By Karen Girard, special to the Catholic Herald

FOND DU LAC — When Sr. Marie Scott saw St. Mary’s Springs High School student Eileen McGee’s self-portrait batik last fall, she was impressed. “The depth of her perspective as she captured herself was incredible,” she said. As campus minister for Fond du Lac’s Marian College, Sr. Scott wanted to bring McGee’s creative vision to the campus’s Dorcas Chapel, to illustrate the passion of Jesus in a way that would draw college students into the story.

She discussed the project with McGee’s father, Bill McGee, Marian’s vice president of student services and campus operations. They asked McGee if she would be interested in creating a series of 14 Stations of the Cross, using the same technique as her self-portrait, to be permanently displayed in the chapel. She agreed and said she would have it ready by Ash Wednesday, Feb. 25.

Traditional batik, McGee’s art teacher Pat Reiher explained, is a method of decorating cloth by covering part of it with a coat of wax and then dyeing the cloth. The waxed area keeps the color the cloth was before being dyed. Different colored areas are achieved by waxing different areas on the cloth, then dipping the cloth into progressively darker-colored dyes. McGee used a modified technique, Reiher said. Instead of dipping the cloth in dye, she painted the dyes onto the cloth after applying wax.

McGee began working on the stations in January, at the start of second semester. “I worked on their construction every study hall (in addition to art class),” she said. “And during lunch hours, toward the end,” she added, to finish it on time.

“It was fascinating to watch her work,” said Reiher. She said McGee took the responsibility of working professionally for commission very seriously. “She researched and developed her plan on her own. I was there to answer questions, but she didn’t have many. Really, I just watched from the wings. It was her mission,” Reiher said.

The unveiling of the Stations of the Cross in Dorcas Chapel took place after the Ash Wednesday Mass. McGee was excused from classes at St. Mary’s Springs to attend. “It was a weird feeling to be acknowledged for the work during Mass,” she said, and to witness the blessing of her stations in the prayer service which followed.

Entering the circular chapel, visitors will likely notice a series of vibrant-hued cloth pictures, about 2 feet high by 2 feet wide, lining the circular stone walls, seven on one side, seven on the other. Their bright colors stand out against the backdrop of dull brown and gray.

The images of each scene are abstract, yet discernible as representing each of the 14 stations. Below them are the chapel’s original stations — simple mahogany crosses set in the stone wall, displaying Roman numerals “I” through “XIV.” Going from one station to the next, gazing at the pictures, the viewer is led beyond examining “what really happened” on that day in history, to an expression of the meaning of Jesus’s passion and death.

“Being a Catholic helped me understand the Stations of the Cross,” McGee said, “but my personal views were not involved in the work.” She explained how, as she worked, she concentrated on the relationship between the viewer and the piece, allowing each station to speak of itself to the viewer, rather than give her personal interpretation of the event. “I wanted something that could be looked at and understood by people of different religions,” she said.

The sunny-blue background color, repeated in 11 of the scenes, is striking. The 11th station, however, features a muddy yellow background. “I had used yellow only around Jesus’ head up to that point,” McGee said. “In this one, where he’s being nailed to the cross, yellow is ground color, to show he’s lying on the ground.” And in the 12th and 13th stations, the sky turns to deep violet. “You read how the sky went dark,” McGee said. “I tried to create a sunset, to symbolize ending and death.”

Carleen Vande Zande, professor of education at Marian College, regularly spends time in the chapel, meditating. She’s pleased with the new addition. “Eileen has given new life to the chapel,” she said. “It enhances your meditation time, to have something so profound to gaze on.” She encourages others to take time to “experience a beautiful interpretation of the crucifixion.”

McGee’s family, her mother, Kathy, her sister Rosemary, a music education major in Ohio, and her father, moved to Fond du Lac from Maryland about six years ago. Her dad was in the Navy, she said, and the family has lived in various parts of the country. A senior this year, McGee narrowed her college search to her favorite regions: the South and the East Coast. This fall, she will attend Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, to study interior design.

“In this field you use all the media together — color, sculpture, drawing, painting,” she said. She envisions one day owning an interior design company, offering her own line of artistic works for her clients’ homes.

Her works in Dorcas Chapel, said Steve Prestegard, Marian College’s director of public relations and marketing, are there for the entire community to enjoy. He said all are welcome to come to the chapel, located on the corner of National Avenue and Division Street in Fond du Lac, and view the stations. Afterward, he said, visitors are invited to stop by the campus Common Grounds coffee house, a casual gathering space open to the public.