A church interior to ‘elevate the soul’

Ali Cavanaugh sat in St. Mary’s Church in Helena, Arkansas, on Palm Sunday in 2023, marveling at its beauty.

A prayer rose from her heart.

“I was just sitting there going, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be so cool to paint a church? Oh, Lord, that would be neat,’” she said.

Her prayer was answered two years later when Father Ryan Weber approached her about a renovation project at St. Agnes Church in Bloomsdale.

This summer, Cavanaugh and a team of painters are bringing a whole new color palette and design to the church interior, turning the wide expanses of white walls and ceilings to swaths of olive, dark blue, cream, bole red and gold adorned with decorative stenciled designs.

Cavanaugh, a parishioner at nearby Ste. Genevieve Parish in Ste. Genevieve, is a professional artist who specializes in what she calls “modern fresco painting,” creating portraits with watercolors on kaolin clay. This is her first church project.

“It’s just different because I’m combining my faith in — it’s really integrated. My faith is also integrated into my portrait work because of my love for humans, my belief in the value of humans, but this is in a little bit different way, a sacred space,” she said. “It’s been really inspiring. You feel the angels working with you, and God is there.”

Cavanaugh worked with Father Weber and the parish council to create and refine the new look for the church’s interior, seeking to add rich color and Gothic-style design elements found in many older churches while still respecting the 1992 building’s architecture. It’s a way to highlight the sacred nature of the space through the senses, she said.

“That’s the beauty of the arts — the point is supposed to elevate the soul. It’s supposed to be a sublime experience,” she said. “When you see the beautiful architecture, beautiful paintings, beautiful sacred music, you realize that God is working through us to create. It’s just undeniable: God is present there, and it elevates the soul.”

Universal art rules apply in churches, too, she said. It’s important to consider the scale, proportions, color and contrast that make up the visual impact. The eye is naturally drawn to areas of high contrast, so that affects where worshipers’ attention goes when they enter.

Accordingly, an arched wall cutout behind the main altar is painted a darker color than the wall around it, creating a high-contrast focal point. Across the top is painted “Dominus meus et Deus meus,” which translates to “My Lord and my God.”

“That’s what I want when we walk in: Your heart, your eyes, everything to go straight to Jesus and the tabernacle,” Cavanaugh said.

The color palette was inspired by a chromolithograph (a piece of art printed using a special layered stone plate process) of St. Joseph that Father Weber had happened upon at the South County Antique Mall. The portrait of St. Joseph holding the child Jesus will hang in the finished church.

Cavanaugh loves visiting different churches while traveling and collecting inspiration along the way, but she also still marvels at the artistry in the church she’s called home for 19 years.

“I’ve always appreciated especially older churches and how artists have done what they’ve done,” she said. “Ste. Genevieve Parish has beautiful stencils, so every single Mass I can say that I just sit there and I go, ‘wow, that’s just amazing that they painted that.’”

On a July morning, Cavanaugh and a handful of painting volunteers gathered in the makeshift studio in the church basement to pick up their stencils, gold paint and tools before heading upstairs. With a lot of wall space to cover, Cavanaugh is glad to have the help of parishioners and others that she knows from the art community.

“Every time they come to church, they get to look and say, ‘I did that,’” she said.

The church renovation is planned to be completed in September. Besides the painting, it also includes replacing the flooring with faux marble, widening the sanctuary, a new tabernacle and new main and side altars from local woodshop Lurk Custom Cabinets.

One of Cavanaugh’s biggest prayers, she laughed, is for time to slow down. She also prays daily for the Lord to bless the work. And as she learned when she got the call about the project, God answers prayers.

“I’m just trusting and putting it in God’s hands — I’m going to do my best, and then He shows up and pulls it together,” she said.