Your Endowment Team is pleased to report a gift of $12,250 from the estate of Rosemary Balazs, who for decades was a member of our church along with her prominent artist husband Harold Balazs.
It was the Balazs’ long-time affiliation with UUCS that resulted in the bequest to the church, which was “near and dear to her heart,” said her daughter Erika Balazs. She also made bequests to Spokane’s Public Radio and Public Broadcasting stations and to the Harold Balazs Creating Wonder Scholarship Fund at the Innovia Foundation.
PHOTO COURTESY OF RICK SINGER PHOTOGRAPHY
Harold Balazs, a sculptor, painter, metal fabricator and boat builder, died at age 89 in 2017. Rosemary, 91, died in December 2022. She was an important factor in her husband’s ability to create his work, according to Erika Balazs.
Balazs was famous for his ecclesiastical art, much of it produced in the 1950s and ‘60s. His sculptures, stained glass and relief work can be seen at more than 200 Pacific Northwest churches and synagogues. It enriches several places in our church, including the front entryway doors and lanterns, and the chapel art.
In 2021, St. Luke Lutheran Church in north Spokane dedicated eight pieces of his brutalist midcentury work, including an altar, baptismal font, and a 65-year old series of sculptures called “Easter 1-8.” The pieces were originally created for Bethlehem Lutheran in 1956.
A Spokesman-Review article by Audrey Overstreet on the St. Luke dedication noted that Balazs was a member of UUCS, “where most left-leaning parishioners believe Jesus was a man, not God.“ She observed that Balazs was always focused on creating beauty, whether religious or sectarian, such as the huge Rotary Fountain he created for Riverfront Park in 2006 where children frolic on hot summer days. His serpentine, humorous Transcend The Bullshit posters were also wildly popular.
This bequest is a further reminder of the Balazs family’s heritage in Spokane and their contributions to our congregation.