27 February 2006
Church for sale
Wanted: a home for this little church. It's a gorgeous piece of art and a real labor of love. Precisely what all churches are meant to be.
While for years a church as operated as a second or perhaps even primary home for infinite worshippers, the most prominent church in Denise Deschamps’s life at the moment is actually in need of a home itself.That’s because for most of Deschamps life she has lived with a tremendous, intricately detailed sculpture of a Catholic Church in the basement of her childhood home, built by her father by hand and personally designed down to the detail. The church measures taller than most men and depicts a Good Friday Mass right down to the robes on the miniature replica alter boys.But after her father Roland Thomas’s death at the age of 94 last year, Deschamps said she is facing a drastic decision regarding the larger-than-life piece of folk art, which contains a copper roof, concrete facade and finished interior including mini confessional booths."My father was an engineer, he was very active in the church, and I think this just combined the two," Deschamps said of the miniature, which is resting in the basement of her father’s Malden home, which is being renovated and prepared for sale."We are selling the house, and it’s putting me in a desperate situation," Deschamps said. "It would cost way too much to store it, and I really don’t want to destroy it. I just hope that maybe someone or some organization would want to take it."
Jeff 2:45 PM