chancel — Catherine Kapikian

University of Maryland
Garden Chapel Chancel
College Park, Maryland

“Tree of Life”: sections of a 1/5 scale model for an 18’ x 15’ work of participatory aesthetics fabricated in a four tiered painted wood tracery with needlepointed tapestry inserts. Images show renderings of full scale patterns, needlepointed sections by multiple participants, installation, and “Tree of Life” installed. After the installation of this work, the chapel’s name was changed from West Chapel to Garden Chapel. Its windows look upon enormous old trees and formal gardens.

Use arrows to see all of the images.

The work of the imagination and the vision of faith see in all things possibility.

National United Methodist Church
Washington, D.C.

30’ x 10’ reredos of painted wood tracery with needlepointed inserts. The top row yields linear symbols of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The next two rows yield linear symbols of the twelve disciples. The bottom two rows yield linear crosses symbolic of the six liturgical seasons. All symbols reside against a field of patterns inviting viewers to engage through visual complexity the totality and mystery of their Christian faith.

My work belongs to the ritual moment.

Peace Lutheran Church
Alexandria, Virginia

Inserted into the 37’ x 4 1/2’ lacquered, painted, and inlaid wood construction are liturgical panels for each season constructed of wool appliquéd images. These are hidden in the construction and are uncovered in the appropriate season. An image suggesting water, a symbol for baptism and its renewal, appears on the construction’s surface; this 37’ symbol of water repeats in visual transparency on all other sets of seasonal liturgical panels. Pictured are Advent, Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and After Pentecost panels with their corresponding paraments and vestments.

Use arrows to see all of the images.

Asbury Methodist Village
Gaithersburg, Maryland
Wilson Health Care Center
All-Purpose Room

Wood and wool construction for Sunday worship transforms into a bulletin board for health care residents’ weekly announcements. Accompanying table and pulpit sit on castors for easy storage weekdays. Salvation story imagery bold and tactile for wheelchair-bound residents with weakened eyesight.

Working in tandem with a spiritual sensibility is richly meaningful.

Lutheran Church of the Abiding Presence
Greenbelt, Maryland

60’ of needlepointed kneelers, descriptive of Christian narrative and liturgical seasons encircle the four sides of the centralized chancel space.

Use arrows to see all of the images.

Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary
Evanston, Illinois

Liturgical paraments (table and pulpit frontals).

Use arrows to see all of the images.

When art becomes a means of grace, we know we are on holy ground.

Kennedy Heights Presbyterian Church
Cincinnati, Ohio

Chancel wood and needlepointed constructions representing the six-pointed Star of Creation, the Cross of the Redeemer, and the Dove of the Sustainer. Each yields the same repetitive unit (tessellation) of design that repeats differently in each one symbolizing visually their shared substance.

Use arrows to see all of the images.

Braddock Street
United Methodist Church
Winchester, Virginia

“Liturgical Year Reredos”: 13 1/2’ x 11 3/4’ wood grid with eleven framed images. One or several lock into the grid as the liturgical year progresses from Advent to After Pentecost. Sets of differently shaped paraments (not shown) on the chancel furniture below the grid visually enhance this reredos's changing characteristics.

Use arrows to see all of the images.

Creative potential, that image we bear in the likeness of God, is the resource with which we all build our world.

Frayed Christ

I created “Frayed Christ” in response to reading Countee Cullen’s poem titled “Black Christ.” When commissioned by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and the Commission on Worship and the Arts of the National Council of Churches to create a work for Yale’s Crossed-Cultures Spring Symposium, I subsumed “Frayed Christ” into this work. Initially, it was installed in Yale’s Marquand Chapel’s Chancel.