A Foggy Day at Lake Willastein

VISIO DIVINA
The Art of
George R. Hoelzeman
By MaryAnn Stafford
Mr. Hoelzeman with his wood
sculpture of St. Anne and St. Mary in
Cowie Chapel in Carbon City, Arkansas.
of the Cross for St. Augustine’s Church in
North Little Rock. For this work, he received
the National BENE Award for Excellence
in Liturgical Art and Design. He
considers it one of his most significant
creations.
Ambo, tabernacle support, chairs, and altar from Our Lady of the Holy Souls Church in Little
Rock: simplicity with elegance. The life- sized statue in the Memorial Chapel of that church is
of Our Lady of the Holy Souls, and is made from basswood.
January/February 2017
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As a liturgical artist and consultant,
George Hoelzeman designs spaces and
artworks for churches that transcend
the ordinary and connect worshippers
to the Divine. He has provided altars,
doors, ambos, icons, tabernacles, crosses,
stained glass windows, baptismal fonts,
pulpits, stations-of-the-cross, statues,
and chairs for liturgical churches such
as Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopalian
and Methodist. His expertise as an art
consultant is recognized throughout
Arkansas and other states.
VISIO DIVINA is defined as
“spiritual seeing.” Liturgical
artist George Hoelzeman believes
that sacred art allows us
to look at objects and persons
in a way that allows God to reveal himself
to us. “Symbolism and visual art in worship
focuses the mind, heart, and soul; but also
teaches, preaches and engages us in the
Divine Mystery. Symbolism makes connections
so that we can discover new and deeper
meaning – as the Orthodox would say,
the image is a kind of visual scripture. Symbolism
is also an embodiment of a vast body
of meaning in one compact form. Thus,
seeing a cross has more meaning than just
a reference to the manner of Christ’s death
– it opens a floodgate of meaning related to
that death (and resurrection.)”
George Hoelzeman grew up in Morrilton
and still lives in that vicinity, but has
created religious art for Arkansas churches
as well as in Texas, Illinois, New York, North
Carolina, Michigan, and Connecticut. As
the child of devout Catholics, he was
taught early on that symbols, signs, and
images were links to God and promoted a
much deeper faith.
Hoelzeman’s career as a sacred artist
evolved over time. Woodworking was
always a part of his life, since his ancestry
included a long line of woodworkers and
carpenters dating back to Medieval Germany.
He drew and sculpted in high school,
making his own duck decoys because they
were expensive to buy. As a young man, he
considered becoming a priest, and entered
the Benedictine Seminary. When he left,
he thought to become a commercial artist
or an architect and attended UCA and
UALR. After studying Medieval Art History,
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KELLY HICKS
he came to realize that he needed to be in
a field that “combined theology, liturgy, art,
history, and the Church.”
Before starting his own business as
a liturgical artist and consultant, Hoelzeman
worked as a photographer at AETN
and subsequently taught at Catholic High
School in Little Rock for over 10 years. His
first real commission was the African Way
He received this commission from
the newly ordained Father Warren Harvey
who asked him to carve a set of stations
(commemoration of the Way of the
Cross in 14 different images.) His only
stipulation was that they look African. So
Hoelzeman began studying West African
cultures in order to achieve this result. He
evidently succeeded, since many Nigerians
in the community thought he was African
American until they met him!
These two-sided great doors were built in Trinity Episcopal Church in Fayetteville,
North Carolina. There were twelve panels - six inside and six outside, each 3 x 3’.
This was one of Hoelzeman’s most complicated commissions.
Continued on page 8 >
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