When asked to offer a few words of wisdom or advice for those who are seeking inspiration to try something new, Sister Mary Ann Osborne said, “Learn all you can. Then forget it and follow your heart, I think that is probably the best way. Because then it’s always in you and you can draw from that, but it comes out freer.”

And she should know. After 13 years as an elementary school teacher, a chance encounter at a woodcarver’s booth at a Festival of Nation’s event sparked an interest which evolved into an entirely new ministry focus, with plenty of learning along the way.

“I asked, where could you learn that [woodcarving] and he offered a recommendation nearby,” said Sister Mary Ann. “I signed up for a one-week course. I didn’t know a thing about wood. I just wanted to learn something different.”

The next summer she took another course. Then she created a piece to place outside the chapel in Mankato. The piece was to honor the foundress, Blessed Theresa Gerhardinger, SSND on her beatification. People responded to it positively and she began seeking official permission to move from her ministry in teaching to a new ministry in art. With the permission eventually granted, she spent two years between 1986-1988 as an apprentice in Minnesota. In the fall of 1988, she opened her own studio on Good Counsel Hill and began receiving commissions almost right off the bat from there.

She continued her studies in woodcarving with a six-month internship in Germany in 1994-1995, working with a Franciscan sister.

“Follow your heart is what she taught me,” said Sister Mary Ann. “I am grateful for both experiences. From Minnesota, I know what tools it takes to make the shape I want. From her I found follow your heart. She did not draw at all, just started carving right on the wood. I had always been so precise—I did sketches and clay models. It was wonderful because it was very freeing.”

Fast forward to 2026. Now more than four decades into this ministry, Sister Mary Ann estimates she has completed approximately 2,000 significant pieces, along with hundreds of additional small works such as ornaments and decorative crosses.

She does not dub one piece or another favorites, but does recall some as special standouts, often for the fact they involved a bit of collaboration with others to bring the final piece to fruition.

“Around 2002 in Rome, at the Generalate, they wanted something interactive and representative of everyplace SSND were. I was out in nature, thinking—a lot of ideas come in that setting—and I got the idea to make an interactive map that was like a tree of life. I put all the places—at that time 36 or so—on leaves. I carved them in the leaves and made the leaves magnetic so you could move them around. In this way, Mankato could be next to Japan to show our Oneness. I represented the oceans and sky in blue and in the trunk, I carved Mother Theresa and the different cultures and people we served.

“Then it was how do I get this piece that was 12 feet wide and 3 feet high sent over to Rome and how do I get it put together once it’s there? I went back to a teacher from a class I had taken, and he helped me come up with a system to put everything together once I got there. I think it was because it caused different people to help me that it became a neat piece.”

Sister Mary Ann has seen her work appear in more than 20 exhibitions and featured as centerpieces for special events both in and outside of SSND.

Last year, she had her third solo exhibition at Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A liturgical minister in Madison heard about it and asked Sister Mary Ann if he could visit her at her studio. From that visit he put forward the idea of an exhibit at a local parish, Our Lady Queen of Peace. He offered to pick up the pieces, arrange them and then bring them back at the conclusion of the show. A thought that the community member she lived with, another SSND who had assisted in her studio and recently passed, might have a hand in the opportunity, helped Sister Mary Ann make the decision to accept.

“I kept thinking about the pieces and [how to] try to get the gamut of the liturgical year from birth of Christ through the familiar stories,” said Sister Mary Ann. “There are pieces on miracles, the Eucharist, Resurrection and the idea of Pentecost. I also particularly wanted to do something with Mary since the church is called our Lady Queen of Peace. I didn’t have that much time, but I had pieces that fit that they hadn’t seen before.”

That show, titled “Connecting with Source,” opened in early May and is currently running through July 26.

Visitors are welcome into the gallery to view the exhibit anytime the building is open, which is seven days a week, from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m. Our Lady Queen of Peace is located at 401 S. Owen Drive, Madison, Wisconsin.

As part of the exhibit’s artist statement, Sister Mary Ann wrote, “We each connect in different ways and as you view the pieces, I invite you to be open to the feelings that stir within you. Allow yourself to enter where you connect with the piece and follow where it takes you.”

Read more about Sister Mary Ann and view additional examples of her work at her website.