In this month of remembering the dead, I want to draw attention to someone who passed away in May. I never met him in person, but I see reminders of him every day.
I don’t recall exactly how I was connected with Deacon Lawrence Klimecki, nearly twenty years ago when I was searching for an artist to illustrate the cover for an unusual work of fiction I was editing: The Tripods Attack, first entry in the Young Chesterton Chronicles by John McNichol. We needed someone to capture the steampunk aesthetic crossed with Chestertonian whimsy that the book called for.
When I caught sight of Deacon Lawrence’s arresting take on sacred art, I knew we had found the right man. He did a masterful job not only on the cover and back of the book, but on its interior design. Freelance graphic artists will tell you that they’re usually overworked and underpaid, but I can’t think of another book project where an artist did so much for so little.
It wasn’t guilt over this, though, that motivated me afterward to buy a number of his works for myself and as gifts—it was plain appreciation for his uncanny ability to create popular Catholic art unlike anything else out there. I am a man of letters, not pictures, and I lack the vocabulary to describe what it is that makes his images of saints and holy scenes so unique and compelling. The best I can say is that he combines deep and reverent faith with a touch of sci-fi or fantasy style and an unabashedly masculine, almost militant hand.
How else could I describe his “Terror of Demons,” depicting St. Joseph stomping the spine of a submissive devil and cradling the barque of Peter while two priests attend him? Or the “Maid of Orléans” that captures St. Joan’s strength, humility, and femininity just so? Or the St. Raphael that adorns my office wall: not a pale statue or neutered cherub but a creature of cosmic power and riotous color. Or the large icon of Junipero Serra that hangs in the halls of Catholic Answers, safe at least there from the cancelers and the vandals!
Deacon Lawrence Klimecki was only sixty-two when he passed. I lament the unmade future works that died with his hand and the void he leaves as a mentor to artists and as a leader in the Christian-art conversation. But I delight in the thought that he will pierce the veil to glimpse his subject face to face. Let us pray that God will speed him to that sight.
Support Deacon Lawrence’s family and artistic legacy by checking out his work for sale here.