Former soldier turned artist is commissioned to sculpt statue
ALTON — Sculptor Daniel “Zeke” Balan spent the summer working on a project in his in-laws’ basement — a project which has inspired and challenged him to take a deeper look at a popular and well-known saint, Joan of Arc.
Balan, who served with the U.S. Army Special Forces in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, knew St. Joan was the patron saint of soldiers. He was contacted by a former comrade, Army chaplain Father Michael Cerrone, now retired, who commissioned Balan to make a statue of St. Joan for the Archdiocese for the Military.
Balan gathered all the books and research he could find to learn more about the 15th century saint. He chose to depict a scene from 1430, described in testimonies in France during Joan’s beatification process. St. Joan encountered an English prisoner who had been shot and left to die. She intervened, rushing to his side to comfort him and calling for a priest to hear his conversion.
Balan earned his liberal arts degree in art at the University of Dallas. “I trained as a modernist, a program that does not deal strictly with the human figure,” he says. “It was a challenge to get the figures of St. Joan and the soldier anatomically accurate.”
Balan received the commission in September 2008, when he was in graduate school in architecture at the University of Notre Dame. “But I wasn’t able to work on it until May of 2009,” he says.
In a few weeks Balan is set to begin his fourth year in graduate school. He will transport the finished clay sculpture to a foundry in Indiana to be cast in bronze. It is the first of three commissioned pieces by different artists Father Cerrone has commissioned and which he is donating to the Military Archdiocese.
“This has been a learning process,” says Balan. “I’m honored to have worked on this project.”
His wife, Margo, says the experience has been good for the entire family. “We’ve gotten all kind of books on Joan of Arc, including children’s books. Our children have gotten to know her. A wonderful side effect of this is to have my children ask for the intercession of St. Joan of Arc on behalf of their father. It has been a real gift. What a gift to our family — being able to spend your hours contemplating the life of St. Joan. It influenced the family. I really feel like this is evidence of a Catholic renaissance.”