Mardie Rees standing next to her clay model of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary
I've been working hard this year on Saint Elizabeth of Hungary for Saint Elizabeth Hospital, in Enumclaw, Washington. I invite you to see it in clay before the Princess heads to the Reinmuth Foundry to be cast in Bronze and installed in Spring of 2025!
Mardie Rees Studio
Saturday, September 7th, 2024
5-8pm
Mardie Rees' piece, Saint Michael, Archangel, will be on exhibit and available for purchase at the California Art Club's Gold Annual Exhibition. The piece won the "Fine Art Connoisseur Award of Excellence for Sculpture." Don't miss an opportunity to see this piece in person because Saint Michael is a work you must see in person.
The recently expanded Hilbert Museum is located in the historic district of Old Towne Orange. It is the only museum in the world committed to tracing the history of the Golden State from the late 1800s to the present through works by leading California artists and Hollywood studio artists and animators.
As part of our opening celebration for this year's Gold Medal Exhibition this Saturday, noted art historian Jean Stern will present the lecture "Defining Excellence: Artwork by Historical Members of the California Art Club." The August 24 event will be at 2 p.m. and tickets sales will begin soon.
Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University
Exhibition Hours: Tuesday through Saturday – 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Admission: Admission is free
Parking: Located one block east of the museum at 130 N. Lemon Street, the Old Towne West parking structure offers free all-day parking.
Video - Mardie Rees sharing about the creation of Saint Michael
Saint Michael, 23" x 15" x 18", Bronze & Glass Wings . Edition available for purchase
Mardie Rees in her studio shortly after completing Saint Michael. "The glass wings turned out better that I could have possibly imagined," says Rees.
Rees working from the model in her Gig Harbor Studio.
Mardie Rees is hard at work on the clay monument of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary to be installed at Saint Elizabeth Hospital in Enumclaw. Saint Elizabeth was a young princess from the 1200s who had a heart for the poor. She would often sneak food from the castle kitchen, hide it in her cloak and carry it beyond the base of the castle to the foothills where the poor resided. She was once caught with her secret stash of food and asked to pull back her cloak, only to reveal hundreds of flowers, known as The Miracle of the Roses. A twenty-year-old Elizabeth later received the return of her dowry upon the death of her husband and decided to build a hospital where the poor would come for healing.
This piece is sculpted in honor of Sister Jude Connelly, OSF (May 8, 1940- March 28th, 2024) who served the Virginia Mason Franciscan Health System for over forty years.
Read Saint Elizabeth's full story on Wikipedia
The portrait is easier to finish down on a sculpture stand.
The cape is on! Next comes sculpting the roses within her cape.
Can you find me? Working along the bottom edge of the skirt is hard on the knees.
Left to right: Mardie Rees, Sister Jude, Michael Cox, Danielle Langvad, Ruth Fisher, Sister Anne McNamara. Sister Jude did see the maquette in her honor before she joined Jesus on March 28th, 2024.
Celebrating Mother’s Day (my son not pictured) - My oldest graduated 8th Grade! I can’t believe it.
I have been working on a bas-relief for a Tacoma (Wa.) Virtual Heart Monitoring Clinic run by CHI Franciscan Health. They desperately needed a work of art that would inspire the team day to day and be a focal point in their building. They approached me looking for a piece of stained glass because they wanted color and something to glow while hung in their windowless building. I wanted to sculpt a work of art that would be meaningful in the context of their Clinic. The solution: blue cast leaded crystal
Inspired by the many bas relief roundelsI saw in Florence Italy, I chose Raphael the Archangel as the perfect subject. Raphael the Archangel is commonly referred to in the Christian tradition as the Angel that performs all manners of healing. Describing his role as written in the story of Tobias (book of Tobit), he protected Tobit on his journey while concealing his identity. He later reveals himself to Tobit and heals Tobit's father, Tobias from blindness. Raphael has become the patron of travelers, the blind, happy meetings, nurses, physicians, medical workers, and matchmakers. In recent years Raphael has become depicted more as what we commonly refer to as "The Guardian Angel."
In my version of Raphael, he holds an orb with beams of light emanating from within. I focused on detailing his powerful arms and chest and the weightiness of his wings. The wings are modeled on those of the famed Condor, whose wingspans can reach an astounding ten feet!
Leaded cast glass held up in the shop. I'm so excited to get this new piece installed with proper lighting
