THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 29, 1995 TAG: 9505290038
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM HOLDEN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
Three years ago, St. Mark's Catholic Church agreed to pay artist Don Fortunato $70,000 to create a statue of Jesus Christ, a second statue of the church's patron saint and a mural depicting Christ with the world's children.
He was thrilled at the chance to work.
Art commissions are common for the Norfolk artist, and the deal was especially welcomed by Fortunato, a Catholic who once molded a black Madonna for a Norfolk church.
But today, St. Mark's has just one statue - an incomplete work in synthetic clay - no finished mural, and a dispute that has no apparent end in sight.
Worse still, the statue stands in the church's foyer because it's too fragile to move. The artist doesn't have a suitable studio to complete it. And the $70,000? That's gone, too, spent on the artist's salary.
``I signed a bad deal to do work for the church,'' Fortunato said. ``I wanted to renegotiate the deal when I found out how much it would cost to complete, but the church would not renegotiate. They said we had a bargain and we intend to keep it.''
But if anyone thinks the deal was bad, it is the church's attorney.
``The statue of Christ should have been completed in March 1993,'' said John Cussen, a Chesapeake attorney representing the church. ``It's still not completed. What happened is that Fortunato, for whatever reason, did not start work until January 1993. He had 13 months to work and waited 11 months to get started.
``We have lost a lot of patience with this fellow. After he was late in performing the work, after he reneged on the first agreement, we decided to have the statue completed by someone else.''
But Fortunato said that he owns the statue's copyrights and that having anyone else work on it would infringe upon them.
Now the church would like Fortunato to remove the statue. It once set a May 15 deadline for him to move it or the church would. But as of Friday, the statue remained in the foyer of the church, at 1505 Kempsville Road.
The statue is an 8-foot depiction of Christ rising from the tomb, a sheet falling off his body, one hand open in a welcoming gesture, another over his heart.
It was to have been cast in a white bonded marble, which is formed by a liquid resin mixed with powdered marble. When finished, it would look like solid white marble.
Fortunato admits that $70,000 and three years sounds like a lot of time and money to complete the work, but he insists that it is less than it seems.
Knowing what he now knows, he said, he should have asked for 48 months to complete the statues and the mural. And, he added, he should have asked for more money - perhaps as much as $350,000.
Fortunato said a sizable portion of the salary he's already been paid has been spent on the project. He would need more to finish casting and molding, and to rent a studio. There would be additional fees for mold-making and casing.
``To date my supplies have cost $9,000,'' he said. ``The point I'm trying to make is they pressured me to sign with an unrealistic finishing time. . . . They have put me through a lot. It's been devastating.
``All of the work I was doing demanded my undivided attention,'' he added. ``I was stuck. I continued to make as much progress as I could. I kept working. I had faith they would come through. They kept telling me to continue. And they gave me a monthly check.
``It's never been a question of the product that's been produced.''
Father Daniel Klem, pastor at St. Mark's, was not available for comment. But Cussen, the attorney, said it's a simple case of a broken promise.
``We've paid for everything and we have not received what he promised to deliver,'' Cussen said. ``Now he won't let us do anything, one way or another, to get it completed on our own.''
But, as in any contract dispute, Fortunato said there is another side.
``The church never provided me with a studio, and that was in the original contract,'' he said. ``A lot of this would not be an issue if they had provided me with a studio. The contract said they would, so I signed it.''
Cussen said the church has offered two compromises. Fortunato could take the sculpture back and sell it to a third party, or he could finish the work and the church would pay $5,000 more, plus pay for materials.
Fortunato turned down both options, Cussen said.
``If it were me and I were facing this big a judgment, I'd be moving heaven and Earth to get something going,'' Cussen said.
But Fortunato does not see it that way.
``It was never a question of additional money,'' Fortunato said. ``It was the clauses they put in asking me to relinquish all rights to lithographs, of which there are 1,000. The contract also asked me to waive my right to a trial by jury in any disputes that arose, that I would pay Cussen's legal fees and the church would become my legal attorney.
``It goes on and on,'' Fortunato said. ``There are 22 clauses that have little or nothing to do with the artwork and everything to do with me relinquishing artistic and civil rights.''
Fortunato appealed to the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts, a mediating group that works on behalf of artists, but the effort produced no results.
``I'd like to work this out,'' Fortunato said. ``I am not trying to get anything. I want to finish the work and honor the contract as closely as I can.'' ILLUSTRATION: MEDIA EAST
Norfolk artist Don Fortunato's unfinished work, ``The Risen
Christ,'' is one of three projects he was to have done for St.
Mark's Catholic Church in Virginia Beach. The artist wanted to
renegotiate after he ran out of time and money, but the church wants
someone else to finish what Fortunato started.
by CNB