Sculptor follows God to focus on family, then craft

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) - The life-size sculpture of Jesus, emerging from the water after his baptism, took center stage in the kitchen of Cindy Burden's rustic house in the woods.

For weeks, she often stayed up until 3 a.m. to work on the figure.

But in 1995, Jesus nixed the project, said Burden, 53, of Burleson, Texas.

"One day the Lord said just as clear as a bell in my heart, 'I've given you a gift of sculpting, but you're obsessed, self-absorbed in it and not with your family,'" Burden said. "I hacked the sculpture up and threw it out into the woods."

She put her sculpting tools away for a year, she said. But one day, she knew it was time to go back _ this time to creating Women of the Way, a series of smaller, Scripture-inspired images of women.

The Greenville, Texas, native has created stone or bronze likenesses of subjects including ballet dancers, dogs, cowboys, and Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Her work ranges in price from $25 to $35 for a Women of the Way image to more than $3,500 for larger pieces. Her art is sold in more than 3,000 stores across the country.

Burden's first likenesses were fashioned from Play-Doh, she said. She has a high school education and never took art classes, but in 1989, she joined her daughters, now ages 27 and 30, in their playtime.

"That was the first time I messed with clay," she said. "I was just fascinated and found I had a gift for it. I just couldn't stop, and everything came easy for me."

The spiritual side of Burden's work came harder.

About the time she discovering her sculpting ability, her husband lost his job, and "we were just trying to stay afloat," she said.

They had been forced to sell their home near Burleson and rent a mobile home near Cleburne, Texas. Then a tornado hit their home in May 1989, flipping it with the family inside.

"We landed upside down," Burden said. "It was terrifying. Miraculously, none of us were hurt.

"I made some big promises to God during the tornado: 'I'll be better.' And then I forgot about it."

She had grown up attending church, but "somehow, I missed the whole thing about having a relationship with Jesus," Burden said. "I didn't know a whole lot about grace. It was more about what you did wrong and confessing quickly before you died so you'd get to heaven. I had a lot of rage and anger."

She was harsh to her daughters and her husband, David Burden, a photographer, she said.

Then in 1991, she took a job in an equestrian therapy program for troubled children at a Keene, Texas, residential treatment center.

"My official title was wrangler," Burden said with a laugh. "I took a 50 percent pay cut from my job as a legal secretary because I loved horses."

She was less smitten with two co-workers.

"Those ladies talked about Jesus all the time," Burden said. "One told me: 'This is a spiritual thing. We pray for the children.' They would say, 'The Lord showed me this' and 'Praise be to God.' I thought they were nuts. I didn't believe you could hear God speak.

"But the more I was around them, I realized they weren't faking this."

One day in 1993, she prayed, telling God she wanted to know him that way.

"I mean I was born again _ bam _ and had peace like I'd never had before," she said. "My family couldn't believe the change. They say, 'Nobody can say it's not real because we saw the before and after.'"

When the treatment center closed in 1996, she began concentrating on sculpting.

"People were really noticing. I was getting lots of commission _ not so much money, but I thought I was pretty hot stuff because I was getting paid," Burden said.

With the money and attention, she began paying too much attention to the sculptures and not enough to the reason behind them, she said. But now, "the sculpture is in the place it needs to be."

The 19 pieces in the Women of the Way series depict such topics as spiritual reunion with loved ones after death, forgiveness, sisterhood, romantic love and parenting.

Liz Hendricks, co-owner of Holy Grounds Book Store & Gifts, said she collected Burden's sculptures before opening the store more than two years ago.

"My favorite is In Their Midst, of three women in a circle with their hands touching," she said. "It reminds me of my friends and people in my prayer group."

Burden said her encouragement comes from 2 Timothy 1:6, which says, "Stir up the gift of God which is in you..."

"When I go into a funk where I can't get myself out to my backyard studio, I need to stir it up," she said. "When I get out and open that bag of clay, something wonderful happens."

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© 2008, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.