Winter Studio Journal, Jan. 8, Everyday Cathedral

I’m logging studio days here this month, experimenting with sharing more here and less on social media.

This particular piece has been in progress for a long time, well over a year. It’s one I’ve worked on, put away, and pulled out months later several times over. Happily, it’s finally in the home stretch and, in its final iteration, inspired by the idea of “everyday cathedral” which I was playing with last January, after I returned from Italy where I’d spent time in many stunning cathedrals.

The idea of everyday cathedral has long been embedded in my work, which celebrates the awe-inspiring, everyday beauty of the natural world. As I’m finishing this particular piece, I’ve been thinking about Sainte-Chapelle, with it’s extraordinary stained glass. I’ve visited it twice, once in the nineties when I had the upper chamber almost entirely to myself. The light was creating perfect conditions for the stained glass to do its thing and I was utterly mesmerized. My visit in 2022 was quite different. Notre Dame was closed for restoration and so Sainte-Chapelle was filled with tourists, nearly wall to wall crowds similar to those in the Sistine Chapel. What struck me this time though was the shushing sound made by three or four women sitting in chairs along a side wall. Every five or so minutes, when the crowd got too loud, they would collectively whisper “shh” and the acoustics of the chapel would amplify it so it echoed through the chamber.

The stitching on the back of piece.