06/27/2012
“Wisdom Heralding Peace” was created by Sara Balbin, an artist from Drummond, WI. She was commissioned by the College after a competitive selection process from among a number of artists’ submissions.
The figure can be seen as a re-imagining of traditional representations of Saint Scholastica, the namesake of The College of St. Scholastica. Historically, statues show Saint Scholastica with a book in one hand and a dove in the other hand. The new sculpture, which is stainless steel and 11 feet tall, shows a loosely representational figure holding a symbolic atom and a dove. The atom signifies the setting, in St. Scholastica’s Science Center, where scientific learning has taken place for decades. The dove symbolizes the Holy Spirit in the Christian context as well as peace, an important value to the Catholic Benedictine Sisters of St. Scholastica Monastery who founded the College and remain its sponsors. Benedictine Commons is named in honor of the Sisters.
The sculpture’s other symbolic elements include a texture pattern on the polished steel that calls to mind waves of Lake Superior, a “veil” at the top that recalls Benedictine Sisters’ traditional dress and has an arched shape that echoes designs in the College’s architecture, and the stone base that evokes the “House of Stone” founded by Mother Scholastica Kerst, first prioress of St. Scholastica Monastery and the founder of The College of St. Scholastica.
