Holy Trinity Heritage Park celebrates new artwork

Oct. 6—NEW ALBANY — Dozens of people gathered outside St. Elizabeth Catholic Charities in New Albany on Tuesday night to see two new pieces of public art.

A new entryway at Holy Trinity Heritage Park and a new sculpture are up at 702 E. Market Street in New Albany.

An unveiling and blessing of both was held earlier this week.

The entryway has special meaning, because it's made out of a stained glass window from the Holy Trinity Church that burned in New Albany more than 46 years ago.

"We found out that there were some windows being stored at St. Mary's (church) in New Albany," said Stained Glass Gallery LLC artist Donna Baldacci. "We went down there in the boiler room and we went down in the catacombs of St. Mary's and we discovered this window."

The window now sits at the entry of Holy Trinity Heritage Park, welcoming visitors to the urban oasis. Its placement in the church nearly exactly mirrors where the entryway has been erected.

"The great news is the window was basically intact," Baldacci said. "Of course (it) had a lot of fire soot, it was literally in a time capsule, came from here, straight to the boiler room (years ago,)" she said.

Then came the process of taking the window completely apart and cleaning every single piece of glass. Some pieces of glass needed to be replaced and Baldacci said they were able to contact the manufacturer of the original glass in Kokomo and have replacement glass shipped to New Albany.

"It has certainly been an honor," Baldacci said. "We just absolutely love what we do and I never tire of seeing the transformation," she said.

Speakers at the event included Marty Haugen, Phil Kruer and Fr. Sonny Day.

St. Elizabeth Catholic Charities also unveiled the "When I was Hungry and Thirsty" sculpture during the event.

Created by Canadian Artist Timothy P. Schmalz, it is inspired by the Gospel of Matthew 25:40.

It sits beside the new entryway and visitors at the park can enjoy both.

Baldacci said more glass from the windows at Holy Trinity Church was used on the entryway.

The white rondels at the center of the glass quadrafoils on the sides came from other windows at the church.

"I had a couple of other windows from Holy Trinity that were total train wrecks, and not salvageable but I harvested those for those little clear rondels," she said.