and deep ways through those moments of depression.” 

After an experience of someone praying over her, Karr said that her work in healing ministries and art helped strengthen her faith. 

“I call it my tomb year. There was a summer, in 2018, that I was just dead; I just felt depressed and I hated God and I didn’t understand — and he seemed far from me,” she said. “I wasn’t living this adventure that I thought I would, I just felt embarrassed all the time and insecure and I didn’t think that anyone really loved me even though they said they did — just depression, really. And he came through in a really powerful way through somebody praying over me.”

Through that experience, Karr became more involved in healing ministries and says that since then she “really [has known] that Jesus is really good, and he loves me, and he wants to be in every part of my life.”

“But I think that has really played a role in my art, too, because I think that art can have a really important role in healing; because our wounds are so dark and ugly and we often times think that we are dark and ugly, and so we mask up and try to create these false identities and these false selves to make us feel better,” she said. “But beauty has this way of just shining a light through that and being vulnerable and getting to the heart of the issue.”

Karr says it’s important that churches are different from other buildings. 

“I don’t want my church to look just like another retreat hall or a school or something. I want it to look different because church is different; because Mass is different; Mass is supernatural,” she continued. “We’re communing with God; we’re receiving God into our bodies, so it should look different.”

“The Catholic Church used to be the leader in the arts and I don’t think we’re the leader in the arts anymore,” she said. “People are creating beautiful art in Hollywood and in video games. And our churches … we’re just lacking so much, is what I can see. And so if we’re going to be Catholic artists we need to be excellent. We need to strive for excellence.”

“If you want your space to be beautiful, you need to invest in it,” Karr said. 

“We need art in our churches to draw people up higher and to recognize when you come into church, it’s different than any other place that you’re going to be,” she said. 

Art is now Karr’s full-time job. She takes commissions for churches and individuals, sells prints on her website, and does live wedding paintings. Karr shares project updates for the Holy Name triptychs on her social media.