40-year Le Moyne faculty member, sculpted Cathedral’s Statue of Mary
By Kathleen Curtis
Contributing writer
Since 1987, thousands have prayed with the statue of Mary in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception’s Shrine of the Blessed Mother, perhaps lighting a candle for a special intention. The artist who sculpted the statue, Jacqueline Belfort-Chalat, died February 26, at the age of 94. Her funeral will be at the Cathedral at 10 a.m. Thursday, April 4.
Jacqueline was born in Mount Vernon, NY, and studied at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, before receiving extensive training at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 1969, she came to Syracuse to create a fine arts department at Le Moyne College. Throughout her tenure, she advocated for all Le Moyne students to be able to take classes in the fine arts. “She felt strongly about that,” says Cate Ziegler, Jacqueline’s daughter. “She believed that studying art gave the student a new way to see things, to understand the relationships between objects, to see the relationship between the part and the whole.” Jacqueline retired from Le Moyne in 2009, at the age of 80.
“My mother was always a very spiritual person,” Ziegler said. Jacqueline was Jewish and became interested in Catholicism shortly after arriving at Le Moyne. She became good friends with a few of the Jesuits there and began serious study and spiritual direction. In the early 1970s, she converted to Catholicism.
In 1987, when Bishop Frank Harrison asked Jacqueline to create a sculpture of Mary, Jacqueline had a vision for something different from the more pristine Marian images Catholics are accustomed to. Jacqueline created a middle-aged, “post-crucifixion, post-resurrection” Mary. She said at the time she sought to create a sculpture that looked like a mother. Jacqueline wanted it placed in the shrine in an open setting, so that visitors could touch the statue or leave flowers on its lap.
“She wanted her to be completely accessible, to be something that anyone or everyone could approach and get comfort from,” said Cate. “She did tell me that people sometimes came up to her and told her how they would spill their worries (to Mary) and they would get a feeling of connection or comfort. That meant so much to her.”
Kathleen Curtis, a local editor and writer, is a parishioner of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
