When I wrote about the Dickeyville Grotto back in 2010, I promised I would post photos of Iowa's Grotto of the Redemption, which I had visited in summer 2007, before I started this blog... but I never got around to it.
Well, my recent Iowa trip was a chance to return to West Bend, Iowa, and see it again.
Built entirely by hand starting in 1912, there are nine separate grottoes encrusted in stone, depicting various Catholic-inspired Bible stories. It's the work of two successive priests and several laymen from the community, and according to the accompanying material, more than 6 million people have visited it over more than a century.
I don't have a lot of interest in the grotto's religious purpose, but it's quite a feat of environment-building through rock-polishing and stone composition.
One of the dominant areas portrays the Stations of the Cross. Each Station is its own vertical enclosure, and they increase in height as the stations move from one to twelve:
Station Thirteen is hidden within a cave. Then Fourteen is placed at the highest point above all the grottos, with Jesus laid into the arms of his mother:
The backs of each of the Stations include details related to the phases of the moon:
I spent most of my time at the grotto focused on particular stones that are inlaid everywhere:
Inside the adjacent Catholic Church is the Christmas Chapel, which was created in 1927. I had missed that on my previous visit.
It portrays a fairly typical Bethlehem manger scene, except the surroundings are festooned with the most delicate stones, which couldn't withstand outdoor weather:
Behind the central cows' heads is a 300-pound Brazilian amethyst.
On the way out of the Grotto, I noticed this funny detail on the donation box:
I imagine the slot is narrow to make sure no one puts a hand inside it to take money out of the box, but its narrowness makes it hard to see... so that dictates the need for a SLOT SLOT SLOT SLOT label.
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