6-01-2022 4:34am

TIMONIUM SCULPTOR HAS HEART

For Baltimore sculptor, medium of clay becomes an instrument of healing

(ABOVE) Wayman Scott IV's Pietà includes an image of a mournful mother whose anguished face was inspired by the murder of the daughter of one of Scott's friends. (CNS photo/Kevin J. Parks, Catholic Review)

by George Matysek, Jr. CATHOLIC SENTINEL/CNS

Sculptor Wayman Scott IV is seen in this Oct. 1, 2021, photo. A parishioner of the Church of the Nativity in Timonium, Md., Scott is based out of the Baltimore Claywork ceramic studio. (CNS photo/Kevin J. Parks, Catholic Review)

BALTIMORE (CNS) — Wayman Scott IV couldn't sleep.

Even as a professional grief counselor at Gilchrist Hospice whose job is to help others grapple with loss, the 43-year-old husband and father was reeling from news of the murder of the daughter of one of his colleagues.

"I knew the agony I felt was 10 times worse for my friend," remembered Scott, a parishioner of the Church of the Nativity in Timonium, Maryland, and an up-and-coming African American artist.

In his anguish, Scott drove to Baltimore Clayworks, where he had been working on a sculpture similar to Michelangelo's famous Pietà showing Mary cradling her lifeless son. Scott had already largely finished the image of Christ and the body of Mary, but hadn't started on Mary's face.

Through tears in an empty studio late at night, Scott pressed fingers into clay. With the loss of his friend's daughter consuming his mind, he steadily transformed a lump of earth into the countenance of a mourning moth-er.

Unlike the Italian Renaissance sculptor's serene Mary, Scott's depiction shows a woman with her mouth open in a scream. The African American figure's brow is furrowed as she gazes heavenward, away from the dread-locked Jesus she clutches with both arms.

Scott said he normally has difficulty sculpting without looking at some representative figure.

"I don't know whose face this is," he said, gesturing to Mary's anguished visage in his miniature Pietà. "I almost find this to be a miracle because it just came to me in the middle of the night in my pain."

For Scott, art is a way to cope with the challenges of life. In his hands, the medium of clay becomes an instrument of healing.

Scott was a third grader at Phelps Luck Elementary School in Columbia, Maryland, when his teacher asked students to make clay figures. As Scott set to work, his classmates began gathering to watch. Dazzled by the realistic triceratops that took shape in Scott's hands, they asked him to make something for them.

"For me, it was just natural," he remembered. "I couldn't understand why they couldn't make a face or a dog or a dinosaur if they wanted."

Scott cultivated his talent, taking fine arts courses at Towson University while completing a degree in political science. He felt called to youth ministry as a young adult, spending several years as the youth minister of St. John in Columbia, his home parish.

Experiences of grief had a way of continually shaping the direction of the young man's life.

While Scott was at Towson FINISH READING HERE