My name is Paul Nixon. I am an artist/sculptor living in Greensboro, North Carolina. Much of my work involves making croziers for bishops as well as other liturgical art throughout the USA. I would like to share my story.
Like so many other Irish, I left my home town of Clondalkin, in County Dublin, Ireland, landing in New York in 1985. My grandmother’s sister from County Sligo, my Great-Aunt Helen whom I had never met before, offered me a room in her apartment where I could stay until I got on my feet. I found myself living and working in Larchmont, in Westchester County, just north of New York City. Helen and I became close friends, and as she was my link to the USA, I became her connection with home and family in Ireland.
A year later in the city of White Plains, a half hour bus ride away, I struck up a partnership with a Haitian immigrant. The two of us bought an old car-repair business that had been ongoing for forty years, but which was declining as their owner had lost his wife through cancer. With our takeover and an incentive to make this business better, it gradually took off and hummed along very nicely for twelve years. We had a good thing going, but things were about to go even better. One particular customer was having a problem with the air conditioning in her car. Her name was Francesca and she was from Long Island. I was sympathetic and patched up the air conditioning for a nominal fee, but I reckoned Francesca was just putting off the evil day. A half-decent summer heat wave and that AC would be history.
Sure enough, the weather warmed up and Francesca rolled in. Not surprisingly, she complained. Feeling bad, I gave Francesca the loan of my brand-new car for the day and some money to fill the near-empty gas tank. Later that afternoon I rounded off the day by presenting her with a repair bill of $500 and a nervous request for a date that would feature a night of ballroom dancing. Within a year, and helped along by more than a few rumbas and tangos, we married. Where to settle down was the big question. Ireland was discussed; New York was considered, but so too was its expense. Finally, North Carolina won out and that is where we live today with our daughter, Ana Claire.
I knew nothing of the South, but what was easy to see was that you got more for your dollar down here. Once in Greensboro, I resumed working as a mechanic, and ballroom dancing continued to occupy my feet. But my hands were about to lead me in a different career direction. I used to dabble with wood in my father’s shop years ago where he worked as a cabinet maker; it was there that he taught me the basics in joinery and cabinet making, before he involved himself in a construction business with my Uncle Joe.
My wife’s Uncle Raley, on noticing that I liked to work with wood, presented me a woodworking lathe as a gift, and not having used one before, I set about educating myself on its operation. As I became more experienced with its use, Francesca noted one day that one of my wood turnings would make a nice walking stick for her Aunt Mary. I found myself putting everything to one side and began to turn a length of wood into a walking stick. After I attached the handle, I had the idea of making it a little more special. I wanted to show my deepest expression of love for this couple, for all they did for us. Knowing the risk that I could destroy my work, I picked up a knife for the first time and two hours later, I had carved out the shape of a leaf onto the shaft which didn’t look half bad, so I carved another leaf with the intentions of creating a vine extending for about 10 inches just below the handle. Forty hours later, I had only three leaves carved and in frustration I gave up. For about two weeks, nothing more was said of it until one day Francesca asked me how the cane was coming along. When she heard my lame response, she quickly replied that she had told her Aunt Mary that I was making her something special, and so Mary was expecting the gift. Now under pressure from two women and a lack of willingness on my part, I pressed forward. Low mumblings were heard beneath my breath as I worked on that cane in my spare time for the next three months. It was a grueling task, but in the end, it turned into something quite unique. So much so, that on the day that Francesca and I presented Mary her new gift, she broke down in tears. When others caught a glimpse of my intricately carved walking stick, they began asking me to make more of them. One elderly man asked me if I could make him a stick with the face of Jesus Christ on it, which I did. I also made a mold of this man’s hand as it was somewhat deformed by age, so I could give him an exactly fitting handle. I had, by now, laid hands on my ultimate vocation.
Missing my home in Ireland, I always had an interest in Celtic mythology, which took hold when I was a child during summer holidays in County Sligo. So, the next project I carved for my own interest was an elaborate bishop’s crosier with a stylized lion’s head depicted in the Book of Kells. It would be this crozier that helped launch me into the art world. My talent was becoming clearer for others to see, but I knew there was more to learn about a hobby that was fast turning into a new way of making a living. I then enrolled in a woodcarving class at Greensboro Community College, where I met and exchanged ideas with other woodcarvers. Before too much time passed, a teaching vacancy arose. I applied and got the job.
My first large-scale commission, in every sense, was a 17-foot totem pole, which is now rising from the ground at an “international peace site” located in a High Point, North Carolina elementary school. I started off with a fifty-foot cedar tree in the woods and remember wondering how I was going to manage it in the eight weeks I was expected to carve the totem pole. The fact that I did complete the job on time and in good order went a long way toward cementing my reputation for both artistic skills and a business-like ability to get the job done.
Stories in the Greensboro papers have led to greater exposure and more commissions. I am now referred to as a “local artist.” In 2005, the Greensboro Fire Department asked me to take another step on my artistic path and sculpt a life-sized bronze tribute to the city’s Bravest depicting a firefighter and two children.
Over the years, my work has spread well beyond Greensboro. A bust of Queen Maeve (queen of Connacht in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology) and that bishop’s crozier which I attributed to St. Patrick, found their way to the William Butler Yeats Museum in Sligo. And that first walking stick has blossomed into a steady stream of orders for crosiers from bishops, Catholic and Episcopalian, all across the United States. My recent commission – of two bronze works depicting a young child and his dog – were placed in the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens 100 miles away in Charlotte, North Carolina.
I joke sometimes that in the almost 30 years I spent working in the automotive repair industry, I was used to seeing people cry when they received their repair bill. What marvelous tears I experience now when I create something meaningful from my heart. Greensboro brought that out in me, along with having a loving, supportive wife and daughter. For my first three years living here, I moped over those whom I had come to love and miss in New York. It was the same loss that I experienced when I first came to New York from Ireland. With the persistence of adaptation, I came to love this state and its people who brought out in me something unique and special – the ability to create and return to the landscape with gratitude. I never dreamed that I would come to do what I do. My chosen path and my chosen wife in this beautiful state brought it all to fruition. And to top it off, after 34 years I had a recent opportunity to participate in an art show back in my home town of Clondalkin last September. Now I am being recognized there with pride. I am eternally grateful.
website; www.paulnixonart.com
Images Include;
- San Damino Corpus. (Basswood) 3 feet tall for All Saints Anglican Church, Monroe, Louisiana.
- Celtic bishop’s crozier, tribute to St Patrick. (Walnut) William Butler Yeats Museum, Sligo, Ireland.
- Tabernacle for St Paul’s Episcopal Church. Richmond, VA.
- Relief walnut carving of Mary with velvet background in a gold frame. Dublin, Ireland.
- Life size bronze sculptures of a fully equipped firefighter and two children looking at our Greensboro Fire Station 1, NC.
- 4-foot-long Mahogany relief carving of the Lamb of God with aluminum flag and nimbus. St Thomas More Catholic Church, Chapel Hill, NC.
- Bishop’s croziers document.
