A cloistered nun who shared her faith through her art has passed away in Cleveland.
Mother Mary Thomas died Wednesday, surrounded by her sisters of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration at the monastery on Euclid Avenue.
Born Joan Schiefen, the Wisconsin native studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and later in Mexico, where she painted a mural honoring the country’s famed artists, Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
“It was there that she discovered that she had a real love of the Mexican muralists’ style of telling a story through art. And that is what she's done her whole life,” said Sharon Deitrick, a longtime advocate of her art.
Thomas put her art aside for more than a decade when she entered the convent in Cleveland in 1959. When people realized her talent, she was encouraged to create again. Several of her paintings can be seen inside the church connected to the monastery, and sales of her artwork have supported her sisters over the years.
Advocates of her art have long hoped to share her work with the Vatican Museums in Rome. In April 2023, Thomas was honored with a visit by Sister Raffaella Petrini, secretary general of the Vatican City State. While in Cleveland, she met with Thomas and viewed her nearly 30-foot-long canvas mural that she worked on for more than a decade.
“It was wonderful,” the 90-year-old Thomas told Ideastream after the visit in 2023, in awe of the attention and support her art has received.
The mural, “Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament and the Communion of Saints,” was initially commissioned by a parish in Philadelphia, but it closed in 2013 before the work was completed.
Thomas evolved the original design, which recognizes “saints of… practically every century, not just canonized, but just ordinary people like ourselves,” she told Ideastream in an interview in 2016.
Her last completed work, “Divine Mercy,” was created for Ave Maria University in Florida.
She gave her traditional cartoon drawing to Mary Zodnik, then owner of Azure Stained Glass Studio, to complete in stained glass. Zodnik recalled the drawing was larger than her.
This was the first piece by Thomas done in stained glass.
Zodnik said it was an honor to work with Thomas and see how she created.
“How deeply engrained her art seemed to be to her person, to her beliefs, there was no separating all of it,” Zodnik said. "That's just such a beautiful combination of things. And unusual to find.”
A funeral mass for Thomas is set for noon Saturday at the Conversion of St. Paul on Euclid Avenue.
