Amos Biocic, left, with All Metals Welding and Fabrication Co.; Jim Yankovich, right; and the Rev. Henry Wertin, pastor at St. Joseph, stand at the south entrance to the church in downtown Grand Junctio. The doors were designed by Biocic.
These doors are seen on the west side of St. Joseph Catholic Church. Designed by Amos Biocic with All Metals Welding and Fabrication Co., they display elements of the holy Eucharist.
St. Joseph is the figure shown on the doors at the south entrance to St. Joseph Catholic Church. Each piece in the doors’ design was individually glued and welded into place, said Amos Biocic with All Metals Welding and Fabrication Co.
Two sets of doors have been placed on St. Joseph Catholic Church’s south and west sides and, at first glance, many folks have mistaken the metal doors for stained glass.
The wood grain of St. Joseph’s bench was ground into the heavy aluminum before the pieces were powder coated. It gives the metal a look similar to that of stained glass.
St. Joseph is the figure shown on the doors at the south entrance to St. Joseph Catholic Church. Each piece in the doors’ design was individually glued and welded into place, said Amos Biocic with All Metals Welding and Fabrication Co.
Scott Crabtree
The man took one look at the new doors being installed at St. Joseph Catholic Church and was convinced someone had made a mistake.
“How are you going to keep the glass from breaking?” he asked, because who in their right mind turn a stained glass art piece into a door.
“Somebody’s going to kick that!” he continued.
Jim Yankovich, who was watching the installation of the doors, called the man over for a closer look.
In fact, many folks have been taking a closer look at two sets of doors at St. Joseph on the northeast corner of White Avenue and Third Street in downtown Grand Junction.
Nearly two weeks ago, what appeared to be a stained glass piece featuring the figure of St. Joseph at his carpentry workbench and surrounded in brilliant blue and yellow, was installed on the church’s south doors. They can be seen from White Avenue.
This happened about a month after another set of doors on the west side of the church were covered in a colorful design that included bread and heads of wheat, grapes and a wine challis.
At just a glance, and considering all the stained glass windows the church building already features, it’s natural to assume what the doors are made of, said Yankovich, a woodworker and owner of J Lazy 3 Handcrafted Cabinetry who attends St. Joseph.
But unless you guessed metal — powder-coated heavy aluminum encapsulating wood to be exact — you’d be wrong.
‘INSPIRED FROM ABOVE’
The Rev. Henry Wertin, St. Joseph pastor, earlier this year asked Yankovich if he could refinish the sets of large wooden doors on the south and west sides of the building.
Yankovich checked the doors and found the wood was compromised with cracks so big he could see daylight through them, he said.
Something other than refinishing needed to be done, the men decided, and then Wertin had an idea — “Some things are inspired from above and you get ideas,” he said.
Amos Biocic, left, with All Metals Welding and Fabrication Co.; Jim Yankovich, right; and the Rev. Henry Wertin, pastor at St. Joseph, stand at the south entrance to the church in downtown Grand Junctio. The doors were designed by Biocic.
Scott Crabtree
What if the doors could somehow be wrapped in metal, Wertin wondered.
“You know, that’s a very, very good idea,” Yankovich told Wertin.
But since he knew wood better than metal, Yankovich turned to All Metals Welding and Fabrication Co., 1707 Interstate 70 Business Loop.
If there was any business around here that could figure out how to wrap wooden doors on a church and make it look good, it was them, he said.
That was when Amos Biocic, the general manager at All Metals, got involved in the project.
Yankovich explained the situation to Biocic and ,during the conversation, it was mentioned that, “oh, too bad we can’t make stained glass doors.”
It was just the spark Biocic needed, however.
“I basically had this vision of how we could accomplish that,” he said.
‘THAT’S BRILLIANT!’
Biocic is the artist who created the sculpture “Flux” that can be found outside Palisade’s municipal building.
He also made the Bakelite radio replica that stands next to the sculpture of Rex Howell in the Legends Sculpture Project installation in downtown Grand Junction.
He has donated some of his smaller metal artwork to fundraisers for local nonprofits such as KAFM and HopeWest.
But working with the doors at St. Joseph “was definitely new,” Biocic said. “I was very excited because it was new and something we had never tried before.”
Two sets of doors have been placed on St. Joseph Catholic Church’s south and west sides and, at first glance, many folks have mistaken the metal doors for stained glass.
Scott Crabtree
For the design, Biocic got online for inspiration based on what Yankovich and Wertin said they would like to see.
Since the church was named for St. Joseph, why not show the saint at his workbench on the south doors, and for the west doors, what about highlighting the elements of the holy Eucharist, Yankovich suggested.
“(Wertin) looked at me for just a second and said, ‘That’s brilliant!’ ” Yankovich said.
“I just took it from there,” Biocic said.
‘IT WAS VERY INTIMIDATING’
Biocic drew the artwork for the church doors using AutoCAD software that could then be accessed by All Metals’ CNC machines — CNC stands for computer numerical control — that cut each aluminum piece for the designs.
And there hundreds of pieces and shapes. When Biocic took the project to his All Metals’ team, “at first it was very intimidating,” he said. “Once we got into it, the guys really got into it.”
These doors are seen on the west side of St. Joseph Catholic Church. Designed by Amos Biocic with All Metals Welding and Fabrication Co., they display elements of the holy Eucharist.
Scott Crabtree
“We laid the shapes out and put a grinding pattern on each piece to represent the type of material that it would represent,” Biocic said.
Pieces that were to be part of the saint’s workbench, for example, had a wood grain pattern ground into them and pieces used for the leaves on the grape vines received more of a curvy pattern.
“Then we put a translucent (powder color) candy coat on top so you can still see the pattern,” Biocic said.
A translucent clear coat was put over that to protect the color from the intensity of the sun’s rays, he said.
Each piece had to be placed and adhered to the outer side of the wooden doors through a process using epoxy glue and welding, he said. The interior sides of the doors are covered in a solid textured aluminum panel with a copper vein finish.
The aluminum encapsulates the wood, allowing the church to salvage the doors it already had, Yankovich said.
“This should last another 70–80 years, maybe 100.”
The wood grain of St. Joseph’s bench was ground into the heavy aluminum before the pieces were powder coated. It gives the metal a look similar to that of stained glass.
Scott Crabtree
‘POSITIVE REACTIONS’
Biocic enjoys seeing people’s reaction to the doors. They do double- takes, walk up to get a closer view. They touch the doors, unsure of what they are made from, he said.
He is happy with how the doors turned out. However, a lot of credit goes to his team at All Metals and the unique abilities and talents each person brought to the project that made it more special, he said.
“I had a vision, and I hoped it would turn out,” particularly since even he had never seen anything quite like the doors before, Biocic said.
“We have actually had people say, ‘You know, that wasn’t a very good idea because that glass in those doors is going to get broken.’ That is how much it looks like stained glass,” Wertin said.
“Fooled the first guy that saw them,” said Yankovich, referring to the man who insisted during the installation that the metal pieces had to be glass.
Other than that, the doors’ new look has received “overwhelming positive reactions,” Wertin said. “Everybody likes them.”
“The detail is amazing,” Wertin said.
From the artwork to the metal work, the doors enhance the sacredness of the space, Yankovich said. “They’re beautiful.”
