Many Times

Over and over again, like all liturgical artists, Bolton was asked to reinvent the wheel. How many crucifixes did he make, or how many Madonnas? Who knows? I certainly watched him make several sets of Stations of the Cross, some never finished. Here’s an example of how he worked out the problem. Christ Takes up the Cross; anguish (something Bolton knew a great deal about), pain, suffering.

His method varied but here a common approach for him – done on the kitchen table as he often did. Hasty impression laid in in ball point pen (!) and then the steady broad brush strokes in sepia wash. He might hesitate for days over a project, but when it came time to lay brush to paper or panel – the hesitancy was past.