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Sculpture of cardinal to grace new
Maida Library
Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published March 10, 2006
Detroit – Janice Trimpe says she likes doing
sculptures that "inspire people to be a better person," and she
believes her new deep-relief bust of Cardinal Adam Maida will have a
positive effect on those who see it.
"I think it has a warmth to it, and I think I caught a real good
likeness of him," says Trimpe, who created the sculpture for the new
Adam Cardinal Maida Alumni Memorial Library on the campus of the
Orchard Lake Schools.
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The expanded library on the Orchard Lake Schools campus is being named in honor of Cardinal Adam Maida. | Trimpe's
sculpture of Cardinal Maida will be unveiled this Sunday, March 12,
when the cardinal dedicates the enlarged library on the campus where he
went to high school and two years of college.
The cardinal will dedicate the expanded library building – its new
addition bringing it to twice the size of the original 9,000-square
foot structure built in 1957 – at a 12:30 p.m. ceremony to be followed
by a luncheon. The cardinal will also be principal celebrant at an 11
a.m. Mass in the nearby Shrine Chapel of Our Lady of Orchard Lake.
The enhanced library now serves all three schools on the campus – St. Mary's Preparatory, Madonna University at Orchard Lake (which absorbed the former St. Mary's College), and SS. Cyril & Methodius Seminary.
Besides a lake-level conference center and the campus book store, it
also houses the Orchard Lake Schools' collection of items relating to
the history of Polish immigrants and Polish-Americans.
Built at a cost of $5 million (including an endowment), work on the
addition began in 2003 and was completed in 2004. The expanded library
has been in use since April 2004.
Trimpe was selected from among three sculptors invited to compete
for the commission to do the Cardinal Maida sculpture. She created the
clay model of the sculpture, which also includes the tablets of the Ten
Commandments and a plaque, over a three-week period back in December.
It was then cast in bronze.
Although she did attend one event to get a look at Cardinal Maida in
person, she mainly worked from photographs, she explains. And she made
it a point to learn what she could about the cardinal and his
background.
 Maida Library
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respect him and feel he has come a long way from humble beginnings,"
Trimpe says of her subject, who grew up in a Pennsylvania coal mining
family and went on to become a prince of the Church.
"I had to work real hard in my life, so I can understand what he must have gone through," she adds.
A graduate of the former St. Mary's Academy in Monroe (now part of St. Mary Catholic Central High School) and of the College for Creative Studies
in Detroit, Trimpe has done about 400 portrait sculptures in her
career. Among her more notable subjects have been former Michigan Gov.
G. Mennen Williams and famed Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov.
She says she regards her talent as "a gift from God."
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Sculptor Janice Trimpe works on her sculpture of Cardinal Adam Maida in her Grosse Pointe Park. | In
recent years Trimpe has also created a number of monumental sculptures
in public places. Mount Clemens-area residents may be familiar with her
"The Apple of His Eye," a sculpture of a grandfather and granddaughter
playing checkers on Macomb Street near Walnut in the city's downtown.
Trimpe has also created a sculpture of a family grouping for the
Roseville municipal complex and of a grandmother teaching her
granddaughter to sew for a Sterling Heights historic site. And she
created a new sculpture of a newsboy to replace the one that had been
stolen on Belle Isle.
Another recent piece was an angel for a fountain at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin (Grotto) Parish in northeast Detroit.
More information about Janice Trimpe is available at her Web site, www.trimpesculpture.com.
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