Heaven sent skills
Masons bring old and new techniques to St. Mary’s restoration
LEWISTON – From his work site 75 feet above the city, Adam Austin wonders about the
the last workers who came here.
Depression-era craftsman sculpted the Virgin Mary into a concrete figure that stood 8 feet tall and weighed 800 pounds. Then, they had lifted her into this spot, high above the entrance to St. Mary’s Church.
Most puzzling to Austin is the detail they gave her, flowing hair and fine markings on her robes. The 20-year-old craftsman can only guess how they managed those details before computers and laser-guided etchings.
“I think about it all the time, and I don’t know,” Austin said. “You can bet it was a lot trickier back then.”
Austin works for his stepfather’s company, Stone Age Masonry.
The company’s first job is the renovation of this former church, the Franco-American Heritage Center at St. Mary’s.
The crew began its work on the 73-year-old building last year, resetting the granite stones into the walls. Years of rain and snow eroded the mortar between the stones, then seeped behind them and froze.
Austin helps on the masonry, but most of his time is spent on the concrete sculptures: eight stone medallions and the Virgin Mary.
This one piece will likely take a whole month to repair and rebuild. A week and a half ago, the crew pulled the sculpture off its pedestal and rested it on the nearby scaffolding floor.
The goal is to rebuild the statue right here. When he’s done, it will be lowered to the ground. The sculpture will then be used as a reference for a new mold and a new statue, which will be raised to the old pedestal and anchored to the wall.
The work is different than any in Maine.
“There’s nobody I can call and ask for pointers,” he said.
It’s merely something he picked up. After high school in Brunswick, Austin went to work for the Kennebec Co. The Bath company makes high-end residential kitchens, sometimes costing well-over $100,000.
Austin brought that eye for detail to the concrete sculptures.
“I had no idea I could do anything like this,” he said. He learned. It’s what he prefers to the traditional masonry.
Up here, he works alone. He can pace himself and pay attention to the little things.
“Up here, it’s not a rush, rush job,” he said.
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