For 36 years, the strong yet tender hands of ear, nose and throat surgeon Dr. Joel Ernster aided patients to hear better, breathe easier and rid their bodies of cancer.

A year and a half ago, he retired and traded his scalpels and scopes for clay scrapers and smoothers. The transition from performing surgery on human bodies to sculpting three-dimensional busts felt natural, he said.

“There are common traits,” he said. “Art is a very tactile thing that uses fingers and sensation and understanding the anatomic relationship.”

Known in his field as southern Colorado’s preeminent otolaryngology cancer surgeon, Ernster’s career also included serving as chief of medical staff for Penrose-St. Francis Health Services and medical director at Penrose Cancer Center.

“This is a lot of work,” he thought in his 37th year

and decided to step aside.

“I loved the energy and responsibility and the purpose to it, but it was weighing on me,” he said.

Now, guided by inspiration, he might work for 15 minutes at a time or all day in his art studio at home.

The same feelings of being God’s assistant in the operating room envelop his body when making what’s become his forte: religious-themed art.

“Joel has shared with me that he has felt God’s presence working through his hands, especially when he was involved in a critical surgery. I believe that he has found a new outlet for those same gifted hands,” said Colorado Springs resident Randy Cloud, who owns one of Ernster’s pieces.

Ernster’s post-retirement labor is gaining recognition. His work is increasingly being accepted into juried shows, and he’s receiving more commissions.

A fan following is building in part because the sweat and tears poured into production soften the hardness of the finished bronze work.

The anguished faces to which Ernster gives life speak loudly of the human condition. Its beauty and agony, hope and sorrow, failing and redemption.

“The thing that I want to portray is to show a dramatic pose and engage the onlooker and try to have them have an emotional response to the event that’s happening with the human body,” he said.

“I think Christian suffering creates a story that’s compelling and dramatic.”

Changing your way of thinking

Religious art often features passive or placid poses. Not Ernster’s.

His recently installed bust of the New Testament author Paul at St. Paul Catholic Church captures what Ernster envisions as the saint’s reaction on the day of his spiritual conversion.

En route from Jerusalem to Damascus in Syria to arrest followers of Jesus and return them to Jerusalem for interrogation and possible execution, Paul is suddenly struck blind by a light from heaven, according to Scriptural accounts.

The sculpture’s patinaed tones illuminate Paul’s shock and torment of unexpectedly losing his sight. Next to Paul’s head, one sculpted hand is raised, as if to shield his face.

“Paul was a warrior for the Jewish people, killing the Christian people, and he has this event, presumably Christ talking to him, and he goes blind,” Ernster said.

Three days later, Paul regains his sight after a “laying of the hands,” says the Acts of the Apostles.

“He used to kill Christians, and now he lights on fire and travels over the region and is all in for Jesus,” Ernster said.

While in Rome, Ernster saw Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s famous 1601 painting, “Conversion on the Way to Damascus,” based on Paul’s experience of divine intervention.

“It’s the same moment in time,” Ernster said.

But Caravaggio’s painting of Paul falling off a horse and lying on the ground presents a different interpretation than Ernster’s sculpture.

“The emotional statement is the same — Paul has a profound shift in perspective,” Ernster said. “The road to Damascus is survival, and you heard it used in secular terms, common for changing your way of thinking. My sculpture is something to dramatize that.”

It’s on loan to the church, stationed in a new prayer chapel that also includes rows of candles, a kneeler and seating.

Ernster’s former business partner, fellow otolaryngology specialist Dr. John Cichon, built a pedestal using African mahogany to support the sculpture.

“It was a great opportunity to collaborate on something I thought was valuable and significant,” Cichon said. “As a woodworker on the side, I had ideas on how I could help his work show well.”

As a friend and colleague, Cichon said it’s been interesting to watch Ernster discover his artistic gift.

“His pieces are genuine and come from the heart,” he said. “His intimate knowledge of the head, neck and throat helped inform his sculpture and develop a talent that he didn’t know he had.”

Evoking spiritual memories

Ernster was asked to create an Our Lady of Seven Sorrows in bronze that was installed on the exterior of Sacred Heart Parish in Colorado Springs in July 2022, in honor of the church’s 100th anniversary.

In traditional iconography, Mary, the mother of Jesus, is presented as grieving and weeping, with seven swords poised as if piercing her heart, an image based on prophecy in the book of Luke.

