On Friday evening, October 2002, at Auletto’s in Almonesson, we thanked God for the restoration of our Church at Broadway and Ferry in Camden, New Jersey. We celebrated our Creator as the Supreme Artist and we celebrated Othmar Carli and Don Harle, the two artists God created to restore our church. In Othmar’s art, cups are often inserted “to hold the blessings”, he says. At his direction, Don painted twelve cups on the walls of Sacred Heart. They hold many blessings. None better than Othmar Carli and Don Harle. Our cup runneth over.
When we consider the restoration of Sacred Heart, which is still in process, we should put the names together of the two artists who have achieved the miracle of its present beauty, Othmar Carli and Don Harle. Only God could have brought these two men together…an artistic team of unmatchable worth to Sacred Heart. In 1991, Michael Doyle asked John Doyle of Haddonfield for a restoration artist. The person he recommended said: “The man you need is Othmar Carli.” He came in December 1991, sat alone in the church for two hours and took Sacred Heart into his own. Then he spent the week studying the condition of the church. It was love at first sight, when Don Harle visited Sacred Heart in 1980. “I loved the oldness of this place with a past,” he said, “parishioners long dead are still near.”
In
February 1990, Sacred Heart had many paint jobs and Don’s mother,
Rosemarie McBride, working at the parish office, suggested that he,
a house painter, would do “a good job”. He came and never
left. Little did he know that he was destined for extraordinary work
in Sacred Heart Church.
Othmar, originally from Austria, an internationally respected artist and restorer of special buildings, would soon take Don’s untested talent and expand it beyond his wildest dreams. Othmar the master, ever ready to share his skills; Don, the highly gifted student, open as a sponge to receive. Their talents fused into a team which has reverently and magnificently restored Sacred Heart Church. Work began in March 1992. Then Othmar’s own heart needed restoration with a triple bypass. On June 14th, two canvas paintings were taken down, one an angel, the other Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Jesus. One by one, Othmar restored 17 huge paintings at his studio in York, PA. Each one took countless hours and 14 painstaking steps. All the while Don was cleaning surfaces with chemicals on a small pad. It was like cleaning a big house with a toothbrush. He also knitted back the massive cracks. On October 30th, 1992 Don Harle’s brush of paint hit the first square inch of Sacred Heart and when the job is completely finished, his brushes will have touched every square inch of Sacred Heart’s walls and ceilings. “I swept the floor too”, he says. Othmar also restored the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 14 Stations of the Cross, and continues to guide the great transformation of our church. The sanctuary still awaits its turn. But Othmar also has created a giant painting called “The Peacemakers” for the wall over the baptismal font. Over the years as Othmar and Don took Sacred Heart’s old building into their hearts and transformed it, the people of Sacred Heart took them into their hearts with admiration and gratitude.
And so, in gratitude, Sacred Heart presented Othmar and Don with beautiful, inscribed cups filled with God’s blessings on their hearts and hands!