A Stroke of Faith

Half a century ago, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church was in desperate need of divine intervention.

Tucked into the bucolic countryside of West Jefferson, North Carolina, the tiny chapel had long struggled to keep its congregation engaged. Elders passed, young people moved to flatter ground and some folks just stopped showing up. By the time Father Faulton Hodge took to the pulpit in 1972, he was preaching to six solemn faces each Sunday, fewer if the weather was bad.

As attendance dwindled, so did the church’s budget. “We were so poor, some months we couldn’t manage to pay the light bill,” says docent Doug Worsham.

Holy Trinity Episcopal Church had fared even worse. Located 10 miles southeast in the sleep-eyed hamlet of Glendale Springs, Holy Trinity had sat vacant since 1946. During those decades of neglect, the sanctuary had fallen into disrepair. Windows were broken. The roof was caving in.

But Hodge had hope.

Fresh out of seminary, he was charged with the Sisyphean task of resurrecting the two Ashe County churches, both of which belonged to the Episcopal Parish of the Holy Communion.

Though Hodge didn’t have much money, he did have prayer. And so, day after day, he would clasp his hands and plead for a miracle. He says God answered in his own way.

One evening, while Hodge was at a dinner party in Blowing Rock, he met a man named Benjamin “Ben” F. Long IV.

A fairly reticent 20-something with bright blue eyes, Long had recently studied under Pietro Annigoni in Florence, Italy. A realist painter, Annigoni majored in the art of fresco, a delicate technique that involves applying water-based pigments to still-wet plaster walls or ceilings.

Michelangelo most famously employed this meticulous process in the Sistine Chapel, as did Leonardo da Vinci in “The Last Supper.” But when Long returned to his native North Carolina with hopes of bringing the art form to the States, he was met with blank stares. Few had heard of the medium. Even fewer were willing to let a stranger commandeer a wall of their church or business.

Alas, Long was an artist with no muse. By the time he crossed paths with Hodge, “he had probably spent a whole year looking for a place to paint a fresco,” Worsham said.

Hodge wasn’t necessarily an art connoisseur, but he was desperate for any opportunity to support his ailing congregation. So, when Long mentioned his services were free, he took it as a sign from God.

“We’d be mighty glad to have you paint a fresco in one of our churches,” the pastor is supposed to have told Long. Then, he swallowed his pride and asked, “By the way, what is a fresco?”

The Trail’s Genesis

Long returned to West Jefferson in the spring of 1974 to paint “Mary Great with Child.” A rare depiction of the pregnant Madonna, the piece reflects Long’s hopefulness.

According to Worsham, the artist felt a certain “expectancy” about St. Mary’s. He felt that this place, with its grassy churchyard and droll scallop siding, was the genesis of something great. And that it was.

In the years to follow, Long would return to St. Mary’s twice more. In the summer of 1976, he came back to paint “John the Baptist.” The next summer, he painted “Mystery of Faith,” a scene depicting both the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Later, in the 1980s, Long painted “The Lord’s Supper” at Holy Trinity while it was undergoing a massive remodel.

All in all, Long would complete more than 30 frescoes in the United States, nine of which are scattered about the hills of Western North Carolina. In 2006, the Cultural Arts Council of Wilkes County partnered with the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area to officially organize these nine North Carolina frescoes into the Benjamin F. Long IV Fresco Trail.

Stretching from West Jefferson to Morganton, the trail is a popular pilgrimage for mountain folk and out-of-towners alike, says Kitty Honeycutt, executive director of the Ashe County Chamber of Commerce.

As Honeycutt notes, the frescoes are a “great source of pride and comfort for locals.” On any given day, you may find a High Country native sitting on a cushioned pew in St. Mary’s, basking in a moment of quiet before heading home. “Many residents will go to the churches for some private time,” Honeycutt said.

However, since news of Long’s frescoes has spread beyond these hills and hollers, private time is hard to come by. Droves of tour buses regularly wheeze into downtown West Jefferson. The passengers are often leaf peepers eager to experience fall’s dazzling display. But they also want to glimpse the creations of Long, an artist now regarded as the “greatest draftsman of the 20th century.”

“The frescoes are one of the biggest reasons people come to Ashe County,” Honeycutt said. Before the pandemic stifled travel, it’s estimated that 50,000 to 60,000 people—almost triple the population of Ashe County—visited St. Mary’s and Holy Trinity each year.

Though no studies have been conducted to measure the monetary impact of this tourism, Honeycutt assumes it’s “very substantial” and “shockingly positive.”

Worsham echoes these sentiments. “Our guests bring a lot of business to the area,” he said. “The frescoes are a huge economic boost, not just for West Jefferson, but for the entire area.”

The Art of War

Of course, Long never set out to bolster local economies or drive tourism dollars. In truth, he never set out to be one of America’s most famed fresco artists. He simply wanted to create.