In Ernster’s piece, Mary’s head is shrouded in a covering that wraps around her neck, a single tear tracks down her cheek, and the sword blades surrounding her face are turned inward.

Ernster added the sole tear in the second step of the metal casting method he uses. The 6,000-yearold lost-wax process involves pouring molten metal into a mold that has been created with a wax model. Once the mold is made, the wax model melts and drains away.

“It took me 50 drippings of hot wax onto the face to create that one tear,” he said. “People really seem to like that touch.”

Cloud owns a bronze statue of Ernster’s version of Ecce Homo, which means “Behold the Man” in Latin. The theme was prevalent in Western Christian art of the 15th to 17th centuries and refers to the words of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, who according to the Bible presided at the trial of Jesus and ordered his crucifixion to the Jewish populace who demanded it.

Every time he gazes at the piece, Cloud said he’s reminded of a group trip to Israel that he and Ernster took a decade ago.

The most memorable site for Cloud was a church in Jerusalem referred to as the House of Caiaphas, where Jesus was taken directly after his arrest.

“Christ was bound and beaten there before being lowered into a dungeon to spend the night before his crucifixion the following day,” Cloud said. “I was overcome with emotion thinking of the pain and loneliness that Jesus endured likely at this exact location.”

Ernster and Cloud became friends and spoke during and after the trip about how visiting the historical spot had moved them spiritually.

“Little did I know that Joel would later create a beautiful sculpture of Christ at that time,” Cloud said.

“Once I saw Joel’s sculpture, I knew that God had his hand in this, and I had to have the sculpture. It takes me back to a spiritual memory that helps me center my thoughts and prayers.”

Faith ignites passion

Ernster had been honing a growing interest in art for 15 years alongside his surgical practice. He became a student of aesthetics, attending classes and studying faces and flesh from ancient and contemporary masters in the United States and Europe.

A trip to the Vatican also led him to Tuscany, Florence and Spain. Everywhere he went he saw vast amounts of religious art that fed his soul and excited him.

“I want to get better, and when I see other artists’ work I think about the cool things they’ve done,” he said.

The hobby became a passion predicated on his Catholic faith.

Ernster traveled back in time in his mind to the stories of the Old and New Testaments as well as the Protestant Reformation and post-Reformation times as Christianity developed, spread and changed.

“We were left with a huge body of art to inspire Christians into the fold,” he said. “It strikes you when you’re viewing it.”

Heads and body parts of Jesus, saints and other figures in various stages of development reside in a storage and furnace room on the lower level of his home.

His studio shares space with shelved bins of Christmas decorations, family photos and sundries collected over the years.

Charts and drawings of the human body hang near the sculpting area for quick reference to check the proportion of a face, hand, neck, torso or feet. A caliper is one of his best friends in the workroom for precise measurements.

Look around, and you’ll see busts and figures of fourth-century bishop St. Augustine of Hippo, the apostle Peter who denied Jesus three times, John the Baptist contemplating his beheading, St. Francis of Assisi deep in thought, an unnamed Old Testament prophet, Jesus on the eve of his crucifixion and the mourning face of Mary.

But there’s also a tennis player, St. Nick’s jolly face and a life-size bust of a swarthy pirate gripping a knife in his mouth. A replicate bronze pirate sits in the foyer of Ernster’s alma mater, St. Mary’s High School in Colorado Springs.

“Like any creative endeavor, I like being able to conceive of an idea and then have it work out in a satisfying way,” Ernster said.

When working, Ernster continually assesses the space between the hairline and the brow, or the bottom of the nose to the chin, to make his sculptures as exact as possible. He’s also a stickler for the hand length being the same length as the face.

“I know noses and ears,” Ernster laughs, showing a perfect model of a human ear he molded as a guide.

The bronzing process is time-consuming and expensive — upwards of $3,000 for foundry casting.

Ernster set aside an art fund for himself when he retired as a physician. Today, his slush fund is slowly being replenished as more people discover his art. Among his current projects, Ernster is working on a 3-foot ear bone for another doctor for installation in March.

Ernster’s art presents a creative approach to a classical sculptural style, his colleague Cichon said. “It’s pretty striking, not too obtuse, not hard to understand. I think his pieces are beautiful.”

Ernster said he loves interacting with people when they view his sculptures because “most people are affected by them in some way.”