The Madeleine Festival recognizes artist

Sam Wilson

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Sam Wilson, who helped restore the Cathedral of the Madeleine interior and also painted the Cathedral's Stations of the Cross, was presented with the 2010 Madeleine Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts and Humanities. Sam Wilson

SALT LAKE CITY- The artist who created the Cathedral of the Madeleine's vibrantly colored Stations of the Cross was honored with the 2010 Madeleine Festival Award.

Madeleine Arts and Humanities Council chairman Mike Stransky announced that Roger (Sam) Wilson was the recipient of the 2010 Madeleine Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts and Humanities. This award has been presented annually since 1980 as part of the Madeleine Festival of the Arts and Humanities to individuals who have made comprehensive and long-term contributions to the arts and humanities in Utah.

The Most Rev. John C. Wester, bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, presented the award to Wilson at a dinner celebrated at the New Yorker. Michael Stransky, Ruth Lubbers and Joe Marotta were the speakers.

"It was a surprise," Wilson said about the award. "I felt a lot of gratitude."

In addition to painting the 14 Stations of the Cross in 1992 and 1993, Wilson spent 16 months in the 1980s helping to renovate the interior of the Cathedral of the Madeleine.

"When they were restoring the Cathedral they were asking for someone to do the Stations so I applied," said Wilson, a professor in the Art and Art History Department at the University of Utah.

After painting the Stations of the Cross, Wilson took a sabbatical and traveled to Italy with his wife. "I felt that I was a part of a long tradition of painting for the church and it's interesting because for the last 12 years we have been to Italy 11 times and all this started with the stations painting."

He describes his work as based on European, especially Italian, painting. "I do a lot of work but I don't exhibit much," he said.

He has mentored adult students with disabilities for the Art Access Partners program, has taught thousands of students in his college classes and has conducted an artist residency for the George Wahler Veterans Administration Medical Center.

"What I tell students is that as long as you keep on going you'll catch a momentum; it's a matter of not stopping. Eventually it will go in a direction," Wilson said.

Though the stations he painted have been in place for almost 20 years, they still attract attention.

"The paintings are beautiful," said Cathedral of the Madeleine parishioner Mario Silva, after admiring the stations after a recent Sunday Mass. "The colors, the shapes, they make me think of all the journey that God walked for us."