By Amy White
The Texas Catholic
COPPELL — The stars above — about 2,000 of them — called artist Catherine Brandt home to the Diocese of Dallas this year as a decorator in St. Ann Catholic Parish’s Transcend campaign.
A native of Dallas who now lives in Atlanta, Catherine has spent the last several years traveling from gig to gig as a working artist. The Dallasite made a temporary return to her home diocese this year, however, to put her artistic talents to the service of the St. Ann community’s Transcend campaign: a multi-million-dollar project that has been years in the making. Catherine’s work on the “heavens” of the Coppell parish — the 1,960 or so gold-gilded stars that will adorn the church’s ceiling — is just one of her many contributions to the comprehensive project currently underway.
“I’m honored to be a part of it,” the artist said. “I’m just really touched that I get to contribute to something that’s so close to home.”
‘What the Lord had given’
Well before Catherine stepped onto star-studded movie sets as a scenic painter or climbed the heights of a state capitol building to guild its towering dome, the artist made her first sale of art as an elementary student at St. Patrick Catholic School in Dallas. The purchased piece depicted Our Lady of Guadalupe. It sold for $6 at the school’s fall festival; and the buyer was her father, Tom Brandt. Since then, the piece of art has hung proudly in Tom’s office, a warm reminder of his daughter’s early foray into the world of creative expression.
“Her ability to paint and draw, it’s remarkable,” Tom said. “It’s not from me; it’s not from Mary,” Catherine’s mother, “and so, we were just amazed at what the good Lord had given our daughter.”
Tom and Mary Brandt both said that their daughter’s affinity for art was evident even in early childhood. The young artist spent hours sketching the details of a nature scene or drawing household objects she had gathered onto the dining room table; and year after year, the St. Monica Catholic Church parishioners said, paints and pencils managed to make their way onto her Christmas wish lists.
“Even on vacation, she would be drawing something that she’d be seeing out the window, like a cow or a horse,” Mary said. “I realized that this was a gift that she had.”
As an elementary student at St. Patrick, Catherine tried her hand in on-site drawing competitions for the Private Schools Interscholastic Association (PSIA) and the academic fair; after she began attending St. Monica Catholic School in fifth grade, she created designs that graced the cover of the school calendar, as well as the cover of the 2008 yearbook; and at both St. Monica and Ursuline Academy of Dallas, she crafted scenery for school musicals.
Joanie Brunkhorst, an art teacher at St. Monica for more than 30 years, recalled Catherine’s early art formation at her school: an education in the elements and principles of design — “line, shape, form, space, value, color, texture” — as well as in various mediums of art.
“She really did have a passion for the arts,” the teacher said. “She loved learning about art history; she loved learning about the techniques. I mean, whatever the lesson was for the day, she really enjoyed learning about that.”
“All the Catholic upbringing I had was always really encouraging my God-given artistic talent,” Catherine said, reflecting on her formation. “I’m really grateful that every step of the way my journey has been so blessed.”
Following high school, Catherine studied theater design and technology at St. Edward’s University in Austin. Following graduation in 2016, she began taking on scenic design gigs.
“It started out live everything — so, live theater, live opera, live theme park attractions, museum exhibits, ballets,” Catherine said. “I mean, you name it.”
Eventually, she began working on the sets of movies and TV shows too, including as a scenic artist for the third season of “The Chosen,” a series exploring the life of Jesus. In 2021, she created scenery for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a movie directed by Martin Scorsese and starring several heavy hitters of Hollywood, from Leonardo DiCaprio to Robert De Niro.
“When you’re doing scenic art for film and television, you are asked to make new construction appear old, and you are oftentimes recreating naturally occurring aging, like efflorescence, calcium deposits coming through … You’re trying to mimic things that God did,” Catherine explained, adding with a laugh that “God is the best scenic.”
The artist made the transition from set creation to restoration, beginning with her role as a gilder of the Georgia State Capitol dome last year, which was followed by an array of other restoration projects.
This year, Catherine joined the team at Conrad Schmitt Studios, a conservation and restoration firm that undertakes projects in sacred and civic spaces. The studio sent Catherine to St. Ann beginning in October — a return to the artist’s home diocese — to work on the Transcend project alongside a crew of about two dozen other artists from the studio.
“I’m loving being back,” Catherine said. “It’s good to be home.’
‘Center of our worship’
As a decorator for the St. Ann project, Catherine moves through a maze of scaffolding in the parish’s sanctuary each day to stencil patterns or paint walls or hang murals. These details — big and small — are all part of the larger mission of the Transcend campaign: to renew and beautify the space of worship, lifting hearts to heaven; and to bring a tabernacle into the main church in affirmation of the centrality of the eucharistic Lord.
“I believe that the Eucharist is the source and our summit; it is the power, the engine, of our church; and it’s what we’re building toward,” said Father Edwin Leonard, pastor of St. Ann. The priest shared that despite the faith community’s devotion to God in the Eucharist, the parish’s tabernacle has been housed in a side chapel more than 100 yards away from the main altar. “When I was made pastor, there was a desire in my heart to bring a tabernacle into our main church.”
This initial idea, pitched to the diocese in December of 2022, soon expanded into a larger dream: to improve and beautify the sanctuary as well. People today yearn for the permanent over the transitory, the substantial over the shallow, Father Leonard said, “So, there was a desire in our heart to make a place that was beautiful, that would be beautiful for centuries, that would speak something to the nobility and the height of what you’re entering into.”
In July of this year, scaffolding began to fill the sanctuary; and crews got to work painting the sacred space and removing the lighting and sound systems from the sanctuary for replacement. In total, the addition of the tabernacle, the improvement of the lighting and sound systems, and the beautification of the church — phase one and two of the Transcend campaign — will cost about $6 million. There are hopes for a third phase, Father Leonard shared: a larger perpetual adoration chapel on campus.
“We really want the Lord to be the center of our worship,” the priest said, considering the project as a whole. “God creates us in his image and likeness, and as we create and make art, it points toward the one who has given us that ability.”
Reflecting on her own involvement in the massive undertaking at St. Ann, Catherine expressed deep gratitude for the opportunity to use her talents for the benefit of the local community — even for the good of her own family members, she explained.
“Both of my older brothers take their families here for Mass every Sunday,” the artist said, noting that several big moments in her family, from weddings to funerals, have also taken place in the Coppell parish. “I have nieces and one nephew that come to this church, and so their faith is being formed here.”
“This is so significant for me personally, because this is my community,” she added. “It’s just such an honor to be involved in something that’s really, truly meaningful.”
Cutline for featured image: Catherine Brandt, a decorator contributing her talents to the Transcend campaign at St. Ann Catholic Parish, stands on scaffolding in the sanctuary of the Coppell parish on Nov. 24. (AMY WHITE/The Texas Catholic)
