Client: Essentia Health – St. Mary’s Medical Center

Location: Duluth, MN, United States

Completion date: 2023

Project Team

artist

Scott Parsons

Scott Parsons LLC

Glass Painter

Olaf Hanweg

Derix Glasstudios

Overview

The art glass for St. Mary’s Medical Center – Essentia Health Hospital Chapel portrays the last meeting of Saint Scholastica and Saint Benedict. It is a beautiful, and very old story about having one last chance to be together before saying goodbye. Elements of a light shaft and dove are included with the embrace of brother and sister one last time. The Benedictine Sisters gifted this window to the hospital and they wanted to convey this story in a very contemporary way, so that the embrace you see depicted in the glass is a gesture that anyone could relate to.

Goals

One interesting design challenge was to get the glass to read well from both sides. The inside view is from the chapel, the outside view is a main walkway overlooking Lake Superior.

Process

The Benedictine Sisters of St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth partnered with Essentia Health to gift this stained glass window and chapel to the newly-built Essentia Health in Downtown Duluth. The Sisters wanted the glass to be contemporary and not traditional. After listening to the telling of the last meeting of Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica, I produced a design which everyone loved and with very little further input was approved for fabrication.