Hospital's history in art form

As she stood outside the cafeteria at the new Penrose-St. Francis Medical Center on Wednesday, Marica Hefti had about 24 hours to make her newest sculpture, "Three Sisters," finished-looking.

But after six months of planning and sculpting - and two more weeks of installation being down to the wire on this giant project didn't seem to faze her.

"We need to install the lights, still, but other than that, it's almost ready," she said, gesturing to metals artist Nicolas Ordahl.

Ordahl had climbed inside the steel tree, engraved with a portrait of St. Francis, arms stretched skyward and surrounded by birds, that forms the anchor of the piece.

"I wanted to have him reaching over everything else," Hefti said of the centerpiece, which Ordahl executed.

The $80,000 commission by the hospital is part of $1.3 million worth of art it has acquired for the new building.

The sculpture will have its first unveiling tonight, during the hospital's donor appreciation day.

The first general public showing will be Aug. 6 at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new building, which begins operations Aug. 16.

Art was a priority for the new Penrose-St. Francis hospital, said Michael Esch of Jean Sebben Associates, which was hired to design the interior of the building and acquire its artwork.

"We put in all kinds of niches and architectural elements to place stuff we're buying," Esch said.

The reasoning was both aesthetic and medicinal.

"We have anecdotal evidence, at least, that art promotes healing," he said. "It gives patients something to focus on besides tanks of gas and wires coming out of the wall, or monitors."

The hospital acquired about 550 pieces, with a common thread in mind.

"We focused on nature themes that provide serenity and comfort," Esch said. "The hospital tries to pay homage to the prairie environment, like what it would have looked like here 150 years ago without all the development. There are textural things, abstractions that you might find in nature. That said, we have everything from natural impressionistic stuff to Catholic iconography."

Hefti's sculpture is something of both. Best known for her bronze work, she expounds on the natural theme by using terra cotta as the dominant material in "Three Sisters."

The reddish, ceramic clay "is so tactile," Hefti said. "It's of the earth, where we come from, where we will go."

Reassembled 24-by-24-inch panels, which were cut into six pieces each for the finicky firing process, depict imagery of Penrose-St. Francis' historical progression, peppered with tributes to the Franciscan order.

One wall depicts its beginnings in 1887 as a clinic for railroad and mine workers, brought to fruition with the help of nuns from the order of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, who give the statue its name. The second wall shows its development at the present location on North Nevada Avenue. And the third portrays the hospital's growth at Woodmen Road and Powers Boulevard.

Hefti's favorite panel, which falls on the middle wall, is a re-creation of 16th century German painter Lucas Cranach the Elder's "Lady of Perpetual Help," a family heirloom.

"That wasn't something that was supposed to be in it, but it makes so much sense," she said. "I thought of it in the middle of the night. That's how it's been. Sleeping the project, dreaming the project."

Hefti said when the sculpture is complete, she'll feel lost without it.

"I'm ready for another big project," she said. "I want this to just keep going and going."