GOD’S PAINT BRUSH: SHEILA E. LICHACZ

By Fr. James Heinsch ofm It was two months ago. I had just returned from leading two groups of pilgrims through the Holy Land. While sitting at my desk in the Holy Land Magazine Office, the telephone rang. "Hello, is that you Fr. Jim? This is Sheila E. Lichacz," she said with a lively, laughing, latin accent. "I have been waiting 4 days to see you, and I will not leave until we meet. You must meet me. I am the most beautiful woman in the world. I have been on the cover of Vogue Magazine, and photographed with the Holy Father." I sat by my phone, smiling to myself and thinking: "Now that was some introduction." She and her husband John came to see me within minutes. Like a Spring breeze that suddenly catches you off guard, or a surprise visit by someone filled with joie de vivre, called the Spirit of God, there she was in front of me. Her wide-brimmed hat as obvious as her wide-brimmed smile, she entered my office like a burst of sunshine on a cloudy day. A beautiful lady? Of course! But her real beauty, I would soon discover, came from her great zest of life, and her overflowing love of God. Here was a woman on fire with life, wanting to share her gift of art with me. Her husband, John, retired from the U.S. Air Force, made comments from time to time, but mostly he let Sheila, like bubbling champagne, tell her interesting life-story. That was my first meeting with Sheila Lichacz, artist "extra ordinaire". Sheila was born in a small adobe hut in Monagrillo, Panama. Her home near the Rio Santa Maria, she grew up playing and swimming in it. Plus, as children do, she collected all kinds of nice-looking potsherds from the riverbed. But these potsherd were very special. They were remnants of one of the oldest civilizations to construct pottery. You see, Monegrill was the birthplace of ceramics in Panama, perhaps in all Latin America. Pottery, and potsherd, dating back almost 5,000 years. Little would she know at that time, her childhood "collection of broken pottery" would become part of her future art fame celebrating "earthen vessels".   God salvaged her life when doctors had often given up on her. She had eight surgeries to remove more than 15 brain tumors. The tumors are benign, but they threatened her life because they were in and around her brain. In 1977, the doctors found three more tumors — one in the center of her brain and another close to the optic nerve. They shook their heads and said that they would have to leave the one in the center, and that she might lose her eyesight when the others were removed. (She had just begun her career as a painter one year before.)

She returned to Panama to await the next operation while trying to heal from the last one. She looked at her 7 year old daughter and wondered if she would ever see her grow up. As she sat in the bedroom feeling the bandages around her head, and getting ready to go for Mass, she felt as if God were speaking to her, but she did not know what He said. She asked: "What do You want of me?" She told her husband John about it, and John replied: " I think that God is trying to tell you that nothing will happen to you; that He is taking care of you." So instead of going in for surgery right away, she decided to paint and leave something behind. She ended up doing 33 paintings, and having a show at Chase Manhattan Bank. All her paintings sold. Finally she went for surgery only to hear the doctors say that they decided not to operate because the tumors had not grown. She received this good news on Ascension Thursday. It was to be just like her painting "Ascension 2": "Do you see the pot moving away from the others?" Pots have always been a dominant theme in her works. The ancient ceramic pots of her village - tinajas - serve as medium and symbol. The clay pot, made to contain water, the source of life. Sometimes the pots are seen emerging from within a shell. The pots symbolize souls, and the shell a womb. The mouths of the pots are always black, giving a sense of infinity. She deliberately wants the viewer to be drawn into these black openings and inspired to open their minds to possibility. "It has to do with Christianity, I am very much in tune with some power out there. This power is my God, which to me is Jesus Christ. And in the first miracle that Jesus performed, he used clay pots. He used six clay pots to turn water into wine. Recently, Sheila made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Cana became her inspiration . She created an entire series of "Cana" paintings. And in October, 1998, she brought one of her "Cana" paintings - actually three paintings in a row - and placed it in the Chapel of the First Miracle in Cana of Galilee. A gift for all prilgrims, especially married couples, to appreciate. "I pray before I start painting," she says. I offer the work to God. I print on the blank canvas AM+DG (‘Ad Majorem Gloriam Dei,’ ‘To the greater glory of God.’) Then I put a cross in the middle. My painting becomes a continuous prayer. I talk and I sing to God." I want to touch people, and draw them close to God. I want to communicate the many blessings God has given to me. "The reason my work is so spiritual is that without faith, I would never have survived," Lichacz explained. "None of us are going to live forever. We are all going. A nun told me when I was a freshman in college, ‘Make the most of yourself because you will never happen again.’ That is the philosophy of my life. I have been in hospitals for too long to not understand what is really important." Each showing that Sheila has, she asks a priest to come an say a blessing at the Opening. It is her way to letting everyone know that God is central in her life and in her paintings. True, sickness still is a part of her life, but she lives each day with zest ... with praise to God, and appreciation for all things she sees. Though she now lives in the United States, the President of Panama has named her the "Pride of Panama and the Americas", and in 1983, she was appointed "Cultural Ambassador at Large." Her works proudly shows forth her Panamanian roots. Sheila is a beautiful woman. Her beauty shines from her soul and, personally or through her paintings, graces the lives of everyone she meets. I think that Erma Bombeck’s words could describe Sheila, her life and her paintings this way: "When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’" © copyright 1999

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