In 2005, just five years after discovering my new found wood sculpting skills at the age of 50, I continued to work full-time as an auto mechanic. For almost 30 years, I worked in the auto repair industry and was fast reaching a point where I was beginning to burn out. I always considered myself to be a very sensitive individual. I never really cared for being associated with this trade and its reputation. I always provided the best service I could offer. When customers came to me complaining of how they were ripped off by other repair shops, or I witnessed other mechanics taking advantage of their customers, it left me feeling concerned and uncertain about the trade which I had chosen. Working in auto repair did provide a decent living, but my youthful appeal, over time, had led me to a point where I found no more satisfaction from the trade.
In 2019, on the anniversary of my father’s death, I experienced a very frustrating week at work, and a desperate need rose within me, pushing me to find a way to expose my new-found skills as an artist. My father, Christopher, was always my hero. He had come over from Ireland to visit my family just a year before this, after being diagnosed with lung cancer. Having just completed from a course of radiation therapy back home, he confessed a desperate urge to come and see his granddaughter Ana Claire, a sweet seven-month-old baby girl who we had just adopted and brought back from Guatemala. His trip, accompanied by my mother, brother, and sister, was truly a gift from him. Their three-week stay was to be the last time I would see him alive. We both knew it too, and I did all I could do to make his visit a memorable one. The time we spent together, and seeing him with my daughter was the greatest gift and sacrifice he could have given of himself for Ana Claire and I. A week after his return to Ireland, he was admitted back to the hospital, and he passed away soon after with some family members in attendance. A passing priest, upon hearing the monitoring alarms, had stepped into his ward and was thankfully there in time to give him his last rites. His passing was very peaceful, and for that, I am eternally grateful.
One Friday evening, while driving home from work, I was talking to my father. As I spoke to him in the car that day, I broke down in tears and begged him to please help me. It was truly a plea of help from my heart. It was a plea of urgent need and desperation. It was pure, raw emotion; the essence of faith. I have since learned that words said to God are only words, but a plea of truth from the heart, with heartfelt emotions, will always bring results. My father was always a very practical man who never failed to have a helpful answer whenever we needed his advice. Now, I desperately needed him one more time.
On Sunday morning, my wife Francesca asked me to join her in going to 10 o’clock mass at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in Greensboro. I agreed and joined her there. Francesca has become my saving grace. As an Episcopalian, she converted to Catholicism when we adopted our daughter so that we could all be on the same page when helping to teach her about her faith. She is also responsible for always offering much-needed encouragement in the continued pursuit of my artwork.
Hosting the service that morning, was an African American Bishop from Louisiana, GA, whose name I have unfortunately since forgotten. When it came time for prayers to be offered up for the deceased, my father’s name, Christopher Nixon, was the only name read. I was utterly unprepared for that, and the coincidental timing of it knocked my socks off. Later, after Mass, everyone greeted the bishop outside on the church steps. When I had the opportunity to speak with him about my father’s name being read, his response was remarkable. “Somehow,” he said, “I felt compelled to read his name at this service, and I am glad you were inside to hear it.”
The next morning, just thirty minutes after getting to work, Francesca called me to tell me some good news. She had been contacted earlier that morning by a woman who worked for the Tomlinson Montessori School in High Point, NC. The woman went on to say that I had come highly recommended and that she wanted me to carve a seventeen to twenty-foot-tall peace totem pole for the school, as the school was designated an international peace site. When I followed up on that phone call, I discovered that it had been another artist, who I had briefly encountered in the past, who had given them my name. I had somehow left him with a good impression, although, sadly, we never did meet again.
Two days later, I received a call from Francesca’s cousin, who worked in the advertisement business in Greensboro. He told me that the wife of a firefighter captain had met with him and that she had asked if he knew of an artist that could create a bronze sculpture, as a tribute to the Greensboro Fire Department. I began to see a pattern emerging and agreed to call the woman and arranged a time to meet with her and her husband two days later.
The following Sunday at Mass, again my father’s name, Christopher Nixon, was the only name read. Hearing his name read a second time was just the confirmation I needed to hear. It empowered and changed me, filling me with such confidence, I just knew that these two large scale public works of art would be completed successfully.
Final words – Faith and the impossible go hand in hand. I have witnessed and experienced its joy. When one encounters what seems an impossible situation, God’s hand will clear the fog.
About the author
Website: www.paulnixonart.com
Born in Dublin Ireland, Paul Nixon has been creating art for the past nineteen years, but his passion for woodworking began in his early childhood. Surrounded by a family of cabinet makers, he quickly took on the family skills. Spending much of his early childhood with his grandparents in the mountains of County Sligo in the northwest of Ireland, his grandmother Margaret had a significant influence over him. She spent a good deal of her 83 years living on those slopes and wild glaciated lands where she was tuned into the historical, mystical, and legendary wonders that enveloped this area. Margaret endeared her grandson with all of these qualities, which allowed his imagination to evolve and develop in a way which would serve him well in later years.
Leaving Ireland for New York in 1985, he partnered in an auto repair business in White Plains NY. In 1996, he met his future wife Francesca, a complaining customer, and a year later they married and moved south to Greensboro, North Carolina. It was then that Paul’s ability as a multi-talented artist began to flourish. Considering himself a late bloomer when it comes to his artistic talents, at the age of 45 he was offered the gift of an old woodworking lathe from his wife, Francesca’s, uncle Raley Dunn. He set about learning how to operate the lathe and, on seeing his progress, his wife asked him to make her aunt, and Raley’s wife, Mary, a walking stick. Having received the lathe from her husband, he was more than happy to do so. He set about his work and, finally, with the cane finished, he felt it needed something personal and from his heart adding which would make it unique. With that in mind, Paul picked up an X-Acto knife and set about carving a vine extending about 7” below the handle. Having no prior experience as a woodcarver, 40 hours later, he had only managed to carve three solitary leaves into the wood. In frustration, Paul gave up and abandoned his project.
Two weeks later, when Francesca discovered that her husband had quit, she explained to him that he needed to finish making the cane, as she had already told her aunt that Paul was doing something special for her. Mary would be expecting a gift. With renewed motivation, Paul recovered the cane and worked diligently on it for the next three months. It wasn’t until after he presented his gift to Aunt Mary and saw her emotional, tearful response for himself, that he realized he had to pursue this newfound skill. The next two wooden sculptures which followed depicted a walnut bust of Queen Maeve, a mythological Celtic warrior and a walnut carved crozier, attributed to St Patrick. Both are now on permanent display in the William Butler Yeats museum in Sligo, Ireland.
Working in 3 dimensions allowed his skills to expand into painting, stained glass, cement and resin casting, and photography. Several of his bronze public sculptures now also adorn the city of Greensboro and the surrounding area, and his liturgical carvings can be found across the USA and Ireland. Paul’s photography, and the subject of his carved fairies, caught the attention of the William Butler Yeats Society in New York and Ireland. Last year, he was invited to NYU to be involved in a tribute celebrating WB Yeats, where he provided a PowerPoint presentation of his work and its relation to the works of Yeats.
As an artist/sculptor/photographer Paul has been accused of being a bit of a Chameleon, with his subject matter and style running the gamut from Contemporary/Abstract to Classical Renaissance. He is considered to be a visionary whose talent crosses many mediums, and who continually savors the excitement of exploration and experimentation.
In the twenty-two years living in Greensboro, North Carolina. Paul has carved out a reputation as a talented artist, sculptor and photographer. Much of his work is influenced by his Catholic Faith and the power of what faith can provide you.