Greensburg artists' mosaic finds home in Puerto Rican church

A mosaic created for a show at the Greensburg Art Center will have a permanent home at a chapel in Puerto Rico.

Artists Rosemary Sovyak of Hempfield and Tom Niggel of Greensburg combined their talents for the piece that was part of last winter’s “Collaborations” exhibition, featuring works made by two or more artists.

The mosaic includes two panels, an image of Mary and the baby Jesus by Sovyak and one of the glorified Christ by Niggel.

Fellow artist Gloria Gonzalez of Hempfield saw the piece and thought its rustic nature would complement the small chapel at Parroquia Ascensión del Señor in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, where her aunt is a parishioner.

Gonzalez, who calls herself a “Nuyorican” — a New Yorker with Puerto Rican roots — is a frequent visitor to the U.S. island territory where she has many relatives.

“I saw the mosaic and fell in love with it, and thought I would buy it as a gift for the small chapel at my aunt’s church,” Gonzalez says. “By the grace of God, Tom and Rose decided that they would donate it.”

In June, the icon was blessed by Father Marlon Pates, parochial vicar at Our Lady of Grace Church in Hempfield.

It will soon be on its way to Puerto Rico via U.S. mail, which was not the way Gonzalez originally envisioned the delivery.

Shirley McMarlin | Tribune-Review

Closeup of a mosaic created by Greensburg Art Center members Rosemary Sovyak and Tom Niggel, which is being donated to a church in Puerto Rico.

“I had this great plan to surprise my aunt by giving it to my sister when she went to visit,” Gonzalez says. “But then covid hit and no one could travel. So I finally had to divulge to my aunt that it’s coming.

“She asked if she could keep it at home for a few days and stare at it, and I said, ‘Why not?’”

Sovyak leads mosaic workshops at Greensburg Art Center, and Niggel is a longtime maker of Christian iconography.

Niggel says he became interested in the art form when his children presented him with an icon of Saint Thomas when he retired from his job in customer service at Excela Westmoreland Hospital.

“I went to visit the artist in Ligonier and asked if she would teach me,” he says. “She said, ‘You don’t want me to teach you’ and recommended Philip Zimmerman.”

Zimmerman is a noted Orthodox Christian iconographer with a studio in New Florence. About nine years ago, Niggel studied with Zimmerman at Saint Joseph Abbey, a Benedictine monastery near Covington, La.

For their icon, Niggel made the drawings and Sovyak supplied the mosaic materials.

She sources her glass from Youghiogheny Glass in Connellsville. The rest are common materials available in home improvement stores.

The glass pieces are pressed into a layer of Dap caulk, which is then coated with tile grout. The halos on the figures were then painted gold.

“We started working down in my basement, drinking a little wine, and it just fell into place,” Sovyak says. “It was magical.”

The icon’s final destination is especially gratifying for Niggel. In 1967, he spent three months in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, training for the Peace Corps prior to serving two years in Honduras.