A Statesville native, Long grew up watching his grandfather, The Rev. McKendree Robbins Long, paint surreal scenes based on the Book of Revelation. Even as a young boy, Long could sense that his fate was already written—that his destiny was to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps.

After studying creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Long became a member of The Art Students League of New York. But it was the late 1960s, and the Vietnam War was reaching a crescendo. Rather than wait to be drafted, Long enlisted in the Marines with hopes of serving as a combat artist.

Alas, “the war was a lot more serious than I thought,” Long says from his home an hour south of Florence, Italy. At 77 years old, the artist—who has no plans of retiring—is thoughtful with his words. He recalls his war experience slowly, with long, pregnant pauses between sentences.

He says that for most of his two tours in Vietnam, he served as a combat officer—a boots-on-the-ground leader whose life was constantly threatened by malaria, heat stroke and enemy fire.

During his final tour with the Marines, leadership pulled him from the front lines and assigned him to the Combat Art Department. For the next six months, he memorialized the war in ink, Conté crayon and watercolor.

As he sketched snipers hiding behind hedgerows and comrades dancing with death, Long couldn’t stop thinking about Pietro Annigoni. Long had first witnessed Annigoni’s work in a book during his time in New York City.

“I just remember thinking, ‘Wow.’ I had never seen anything like it,” he said.

When Long was offered a month of leave, he traveled halfway across the world in search of Annigoni. He found the fresco painter in Florence, showed him his combat drawings, and explained that, at 24 years old, this may be his last chance to learn from a master.

In so many words, Annigoni said, “If you are still alive in six months, come back to see me.”

The New Renaissance

Long would, in fact, survive to accept Annigoni’s invitation.

After leaving the military, the North Carolina native pursued a nine-year apprenticeship with Annigoni, during which he learned how to paint frescoes using a technique dating back to the Renaissance.

Long describes this technique as a “tenuous art.” The plaster—a mix of lime, sand and water—must still be wet when the pigments are applied. Otherwise, the paint will eventually chip and peel. “If it’s too dry, it’s all over,” Long laments.

Thus, frescos must be painted in sections called “giornata.” In Italian, this translates to “a day’s work,” typically eight hours. However, Long is known to paint for as long as 12 hours at a time, says James Hildebrand.

As the maintenance director at the City of Morganton Municipal Auditorium, Hildebrand was on-site when Long was commissioned to paint the ceiling of the performing arts center’s main lobby in 2004.

Admittedly, he remembers the process being messy. “Whenever the apprentices and assistants would come down from the scaffolding, there would be little pieces of plaster on their shoes,” he laughs. “I did a lot of sweeping.”

But Hildebrand also remembers Long’s tenacity. The artist painted so feverishly, contorting his body in such awkward positions for such long periods of time, that he needed help from a massage therapist by the end of it.

Despite this, “Sacred Dance and the Muses” appears effortless. Awash in vibrant hues, the fresco depicts the nine muses of Greek mythology, honoring their legendary role in inspiring human endeavors in the arts and sciences.   

“On a sunny day, when the light pours into the lobby, it’s beautiful,” Hildebrand said. “There’s so much color, the space just shines.”

The Doing of Good Work

But Long’s artwork is often about more than beauty. “Suffer the Little Children,” for instance, is a beacon of hope.

Located on the campus of Crossnore Communities for Children, a residential foster care home in Avery County, the fresco depicts a group of little ones gathered around Jesus. The scene is Long’s interpretation of Mark 10:14, a biblical passage in which Christ blesses a group of children after his disciples try to turn them away.

According to Elizabeth O’Hagan, a coordinator at Crossnore, the fresco is a “visual representation of Christ’s love”—a reminder that, even in their darkest moments, the students of Crossnore are not alone.

“It is such a powerful piece,” O’Hagan says, noting that the kids in the fresco were inspired by students Long met on campus. “It is very compelling for the individuals in our care to see people like them represented in a piece of art.”

Needless to say, Long’s paintings have left an impression on North Carolina’s High Country. So much so that the artist was honored with the Long Leaf Pine Award in 2014. This recognition is reserved for individuals who have made significant contributions to the state through “exemplary service and exceptional accomplishments.”

Long certainly fits the bill.

In 1972, when he showed up to that dinner party bright-eyed and full of fire, he unknowingly changed the tapestry of mountain life forever. He instilled a sense of promise, says Worsham. He gave natives something to believe in.

“If it weren’t for Ben Long, I’m not sure St. Mary’s and Holy Trinity would even be here,” Worsham said.

When presented with this idea—that he, alone, is responsible for resurrecting those two tiny churches in Ashe County—Long shrugs off the possibility. “Really,” he says, “I was just there to do good work.”